EMT #42 with Bob McGlincy - The Invisible Industry: Why Trade Shows Still Matter

In this week’s episode of Event Marketer’s Toolbox, hosts Chris Dunn and Dana Esposito sit down with industry historian, author, and advocate Bob McGlincy to uncover the incredible scope, history, and impact of the global trade show industry — a trillion-dollar force that too often goes unseen.

Bob shares insights from his book The Invisible Industry and his decades of experience leading operations and teams in live events. From ancient marketplaces to the Crystal Palace and today’s international conventions, he takes us through the evolution of trade shows — and why they remain vital to innovation, human connection, and economic growth.

Visit Bob’s website to learn more about his work and writings: bobmcglincyauthor.com

1. Trade shows are an economic powerhouse.
Bob reveals the staggering size of the industry — with 11,000+ shows annually in the U.S. alone, supporting millions of jobs and generating hundreds of billions of dollars in commerce. Events like COMDEX once produced nearly $700 million in local economic impact from a single show.

2. The roots of exhibitions go back centuries.
From ancient trading posts to the Frankfurt Book Fair (1462) and the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition, trade shows have always driven commerce and collaboration. Bob traces how each generation reinvented the format while keeping the same goal — bringing people together to exchange ideas and opportunity.

3. Trade shows are where innovation debuts.
The world’s first looks at air conditioning, the typewriter, color TV, and touchscreen technology all happened on trade show floors. From Colt’s first firearms demos to Apple’s early product unveilings, exhibitions have been launchpads for game-changing innovation.

4. The human connection is irreplaceable.
Despite digital transformation, face-to-face connection remains the ultimate driver of trust, creativity, and business relationships. As Dana Esposito shared during the conversation, “Humans seek experience. We need to feel, see, and connect.” Bob adds, “You can’t replace that with a screen.”

5. It’s time for the industry to be seen.
Bob calls trade shows “the invisible industry” because so many — even insiders — underestimate their influence. He shares how advocacy groups like EDPA and EEWDF are educating policymakers and promoting the industry’s impact to ensure it gets the recognition and support it deserves.

Trade shows are more than events — they’re living ecosystems that fuel innovation, creativity, and commerce around the world.
 As Bob reminds us, “You might not see the industry every day, but you feel its impact everywhere.”

Behind every show floor are thousands of people creating opportunity, building relationships, and keeping the global economy moving — one handshake at a time.

👉🏼 Join us for more insightful discussions like this by tuning into 'Event Marketer's Toolbox,' where industry leaders share the tools, tactics, and trends driving success in the event world.

This Show is sponsored by Blue Hive

📅 Join us LIVE every Thursday at 12 PM ET on LinkedIn

Follow Us on LinkedIn and YouTube

Subscribe to our Newsletter!

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Introductions
• 2:39 The Scale of the Trade Show Industry
• 4:39 COMDEX & The Economics of Events
• 10:39 The Origins: From Ancient Markets to Modern Exhibitions
• 14:39 The Crystal Palace and the Birth of the Convention Era
• 20:39 Innovations Born on the Show Floor
• 24:39 Why Face-to-Face Connection Still Matters
• 29:39 The Invisible Industry: Economic Power & Awareness
• 40:39 Advocacy, Education & the Next Generation of Event Pros
• 47:39 The Future of Trade Shows in a Digital World
• 52:39 Final Reflections & Takeaways

Transcript

0:00:01

(Chris Dunn)

Hey, hello, and welcome to the Event Marketers Toolbox. I am Chris Dunn. I've got some friends with me today. We are going to do a deep dive into trade shows and expositions and world fairs. And where did all this stuff come from? I'm here joined by my often co -host, Miss Dana Esposito. 

0:00:21

(Chris Dunn)

Hey, Dana, how's it going? 

0:00:22

(Dana Esposito)

Hey, Chris, how are you? So I'm going to introduce myself real quick. So I've been at Blue Hive about three years. I'm the EVP of strategy, about 30 years in the industry as both an exhibit designer, creative leader, and corporate strategist. And today our guest is Bob McGlincy. Bob, you want to introduce and make sure I didn't just massacre your name? 

0:00:46

(Bob McGlincy)

Thanks, Dana. You did great. It's Bob McGlincy. Good to see both of you. It's good to be here today. I started in the industry with IND. 

0:00:58

(Bob McGlincy)

Actually, I started as a stage in Atlanta before there was even an IND. I started with IND as a traveling lead man for them, became a city manager, regional operations manager for them. IND then became the company that you all have heard of called Nth Degree. I got recruited by Guildsburg to be their operations manager for the extra services division, which was their IND division. Then Guildsburg got acquired by Exhibit Group and became the VP of operations for Exhibit Group. Both are very good companies, very strong companies. They just had two very different cultures and a number of people left to do different things. 

0:01:38

(Bob McGlincy)

And I had my own company for about 10 years. Then I joined Will Work Global Event Services. I was a general manager of New England for them and then a director for them as well. So I've been around for more than a few days. 

0:01:55

(Chris Dunn)

Not your first rodeo, Bob? 

0:01:57

(Bob McGlincy)

Probably not my second either, but I've been around. just an event fanatic. I think this industry is fantastic. And it's so much bigger than what most people realize. Even people in the industry sometimes don't realize how big this industry really is. I mean, you see the forest, but you don't really know the size of the tree. You see the trees, but you don't know the size of the forest. 

0:02:18

(Bob McGlincy)

And the forest just keeps going on and on. There's all different types of industries that exhibit at trade shows. Of course, we know pharmaceuticals, and we know medical devices, and we know tech, and we know the government industries. But there's trade shows for Christian science books. There's trade shows for porn stars and video makers. There's all types of trade shows, and there's probably a good 11 ,000 trade shows here in the United States. 

0:02:50

(Bob McGlincy)

There's over 300 million people that go to trade shows worldwide. Here in the States, trade shows support directly two to three million people. I've also read things that it's over six million people. I've seen some studies say that the trade show industry is larger than the auto industry. I think they're talking about a specific size of the section of the auto industry, maybe not all three sectors of it. But trade shows, they attract more attendees than the total number of people that go to baseball games over the course of one year. 

0:03:25

(Bob McGlincy)

And I'm just going on 2019 statistics. Because that's when everything peaked for a while. It's getting back there. But I don't have 2024 statistics or 2025 statistics yet. The number of people that go to trade shows is greater than the people that attend NHL, NBA, and NFL games. And yet, people don't think about it like that. 

