Creating a More Consistent Exhibitor Experience at Scale

Blueprint Event Company is an international B2B exhibition and conference producer that connects advanced technology communities. 

For Operations Director Laura Goldsmith and Systems & Development Director Mark Smedley, delivering seamless, well-executed events relies on balancing operational efficiency with a high-quality exhibitor experience.

As the Blueprint events portfolio grew, so did the complexity of managing exhibitors, particularly when relying on manual processes and disconnected systems. The team needed an event tech solution that could streamline workflows, reduce admin and create a more intuitive experience for exhibitors.

“Before FFAIR, a lot of our exhibitor management was manual. Tasks were being tracked in spreadsheets, emails were being sent individually or in bulk from Outlook. It worked, but it wasn’t efficient and it definitely wasn’t scalable.

One of the biggest immediate benefits with FFAIR has been the automation. The automatic emails alone have significantly reduced our email admin, while also improving task completion rates. We’re now seeing around 90% completion across exhibitor tasks, which is a huge improvement.

The platform has made it much easier to stay on top of everything. Being able to monitor which exhibitors are accessing the portal helps us identify potential issues early on, and the messaging board has been a great addition - it allows us to provide quick support to exhibitors without relying on email, which keeps everything much more organised.

From an exhibitor experience perspective, features like conditional tasks have made a real difference. Exhibitors only see what’s relevant to them, which simplifies the process and avoids overwhelming them with unnecessary information.Being able to tailor tasks and show information depending on stand type, is particularly useful as we evolve our offering between space-only and package stands.

From a systems point of view FFAIR fits neatly into our wider event tech stack, allowing us to connect data across platforms without needing to build and maintain everything ourselves. Using FFAIR’s readily available API and JSON feeds and middleware platform Make.com, we’ve been able to have exhibitor information run from Salesforce to FFAIR and then push out to our registration company and flow directly into our website, meaning our marketing team can approve content without needing to manage separate systems or duplicate data. 

It’s also made asset management far more efficient. Everything exhibitors upload is stored in one place, so we’re no longer dealing with endless email attachments or trying to manage files across different servers.

Another big advantage is flexibility. While FFAIR is designed for exhibitor management, we’ve also been able to use it for other purposes, such as collecting speaker information, by adapting how we use tasks. That flexibility gives us much more value from the platform.

The support from the FFAIR team has been excellent. Having quick, knowledgeable responses, particularly during the initial setup process, made a big difference and meant we could get up and running without needing heavy internal resources.

Overall, FFAIR has transformed how we manage exhibitors. It’s reduced admin, improved data flow across our systems and created a much more professional experience for both our team and our exhibitors.”