Rebooking at a trade show is the process where exhibitors reserve their booth space for the next edition of the event, often before the current event ends. This allows exhibitors to secure a preferred location and gives event organizers an early commitment from participants. According to Exhibition News, a strong onsite rebooking strategy is crucial for the success and growth of a show, as it allows organizers to secure commitments from current exhibitors, potentially cutting the sales cycle in half.
Rebooking mode is a special mode of the floor plan, available along with any subscription package. You can use it to record which of the exhibitors at your current event are ready to confirm their attendance for next time.
In rebooking mode, when clicking on a booth or exhibitor name from the list it gives four status options: Unasked, Accepted, Rejected or Undecided. All exhibitors are "Unasked" by default. Changing the status will change the color of all of an exhibitor's booths. Notes can be saved if exhibitors want to modify anything about the location or number of their booths for the new event.
Setting up rebooking
On your Dashboard you'll see the link to rebooking mode.
When the status of an exhibitor changes in this mode, a tag is created and an entry is made in the change history. These can be viewed or adjusted in Exhibitors . Any admin notes you have added will appear here as well.
Cloning an event and transferring exhibitors
After you finish rebooking, you can clone the event to reuse next year by clicking the Clone event button at the bottom right of your Dashboard .
Cloning will copy the floor plan and data from your event to a new event which will start as a "Free" package.
You will need to create a new name and URL for your event and set a new event date range.
Under Options check Copy exhibitors. Then decide if you want to reassign only the exhibitors who accepted to the same booths or also include undecided exhibitors
After you have done this, you can create and send invoices, use mass mailing to send confirmations or send auto-login links to their Exhibitor Portal for the new event.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens if an exhibitor has multiple booths?
Since this is a state of the exhibitor, not the booth, all exhibitor's booths will turn green if they accept. If the exhibitor wants a different number or location of booths, you can leave corresponding notes.
What happens if the booth has multiple exhibitors?
The color will be black, each exhibitor can be changed individually.