0:03:47

(Bob McGlincy)

It's like, oh, yeah, I'm in one city here. I'm in Boston. And we have a convention center. We actually have two. But we have a convention center. We get 

0:03:55

(Bob McGlincy)

shows, and yeah, it supports some work. People go out to business. They need Ubers. They need to be entertained. They go wine and dine. Yeah, employs some people at the convention center and employs some temporary people and some full -time union people at a convention center, but it also employs all the display houses that send exhibits in. 

0:04:16

(Bob McGlincy)

It's also helping support people that are coming in here from out of town that are with the businesses there. So it's a huge industry that most people are not aware of. And we get more into some statistics later. I don't want to hog the screen right now. I want to mention things. And right now, if I can just take a moment to talk about one specific show, just to give you an idea of the size of a show. 

0:04:40

(Bob McGlincy)

Imagine a show, if you will, that has 24 million pounds of freight. That's like 3 ,000 to 4 ,000 trailers delivering freight to a convention center. That's about the size of 140, about the weight of 144 Boeing 747s. In my mind, I can't put my arms around that many airplanes, but it sounds like a large number to me, you know. This one show had 250 miles of electric cable that needed to be laid and installed. It had over 1 .2 million square feet of carpet, and that did not include all the carpet that a display house like yourself might ship in for your exhibitors. 

0:05:27

(Bob McGlincy)

That's just the carpet the general contractor is bringing in from all over the country. That's enough carpet for 21 football fields, if you're carpeting all that. And this is for a five -day event. This particular event had about 225 ,000 people come to it. Las Vegas Sun in 2000, this was a night show called Comdex. 

0:05:52

(Bob McGlincy)

Las Vegas Sun said the economic impact for that one event was $359 million. That's in 2000. If we inflate it to what the dollars would be today, that's about $675 million. And it's one show, the press that was at the show, there was more press than there was at the Super Bowl that year. I just find that staggering. And like I said, that's just one event. 

0:06:30

(Bob McGlincy)

It's not the biggest event that's ever happened in the country. But at that time, the crowds that came to Comdex, it was bigger than the audience, than the population of Reno, Nevada or Henderson, Nevada. So that's like you have a whole city, an army coming in at one time. And for people that were there, that experience, it was hard to get a cab. It's hard to find a pay phone. Not everybody had cell phones back then. 

0:06:58

(Bob McGlincy)

It's hard to find a table in a restaurant if you didn't make reservations in advance. It was hard to find hotel rooms. For over five years, they had more than 200 ,000 people show up for this event. Now, of course, CES is a huge event now. Conexpo Con Ag, from a Square Footage standpoint, has over 3 million square feet of exhibits on that show floor. We may get later into different shows. 

0:07:26

(Bob McGlincy)

Chris, I know you were just at PacExpo recently, so we can talk a little bit about PacExpo or NBAA is going on in Vegas right now. The show is coming to Boston right now. I like to look at the size of the square footage of a show because I think the bigger the square footage, the more work there is for people on the show floor. I'm an old IND guy, stress IND, not old, but I am an old IND guy. And I look at what brings jobs to people. Because when I was recruiting and training people for the show floor, I wanted to keep them working. 

0:07:58

(Bob McGlincy)

If I get good people, this used to be a seasonal business. You didn't want to recruit somebody, train them, and then at the end of May or June, lay them off until September. 

0:08:08

(Speaker 16)

You had to find something for them to do. 

0:08:14

(Bob McGlincy)

Awesome. Bob, before - I'm going to do our footage just for size of shows and say this show is going to be busy and we're going to have work to do, but we can get back to it. 

0:08:22

(Speaker 9)

I'm sorry, Chris, go ahead. 

0:08:23

(Chris Dunn)

Yeah, no, no. Before we get too deep into it and you dropped a bunch of great stats on us, you know, right out of the gate, which is which is amazing. So before we kind of hop into our questions, obviously, Bob is a has some really deep knowledge, five, five decades or so, you know, in the industry and has become an author, has has actually written a handful of books, or I've got one right here with me right now that I'm I'm midway through. Another one that he'll talk about a little bit later, another one that he's working on. So before we do that, we wanted to just highlight our sponsors real quick. Dana and I both work for Blue Hive. 

0:09:01

(Chris Dunn)

Blue Hive Exhibits is a group. We are East Coast, West Coast based. We're about 20 years old. We are a creative agency first that builds exhibits, really. We help you wrap your arms around the entire trade show process from, you know, the pre -show stuff to the post -show follow through, obviously building and managing your beautiful booths as well. But we feel like we're a right -sized group, a little over a hundred people, not the biggest company out there, certainly not the smallest. 

0:09:30

(Chris Dunn)

So for, for brands out there who are looking for that white level, white glove level concierge service, we are, we are a really good fit. you. In addition to that, we're being helped here to put this podcast together by our friends at Fist Bump. Fist Bump is a media agency. First ran into the founder, Brandon Lee, a few years ago. The initial conversations were really centered around LinkedIn and how to grow a brand on LinkedIn. 

0:09:59

(Chris Dunn)

And it went from me growing my brand to, obviously, bringing Blue Hive along with me as part of that. And ultimately, a year ago right now, we were talking about how do we do this podcast thing, thinking that I could maybe do it on my own and found out that that was not happening. So luckily, We have some amazing partners with Fist Bump who help us put this type of media out there. This is episode number 42. We have rolled out a consistent track basically every week for the last 42 weeks, right back to the first of the year. Obviously, this is a Wednesday. 

0:10:35

(Chris Dunn)

Normally, we're out on Thursday. So we have a little flexibility built in there as well. But they're a great group to work with, and they help us produce this wonderful content. We have stepped forward as thought leaders in the industry because of the show. And if you're a business out there that's looking to kind of, you know, be thought leadership, kind of lead with, you know, with that media first mentality and create the content from there, Fistbump is a great group to get in with. So I've been talking for quite a bit. 

0:11:06

(Chris Dunn)

I'm going to kick it back to Dana and we've got some questions for Bob. So, um, this is a live show and we'd love to have anybody who's listening in drop questions into the chat and we will see those. And hopefully those will be something that we can, you know, ask Bob or, or kind of put out there. But, um, I'm really curious, you know, when, when you're kind of a 30 year trade show geek, like, uh, like Dana and I are, um, do you wonder where did the industry come from? Like this just didn't, just start yesterday, obviously, right? 

0:11:36

(Chris Dunn)

We've been in it for quite a while, but even when we got in it back in the nineties, there was a hundred plus years of track record in place. And if we want to go really far back, I mean, sorry, Bob was sharing this with us earlier, we're talking 3000 years ago in Mesopotamia when there was open air markets, you know, around the temple, you know, that people were selling their, their wares. 

0:12:00

(Dana Esposito)

So the roots and the history of this industry go really deep. But Dana, why don't you start us off with, with some of our questions for Bob? Sure. So I'm really glad to have Bob on the podcast today because I am not just a trade show nerd. I'm a history geek. So, um, talking to someone else who, you know, Bob's done a lot of research. 

0:12:21

(Dana Esposito)

These are a lot of the things he's going to share with today are not like just his opinion. You know, he's got stats and data because he's, you know, an author. And in order to write something, you really need to completely immerse yourself in it. Plus he's got firsthand experience in the industry. So, um, Bob, I know right out of the gate, you had talked a little bit about like size and significance of trade show exhibits and, you know, people gathering together. 

0:12:44

(Bob McGlincy)

Um, but I was basically just want to open the gate for you. And if if you wanted to go back to either the size of significance or if you really wanted to kind of start going down the history and heart of trade shows, you know, how they began and why these events have been critical to business and innovation and cultural exchange, you know, since the dawn of history, really. Yeah, I think I can do both fairly quickly. First off, I just want to mention that this industry in the United States, it creates millions of jobs. It generates billions of tax dollars. It generates hundreds of billions of dollars of business sales. 

0:13:20

(Bob McGlincy)

It's a huge business, but most people don't realize it. And even if they're familiar with one section of the industry, say, my ex -wife works for Boston Scientific, and she's aware of medical shows, but she wasn't aware of all the other types of shows that there are in the industry. So it creates a lot of jobs, a lot of opportunities for people. It supports a lot of families. I do want to touch base a little bit on the history. 

0:13:48

(Bob McGlincy)

As Chris said, you can go back 3 ,000 years and look at marketplaces in Persia. You can look at marketplaces in Athens and Rome. There was champagne fairs going around Europe. I would say the first trade fair was the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1462. That displayed the first printing press. It had some published books there. 

0:14:12

(Bob McGlincy)

And that fair ended up getting other fairs in Italy after that, and also other fairs in Germany. But that one fair attracted 40 ,000 people, and that's in 1462. Well, let's fast forward to today. That fair still exists. The Frankfurt Book Fair is the largest book fair in the world. 

0:14:37

(Chris Dunn)

In 2019, it had 260 ,000 attendees. 

0:14:41

(Bob McGlincy)

73 ,000 exhibiting companies went to that show. Has that been continuously running? Not every year there's been gaps. World War II would be one significant gap. It wasn't every year in the 1400s, but it was a series of affairs going on and almost continuously. And Frankfurt also had the first market in a city that was recurring every year. 

0:15:12

(Bob McGlincy)

And that was earlier in the 12 or 1300s, it started doing that. It was once a year, then they had a spring market, then they had a December market, and in Germany, they had another Christmas market. Those were going on, but people found that, oh, if you have an event, it might be a sporting event, might be a religious event. If there are people there, maybe we can bring things in. We have a Boston Marathon in Boston, obviously. 

0:15:37

(Bob McGlincy)

There's a nice little event there at the Heinz that Nike and Reebok and 100 other exhibitors exhibit in just because there's a crowd there. And people come by to look at new products and actually to buy products. We have the regatta coming into Boston right now in the middle of October. That's bringing in crowds. People set up pavilions there. And companies like Rolex will show products. 

0:16:03

(Bob McGlincy)

It's not a trade show, but it's related to trade shows. And people in the trade show industry need to build exhibits for these type of events. That was Frankfurt. After that, there were industrial expositions. In France, there was a series of 11 exhibitions and They started out with fewer than 100 exhibitors, and they got to the point where they had to turn exhibitors away when they got up to the point of 5 ,000 exhibiting companies wanting to go to one show in Paris. And they had to close it down and say, you can't exhibit here this year. 

0:16:41

(Bob McGlincy)

So that was tremendous growth for them. But they only allowed French companies to exhibit in their show. Well, Prince Albert, who was married to Queen Victoria, had the idea, well, let's have an international event. And they may have gotten it from France from the Paris show because they actually had invited Algiers. But in 1851 in London, there was an event. They invited 44 different countries to exhibit there. 

0:17:11

(Bob McGlincy)

There were over 14 ,000 exhibitors showing off 100 ,000 products. This is a huge show. It's 20 acres, 19 acres. a half acres under one roof. And they thought it was a good idea. There were a lot of people that liked the idea. 

0:17:29

(Bob McGlincy)

A lot of foreign companies wanted to exhibit there. A lot of English companies, even before the place was built, even before they had a show, companies had committed to 500 ,000 square feet of exhibit space at the show, even though there was no show and there was no building, but there was an interest from business to be there. The politicians didn't like the idea. The press didn't like the idea. Prince Albert, Henry Cole, Queen Victoria, they liked the idea. So it was decided, well, how are we going to build something? 

0:18:05

(Bob McGlincy)

There was a lot of procrastination going on. A year before the show was opened, and they had already sent out invitations for the show, foreign countries said, we want to exhibit. We're going to travel there. We're going to send businesses there. There was no building for the show. Now, this was going to be the biggest show in the world. 

0:18:25

(Bob McGlincy)

The biggest show before that attracted a million people in three months. This was going to be a six -month show. But they didn't know how many people they were going to have, but they wanted to build a building. And the Crystal Palace was what they built. Now, I want to mention the Crystal Palace because that was the first glass and iron huge structure. 

0:18:44

(Dana Esposito)

It was the first convention center. 

0:18:49

(Bob McGlincy)

There's a lot of glass convention centers these days, and it's all based on the original one back in 1851. And if someone doesn't know what that is, you should Google it, because it's gorgeous. The historians state, and this isn't me stating it, it's people that I've read years ago, and you can look it up on AI right now, they'll say, what's the first trade show? Well, the first modern trade show is 1851, this exhibition. And other countries decided they wanted to do something similar. Paris wanted to do something more. 

0:19:25

(Bob McGlincy)

Vienna, Philadelphia, New York. There's Chicago Exposition in 1893. All these places, they were attracting more business. They were attracting entrepreneurs. They were attracting inventors. They were attracting business people. 

0:19:40

(Bob McGlincy)

I can go back to 1851 just for a moment. And the first flush toilets The first public flush toilets were at the Crystal Palace for this convention, for this exhibition. And the person who put them in there, he made money just by installing them and charging a penny for a toilet. 

0:20:04

(Dana Esposito)

And then he installed a lot of toilets in upper class homes after 1851. 

0:20:11

(Bob McGlincy)

And then the guy by name of Crapper, who was another plumber, took this invention from Jennings and made it more popular for middle class houses and then lower class houses. explains a lot. Samuel Colt exhibited there. Colt had rifles and a firearm, a repeating revolver that Texas Rangers used. And Colt went to England to show off his revolver. And he would take one revolver apart. 

0:20:48

(Bob McGlincy)

He took 10 revolvers apart on the show floor and then put them together with interchangeable parts to show that interchangeable parts work. He was one of the first companies to have an assembly line to produce things. He opened an office in England because he was there. It was McCormick's room. And I think everybody here knows the name McCormick from McCormick Place. Well, Robert McCormick was a grandnephew of Cyrus McCormick. 

0:21:20

(Bob McGlincy)

Cyrus McCormick was the one that patented the Virginia Grain Reaper. Prior to his invention, farmers would use sides, they'd cut down wheat. He took this, he shipped his Reaper to London. And the London Times just savaged his instrument when it was on the show floor saying, this is worthless. Well, they had a competition outside of London where there were men versus machine, machine versus machine, and McCormick's Reaper beat everybody hands down. Like it produced three times more wheat, cut wheat, than anything else did. 

0:22:08

(Bob McGlincy)

So he was able to establish a company that became a huge company in Chicago. over the next 40 to 50 years, where they were employing thousands of people when it first started out employing four or five people. That would be International Harvester today. Yes. They started exhibiting in San Francisco and then in New Orleans under that brand name. So it's companies that just start on the show floor. 

0:22:43

(Bob McGlincy)

I had mentioned the Comdex show before. I just want to mention one other company, Compaq Computers. They were a group of Dallas entrepreneurs that had a startup at Comdex. And in five years after they first exhibited at the show, they were a $5 billion company. And then they sold out. Hewlett Packard for, I think it was $24 billion. 

0:23:09

(Bob McGlincy)

And now those numbers, you can probably double those numbers for what it's worth today, for what a dollar would be worth today. So there's a lot of different companies that started out at trade shows. 

0:23:22

(Chris Dunn)

Singer Sewing Machine, Singer came from Boston, he exhibited in New York prior to London, exhibited in London, And then he established this big corporation. It was the first multinational corporation in the world. And they were huge and made a huge difference just in the world economy, just in the world of textiles. Bob, earlier, before we started going live here, we were talking a little bit about this. And it's like the saying, what's old is new. these same types of things are happening. 

0:24:04

(Chris Dunn)

Companies are leaning in using trade shows as a vehicle to get their message out there, right? And we have so many more channels now than they ever had in the past, right? You're in the 1850s, you don't have the internet, you barely have, you know, you have newspaper and magazines and so forth. But we have so many more tools now. And we'll get later to how multiple times throughout the recent history, the invention of the internet and then, you know, the Zoom calls and everything. There's all these things that have happened. 

0:24:39

(Chris Dunn)

People keep saying like shows are going to go away because we don't need them anymore because we have this, these tools. But at the end of the day, even going back so, so many years ago, centuries ago, it was all about, it was gathering people, sharing ideas face to face, uh, human to human. And we can't duplicate that. 

0:24:59

(Speaker 15)

in any other way other than having these gatherings. 

0:25:04

(Chris Dunn)

So the history is really companies that have leveraged trade shows to kind of move the needle. And then you look at kind of your message here is it's not just the trade show, but it's the ripple effect that happens from that. Absolutely. A business grows from zero to five billion in five years. How many jobs does that create? How many people worked there? 

0:25:26

(Chris Dunn)

The people who bought the product, how much more productive did they become to then make their businesses more successful? So it's really kind of cool. I lead the sales team here at Blue Hive. And when we talk, we have our sales meetings. We talk a lot about our customers, customers, and envisioning not just How are we helping our customers on the trade show floor, but how do we help them tell their story so much better so that they're attracting more customers? 

0:25:53

(Bob McGlincy)

And then, you know, this, this thousands of ripples that are happening. literally at the trade show as people are having those conversations and growing their business and supplying products and services that other companies need. It's really crazy and cool how this woven fabric that emanates from things like shows and expositions that really drive economy globally. I just want to back up a second to In 2000, I was speaking at the TS2. TS2 was a trade show about trade shows sponsored by the Trade Show Exhibitors Association. At that time, as we were presenting, there were people talking about the internet's going to kill trade shows. 

0:26:43

(Bob McGlincy)

And that was one of the topics at the show. And I was saying, no, face -to -face is always going to be important. We can back up to 2020, during the pandemic, there's not gonna be any more trade shows, everything's gonna be virtual. And there is a place for virtual trade shows, and there's definitely a place for hybrid trade shows, but I think it all comes back to face -to -face matters. We're human beings, we like human connections. 

0:27:09

(Bob McGlincy)

It's important to develop trust when you're selling something, when you're presenting something, when you have a product that's really beneficial to other people, but if you don't display it at a trade show or in some manner, I could have the best invention in the world, and it doesn't matter what it is, nobody knows about it. Thomas Edison was a fantastic marketer. He was a self -promoter. He had over 1 ,000 patents. I mean, he was a wonderful inventor. He was a very smart guy, but he was a good promoter, and he believed in the value of going to trade shows, not just World's Fair, but electrical exhibitions were like the first industry -specific trade shows, even before there were bicycle trade shows and before there were car trade shows. 

0:27:53

(Bob McGlincy)

I just want to mention one other thing. on the significance of a show. One more example is I want to talk about the Paris Air Show. The Paris Air Show developed from the Paris Car Show. They spun off in 1909. Before that, it was part of the Paris Car Show. 

0:28:15

(Bob McGlincy)

And before that, car shows were actually part of the 1900 World's Fair Exposition. But in 2019, at the Paris Air Show, there were $140 billion of sales orders written on the show floor. It attracted over 2400 exhibiting companies, it was over 316 ,000 attendees at that show, and this has been an ongoing show every year since 1909 except when wars or I don't think pandemics that interfered with it, but except for. occasional lapses, this has been an ongoing show and it's a very successful show. And shows today, businesses want to go there to promote their products. They have to show off your products. 

0:29:01

(Bob McGlincy)

And when they go there, it supports a lot of jobs. It's all the laborers, all the installers at show sites, whether they're unloading freight, installing an exhibit, doing the electrical. It's supporting their jobs. It's supporting jobs of people that work at the convention center and are in the convention visitors here. But it's also supporting jobs for people that are coming into the town that want to be entertained. You need your Uber drivers, everybody that's in a restaurant, the hotel workers. 

0:29:32

(Dana Esposito)

When you have 100 ,000 people coming into a city, it makes a huge difference. And it's supporting a lot of families. And it has a huge economic benefit. 

0:29:42

(Bob McGlincy)

Trade shows help promote equity. I sound like an exorcist. Trade shows help run cities, absolutely. Yeah. And as trade shows developed in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, you're seeing new convention centers being built up. And you had mentioned the book previously, and I just want to mention that I'm the co -author of The Invisible Industry, along with Larry Kalkiewicz. 

0:30:07

(Bob McGlincy)

Larry was the president of EDPA. He was the president of IFIS. He has another book out on international shows. We wanted to talk about the impact this made on the industry. on the country, I mean. So you're seeing convention centers being built up, not just McCormick Place in Chicago, but you have Las Vegas, and then you have convention centers in California. 

0:30:36

(Bob McGlincy)

Atlanta was a big convention center, then Orlando grew, and then New Orleans, and Orlando keeps growing and growing and growing, and Orlando and Vegas are the two biggest convention centers. and they're bringing people into the city. 

0:30:46

(Chris Dunn)

It's not just people go to Vegas to gamble, people go to Vegas for conventions. People don't only go to Orlando for Disney, people go to Orlando for conventions. It has a big impact on just supporting families, just jobs in general. It's a huge trillion -dollar industry that, like I say, a lot of people are not aware of the extent and scope of the total industry. Yeah, Bob, the title of the book is The Invisible Industry. And I'm thinking back five years when the pandemic happened, right? 

0:31:21

(Chris Dunn)

Anybody who was involved in the industry all of a sudden was out of work, right? Companies closed, furloughed. And granted, we weren't the only ones. Obviously, it hit related industries as well, hotel, airline, of course. But when Representatives from our industry went to Capitol Hill to talk to the government about, hey, listen, you think we're a bunch of mom and pop businesses here. You really have no idea. 

0:31:56

(Chris Dunn)

No one's connected the dots between all of these things to understand what the overall impact of our industry really is. And we were invisible to them. And it became really difficult to get the PPE to be recognized as part of a group that was really hurting. Again, they kind of looked at us like it was a bunch of mom and pop companies, and it wasn't this giant, you know, collection of people. The number of folks who worked in the industry who were impacted, loss of jobs, obviously loss of income. I was actually just talking to Chris Griffin this morning. 

0:32:32

(Chris Dunn)

He's the current president of the EDPA, about to turn that over, but he really kind of was part of the 

0:32:40

(Bob McGlincy)

a group leading the charge up on Capitol Hill, having those conversations and bringing this information to the forefront, um, to, to basically shine a light on the fact that like, you think we're tiny, but we are, we are so much bigger than that. And now, you know, I remember we had Chris on a two months ago or so for, um, for our, on our show. And he said, when we go to Capitol Hill now, They know who we are now and they understand what we represent and the size of the industry that we're, that we, you know, that we're promoting or that we're, you know, coming to the table with. So, um, yeah, it's, it's like you said, it's invisible until you get on the inside of it and you look around and go, oh, wow, this is, this is a big deal. I used to think it was good to be invisible. I never wanted to have OSHA on the show floor. 

0:33:31

(Bob McGlincy)

It's bad enough that those are coming to your warehouse if you're a display manufacturer. But never wonder that happened. And then when the pandemic hits, it's like, oh, well, no, we should be telling our story and telling people how great we are. 

0:33:43

(Speaker 14)

Because a lot of people think, oh, you do events. 

0:33:47

(Chris Dunn)

Do you plan weddings? Is that what you do? No, it's a little bit more involved than that. 

0:33:54

(Speaker 13)

Right. 

0:33:54

(Chris Dunn)

I think anybody who's in the industry has those awkward conversations around the Thanksgiving table. 

0:34:00

(Bob McGlincy)

You know, when you first get to know people, it's like, so what do you do again? I'm in the trade show business. Oh yeah. It's like, Oh, like a, like a car show or like a wedding or like a, like a flower show a little bit. It's like that, but that's business to consumer. And we're in a business to business industry. 

0:34:18

(Bob McGlincy)

Right. 

0:34:19

(Speaker 4)

And because it's not promoted to the public, people don't know about all these shows that come into the city. 

0:34:25

(Chris Dunn)

Now, and I'm dating myself when I say the cab drivers used to know the shows that were coming in the city and some of the hotel workers knew that people coming in. 

0:34:37

(Dana Esposito)

Public at large didn't know anything about it because they're not promoted. 

0:34:43

(Speaker 4)

It's a lot more than just a car show or a boat show or an RV show, even though those do bring some business into the city, and it is a selling event. 

0:34:53

(Speaker 12)

Yeah, for sure. 

0:34:55

(Speaker 10)

So, so Dana, are you able to ask a question without sounding like Darth Vader or is that? 

0:35:00

(Dana Esposito)

How do I sound now? You sound good. 

0:35:03

(Bob McGlincy)

Okay. 

0:35:03

(Dana Esposito)

Okay. 

0:35:03

(Bob McGlincy)

Okay. Um, well before I answer the question, I'm trying to remember some of the numbers that you were talking about before we got onto the podcast. Did you also mention those, Chris, do you know if Bob mentioned some of those, like the influx of, of the numbers that come into a city? I can discuss a couple of specific shows. Yeah, that'd be great. Chris, I know you were at PAC Expo recently, and you can talk about that, but I just want to say, like, the square footage for the show, and I'm a big square footage guy, I like that, 889 ,000 square, net square feet. 

0:35:40

(Bob McGlincy)

Now, what that means is that's the amount of exhibit space at the show. To have 900 ,000 square feet of exhibit space, you need a center, a warehouse, if you will, a building that has double that amount, because you have aisle space, you have dead space, you have space that's not used. So when they talk about, it's 800 or 900 ,000 square feet of space. That's net square feet, and that's exhibit space. 900 ,000 square feet is a lot of space. 1 .8 million square feet is obviously even more, and that's why these centers have grown up, have sprouted up, and that's why they've expanded. 

0:36:25

(Bob McGlincy)

The Pac -Expo had 31 ,000 attendees, had over 200 ,000 companies at the show. And it's a large show, and different shows, some shows attract over 100 ,000 people, some shows attract 2 ,000, 4 ,000 exhibitors, some shows have 100 ,000, 200 ,000, even 300 ,000 square feet of exhibit space, that would be Con Expo, Con Ag, would be the largest one, that's a biennial show. But CES had, and these are, I think, 2022 numbers, so it's more now. But 2 .9 million square feet of space, 107 ,000 attendees, 4 ,500 exhibiting companies. Magic has 79 ,000 attendees. 

0:37:18

(Bob McGlincy)

The SHOT Show was shooting hunting outdoor trade. That would have like 689 ,000 square feet of space, 20 ,000 attendees, 2 ,500 exhibiting companies. I could go on with the list. I have a list on my phone. If we have time and just want to go assess. I don't want to bore people with stats. 

0:37:34

(Bob McGlincy)

I just want to say, these are huge numbers. 2 ,000 companies attending a show, that's a lot of businesses coming in to promote their product. They're spending an enormous amount of money to go there. They're sending their teams in. They're hiring display houses, in many cases, to build these stunning brand architecture pieces that show off their product. and to show off their brand. 

0:38:03

(Bob McGlincy)

Now, why are they spending all that money? Because they want a return on investment. They want to show their product. They want to sell their product. And that's what a trade show is. It's bringing buyers and sellers together. 

0:38:13

(Bob McGlincy)

Now, we like to complicate things in the trade show world. We call it buyers and sellers. The buyers are the attendees. The sellers are the exhibitors. But it still comes down to, I have a product, I want to sell it to you. 

0:38:27

(Bob McGlincy)

I want to show it to you. Maybe you'll be interested in it. It might be a personal computer. It might be a stint for a heart valve. It could be any number of different things, but I want to show it off to, whether it's the public or a segment of the public, these buyers, to say, hey, this is what we have. 

0:38:49

(Chris Dunn)

And that's why we're spending money as a company to go to a trade show, to exhibit, Let people know about our brand, let them know about our product, to sell the product, and then to sell more product. Trade shows work. I think it makes sense. I think it makes dollars. So I like to say trade shows make dollars and cents. Yeah. 

0:39:10

(Chris Dunn)

You know, Bob, when I was out in Vegas a couple of weeks ago for PacExpo, I did a post about it, so I did a little bit of research, just Googled some things while I was there. Obviously, the West Hall in Vegas is a big shiny new thing. It's been open for four years or so, I believe. That cost over a billion dollars. They're currently in the middle of redoing North Central and part of South. They're investing another $600 million. 

0:39:40

(Chris Dunn)

So we think about, you know, cities are investing taxpayer money into improving their convention center. 

0:39:48

(Speaker 11)

So that's over the past 10 years in Vegas, just the LVCC. 

0:39:52

(Chris Dunn)

And we know that there's convention centers everywhere out there. They're dumping $1 .6 billion into something that many people were saying, we aren't really going to need shows anymore. Well, I think that the Vegas oddmakers are betting, doubling down on the fact that people are going to continue to need and want this face to face. So the industry itself is not going anywhere. It's morphing. 

0:40:21

(Chris Dunn)

It's changing. We have to do shows a little different than we did in the past. Costs are rising. This impacts how people go and execute and show their wares and tell their story. So let me pivot that into a question, Bob, if I could. based on how shows started and maybe things that were learned in the early days of exhibiting. 

0:40:44

(Chris Dunn)

How have you seen things kind of change, morph, and propel us forward into this new way of exhibiting? And as I'm asking the question, in my head, one of the things, and I always refer to this, I started in the 90s. The TVs were tiny, right? 

0:41:03

(Bob McGlincy)

Little tiny screen with a big cotton caboose. To put a TV on a wall, that didn't happen. You couldn't put a TV on a wall, you put a TV in a wall, you cut a hole and you build a shelf behind it and you put a TV or a computer monitor inside this storage volume and you have a little tiny screen sticking out, right? The invention of the flat screen TV. absolute freaking game changer as far as how we show and use video and digital on trade show floors. So anyway, sorry, I asked you a question and then I went off on another tangent. 

0:41:34

(Bob McGlincy)

But what are some of the things that you've seen that are kind of moving the needle and changing the way that we go? Well, in addition to it being interactive, where we're having all types of, losing my thought here for a second, all types of AV and just creating new environments to entice people into the booth. I think as we move forward, we're looking at more hybrid shows. We're looking at AI impacting the industry at all different levels, whether it's a registration on the show floor to design at a display house. We're looking at hybrid events. 

0:42:25

(Bob McGlincy)

We're looking at things being, there's a need for more sustainability these days. I do want to go back and just mention one more show since you mentioned Vegas, that's SEMA, which is a specialty equipment manufacturing show. That one has over a million square feet, about 1 .1 million square feet. A couple of years ago, it attracted 161 ,000 attendees. I've talked about the number of exhibiting companies going to a show. This one's going to be like 2 ,400 exhibiting companies. 

0:42:55

(Bob McGlincy)

I think that's important, but it's important to have attendees coming to show. 160 ,000 people coming to a city, that's creating a tremendous economic impact. I think we're going to see a little bit more emergence in acquisitions. We're seeing right now there's a tremendous labor shortage on the show floor, and this has been happening since the pandemic. Laura Parker's group's been working to change that, as has the EDPA, as has other industries. Just getting the word out to Congress on what's happening there. 

0:43:28

(Bob McGlincy)

There's some programs now where there's funding available to support things. So we're seeing some changes in that direction. 

0:43:40

(Dana Esposito)

I do think just the way people are designing exhibits, the way you're including AV in exhibits, anything you can do to increase engagement, to increase the educational aspect of the industry, to improve reasons, increase reasons to continue with being a face -to -face business. Mentioned before, I think we all mentioned this, that we're all human beings. We like interaction. We need human support. We can't just say we're going to do everything virtually. 

0:44:11

(Dana Esposito)

I can order some things online, but I still have to go shopping once in a while. Humans, even introverts, still like being around people. I watched the Jetsons when I was little. I know that they talked about like, someday you won't need to eat in the future. You can take a pill and you won't have to eat. I can tell you straight up, I like the experience of eating food. 

0:44:36

(Dana Esposito)

So I mean, humans need to be around people. And also we tend to get screen burnout. I mean, I sit at the desk in front of a computer all day. I don't wanna experience everything on a screen. I adore my phone. I read a lot on my phone. 

0:44:51

(Dana Esposito)

I contact people on my phone. I buy things through my phone. But I don't want to live completely through there because it's not a proper true experience. It's the same reason why humans go to the beach. They want to feel the wind in their hair, the salt on their face, the sand on their toes. Humans seek experience. 

0:45:09

(Dana Esposito)

And the best way also when selling things to educate someone is to have an experience with that thing. I am so happy that they had toilets at some expo somewhere, because someone said, yes, this makes sense. This is a good experience. Everybody needs them. You know, even through history, there were great inventions that were first displayed. I know Thomas Jefferson, when he was in France, he saw one of the first hot air balloons. 

0:45:35

(Dana Esposito)

And all of that ties into, you know, the the how aviation was developed. So I think it's a great way to see what's next in the world. This is a great way to connect with people. It's a great way to not only, you know, get brand awareness, but also find out what you want to be exposed to and invest in and buy and sell. And buying and selling sounds so cold. 

0:46:00

(Bob McGlincy)

It just sounds like business, right? But also buying and selling is innovation happens. It's how humanity moves forward. 

0:46:09

(Dana Esposito)

So it's not just the act of buying and selling. It's about the opportunity to have an experience, be educated, and be remembered. And that's the difference between a lot of things that we have in our world every day now versus 50 years ago, 100 years ago, et cetera. 

0:46:28

(Chris Dunn)

I like to think in terms of a live trade show when people talk about, well, we could have a virtual trade show. I like to think, well, if you were to get married, would you and your spouse want to go on a live honeymoon? Or you would want to just be, you know, cross the continent. Maybe you live in different cities at one point and just have a virtual honeymoon. Yeah, let's just watch a movie about honeymoons. Let's watch a movie about honeymoons. 

0:46:53

(Chris Dunn)

That's gonna be fun. 

0:46:56

(Bob McGlincy)

Yeah, that's real. And that's, Humans, you can't change the way that we are hardwired in our DNA, for sure. Bob, you hit on, one of our questions was going to be advocating for the industry. We talked a little bit about Chris Griffin, Capitol Hill, and then also Laura Parker. I've met Laura briefly. What's her organization? 

0:47:21

(Bob McGlincy)

And she's all about future workforce, is that correct? Yes, it's EEWDF. It's a Workforce Development Federation. She's involved with establishing NAICS codes with the government. 

0:47:34

(Chris Dunn)

So we are now an official industry as far as the government's concerned. Prior to 2000, prior to the pandemic, it was like, there was no code for what the people in your shop do. There's no code for what people on the show floor did. They might lump them into one category or another, but had nothing to do with the trade show industry. which as we've said, is a huge industry. She's been instrumental in changing things, changing people's attitudes, educate people, and changing things as far as in Congress, as far as to make us an official industry, and we're moving in that direction. 

0:48:15

(Chris Dunn)

We've moved quite a distance in that direction. That's awesome. It's unfortunate that it took the pandemic. Yeah, for some of these things to come to fruition. But, you know, we need the catalyst comes from somewhere. 

0:48:31

(Speaker 10)

Bob, you mentioned shortage of labor on the trade show floor. 

0:48:35

(Dana Esposito)

Dana, you're involved with the future workforce within the EDPA. So those things are related, right? They're, they're short there. We've got, we've got an aging workforce, right? Most of our, you know, we're in their, in their 50s, and going out and finding people who are the younger folks coming out of trade school with cabinet -making skills, carpentry skills, and so forth, they didn't know who we were. I feel like there's a bunch of groups under the umbrella of EDPA and our industry that we're having to do this good job, but we're doing a good job getting out, telling a story, and talking to these younger people and showing them how cool of an industry it can be to get involved with. 

0:49:21

(Dana Esposito)

Yep. And going back to during the pandemic, I think, if I'm remembering correctly, I think those codes are really important because I think before the pandemic, our industry sort of being invisible, they didn't know where to put us. We didn't have a code. So they were lumping us almost into like hospitality. That's kind of a cousin of us, but it's not exactly, right? We're very much producers and service providers and so many other things as well as trades people. 

0:49:56

(Dana Esposito)

One good thing to your point that came out of the pandemic was getting some of the clarity on that, because it does make a difference government -wise. Also, the EDPA, because I know you both mentioned it, yes, there's a committee called the Future Workforce Committee. And I am pretty much in the background on that committee. I don't want to take any credit on that, because they're doing some amazing things. They kind of have three different people who are heading up Because when you think of the future workforce, like my foundation is design, exhibit design, right? Well, there's exhibit designers, there's graphic designers, well, there's graphic production, right? 

0:50:34

(Dana Esposito)

Well, then who else are us, right? Who else are we? There's like 23 easily different roles in our industry that make one exhibit happen, right? 

0:50:42

(Chris Dunn)

There's CAD engineering, there's estimating, there's project management, account executive, account manager, there are your carpenters, there's flooring, there's install and dismantle, there's crates. there's crate jigging, there's warehouse personnel, there's digital content creation, there's lighting experts, there's AVX, I mean literally, I mean I could just name so many different types of amazing talent that takes one exhibit to happen. 

0:51:09

(Dana Esposito)

So the future workforce plus the woman that Bob had mentioned about these people who are making great strides to not only make sure people know that we're here, that there's jobs for you, like we appreciate your talent that you bring to the table. They're doing some amazing work and also reaching out to a lot of not just colleges and universities, but trade schools and veterans organizations. 

0:51:34

(Chris Dunn)

They're going to job fairs, high schools. They're doing amazing work. On top of their regular jobs. Right. 

0:51:44

(Bob McGlincy)

They're not full -time employees. They are volunteers, pretty much, right? Volunteers for the good of the future of the industry. They are amazing. Hey, we are 51 minutes in, 52 minutes in. 

0:51:57

(Speaker 9)

We're going to start to wrap things up a little bit here. 

0:52:00

(Chris Dunn)

And as we like to do on the toolbox, we like to leave our listeners with some valuable information, something they can kind of act on immediately or keep in their back pocket. So Bob, a couple of reflections on something in particular, takeaways, if you would, that we could leave our folks with? Well, a couple of quick things. I'd say, and historians state this as my original idea, the 1851 Great Exhibition was the first modern trade show. The Crystal Palace was the foundation for all the glass convention centers that we see around the world today. So I think that's a couple of things to look at. 

0:52:50

(Chris Dunn)

If more come to me, I'll jump in. Yeah. It was, I mean, the story of the Crystal Palace and everybody. feel free to look it up. Actually, feel free to get Bob's book, because he does a great job of showing that. We've got a QR code that's on the screen here. 

0:53:09

(Bob McGlincy)

There's pictures in there, and he walks you through. 

0:53:12

(Speaker 5)

As you were describing early in the show, you were describing the fact that within only a year to the exposition, they hadn't even broken ground. 

0:53:22

(Speaker 8)

They hadn't started building this. 

0:53:23

(Bob McGlincy)

It reminds me of some of our clients these days who give us like a week to build a booth. So when you look at all of that stuff, everything was on rush. I was reading about it. At one point, they had like 40 ,000 workers on the site or something like that, or maybe 4 ,000, but it was a pretty big endeavor. they wouldn't have got it done if the Prince hadn't put his foot down and said, we're definitely doing this. 

0:53:49

(Chris Dunn)

And I like to think that's the world's largest IND project because it was a modular built construction. 

0:53:55

(Bob McGlincy)

Right. Temporary. The only way they were allowed to build it in Hyde Park is they had a promise they would tear it down after the show. So six months after the show, they dismantled it, moved it to another section of London and then build it as an even bigger structure. And then that lasted until it burned down in 1935. But I also want to mention that World's Fairs and ideas, innovations, inventions that were displayed there have changed the way we live today. 

0:54:30

(Bob McGlincy)

Whether it's telephones, elevators, telegraph. Toilets. Toilets, okay. But touchscreen TVs, they were displayed in Knoxville in the 1880s at a World's Fair. 

0:54:42

(Chris Dunn)

Air conditioning, Outer Worlds Fair, electricity, Outer Worlds Fair. 

0:54:47

(Speaker 5)

Cars had car shows, but they became more popular in 1904 when they were displaying in St. Louis, and in 1915 in San Francisco. 

0:54:57

(Speaker 4)

And these car companies were spending, at that point in time, millions of dollars to display things. 

0:55:02

(Speaker 5)

General Electric spent millions of dollars just to go to the Chicago 1893 show. 

0:55:09

(Chris Dunn)

In the past and companies today spend money because trade shows work. It makes dollars. It makes sense. And that's S -E -N -S -E, not just the E -N -T -S. Both kinds of sense. That's it. 

0:55:23

(Bob McGlincy)

Absolutely. 

0:55:24

(Speaker 7)

So awesome. 

0:55:25

(Chris Dunn)

Well, we've got the QR code is up. You can click that. 

0:55:28

(Bob McGlincy)

You can go check out Bob's work. Again, The Invisible Industry. Bob, you've got your more recent book with you as well. Let's take a peek at that. I don't know if you can see this. Here we go. 

0:55:40

(Bob McGlincy)

Yeah. Okay. Expositions and World Fairs. How, how does that book differ from, from this guy that I've got here? Some of it is a little bit similar to the beginning of that, but it talks about different shows as well, especially shows in France, but goes more into the inventions and things that were change makers in the mid 1800s. So tell stories about, Alexander Graham Bell, tell stories about Alicia Graves and Alicia Otis, great, Lisa Graves, Otis and the Otis elevator. 

0:56:15

(Bob McGlincy)

I'll talk to stories about how Singer Sewing Machines became a multinational company. 

0:56:22

(Chris Dunn)

We'll go into greater detail about all those. It talks about Queen Victoria, Joseph Paxton, goes into great deal on that, who was the architect for the Crystal Palace. And he was dismissed by all the architects that was at his time. I'll talk about Napoleon III. I'll talk at length about Thomas Edison and a bunch of electrical shows there. So it goes into a different type of detail that you don't find in the industry. 

0:56:46

(Chris Dunn)

And this book is just a precursor to expositions and world's fairs in the United States, which is going to talk about 33 world's fairs there, including world's fairs that Although maybe they lost money at the time, they employed people just like trade shows do, but they created convention centers. The convention center in New Orleans sprang out of the World's Fair in New Orleans in 1984. Same thing with Knoxville. And there's other World's Fairs where they actually had a real impact on future trade shows in their city. Events in general, right? 

0:57:25

(Bob McGlincy)

They're all related. 

0:57:27

(Chris Dunn)

We think about FIFA. 

0:57:29

(Speaker 6)

is coming to US next year for the World Cup. 

0:57:34

(Chris Dunn)

And brands recognize, to your point, there's going to be an awful lot of people that are going to gather around there. And companies, we're involved in things, we're having conversations with companies from overseas, you know, let's make activations that are built around catering to the crowds that are going to be generated you know, by these sporting events. So as you mentioned, they're a close cousin, right? And smart brands look at all of that. And they don't just think just about trade shows, but they think about wherever people are gathering that we might want to talk to that are potentially within our ideal customer range. 

0:58:10

(Chris Dunn)

It's worth investing in money to get out there and tell our story and get that message out. Whether it's crowds, there's opportunity to sell business, there's an opportunity to promote one's brand. Absolutely. All right. 

0:58:22

(Bob McGlincy)

Well, I'm going to end on that fantastic statement, I think. 

0:58:26

(Chris Dunn)

We've had a little challenge with some audio here, but hopefully folks who are listening and watching live have enjoyed. This show also lives on forever here on the internets, which is great, right here in LinkedIn, as well as on YouTube. 

0:58:43

(Speaker 5)

Also, more importantly, it shows up on all of your favorite podcast platforms as well. 

0:58:49

(Chris Dunn)

So that's actually my favorite way to ingest podcasts. I have a long commute in the morning and I I really like listening to a lot of different podcasts and learning from things. So Bob, hopefully you've enjoyed your time with us today. You've shared a lot of great information about the origins of trade shows and really all the benefits that they provide. 

0:59:10

(Bob McGlincy)

So anybody who's watching or listening. 

0:59:15

(Chris Dunn)

So actually, if you're listening to this on a podcast, we can put the QR code or a link into the show notes so that you can find out where to get the books by Bob. They're on Amazon. There we go. You could just go to Amazon, too. Right. Fantastic. 

0:59:33

(Chris Dunn)

All right, Bob. Well, thanks so much for joining us. It's been great, Dana. 

0:59:36

(Speaker 4)

I appreciate all your help. Thank you, Dana. This has been a great chat. We're coming up on an hour, so we're going to pack it in. Thanks, everybody, for visiting the Toolbox. Hopefully we've helped you sharpen up your marketing and your event related tools. 

0:59:49

And until next week. We will see you again around the toolbox and have a great rest of your week. Happy eventing, everybody. Take care. Bye -bye.