Trade Shows, Do Better: Make Exhibitor Data Easy
Planning for IBC or NAB? Here’s why you can’t download a simple exhibitor list—and why that’s a problem.
“Can you send me the exhibitor list?”
How is this still a hard question in 2025?
My client (and yours, I’m willing to bet) simply wants to plan their time at their next trade show. They need a spreadsheet—not a scavenger hunt through a locked‑down web app.
Instead, what do we get?
A search interface designed to prevent bulk exports, not enable discovery.
Stale product‑category tags that exhibitors almost never complete and which are too unwieldy to be useful to attendees.
A floor plan - equally clunky on both web and mobile - that requires super‑human eyesight and relentless zoom‑and‑scroll gymnastics.
I’m a fan and long‑time partner of many shows; IBC, NAB, CABSAT and others, and I will be the first to say that big trade shows still matter. But if the mission is to connect buyers and sellers, we have to talk about the glaring gap between intent and execution.
Where the Friction Lives
1. Gated data. Exhibitor information is locked-up, forcing you to access the data in the way they want you to, rather than in a way that’s flexibly useful to attendees.
2. Data Quality: A database is only as good as the data entered and the usefulness of the taxonomy, to make it consistently searchable. Descriptions, full categorization, staff data, all that takes time to fill out, and not every exhibitor does it.
3. Frozen taxonomies. We counted 208 options under IBC’s “Category” option. These product oriented listings still include classics like Intra‑Facility Connectivity → SDI video routers—but not a single mention of IP / ST 2110, the modern standard for video-over-IP workflows in broadcast.
The result? Intelligent search on trade show databases is broken.
Is There A Work-Around?
Behind IBC, NAB Show, and dozens of other major events sits one of the industry’s largest event-tech platforms: Map Your Show (MYS). Organisers license it to power the floor plan, exhibitor gallery, and the MyShowPlanner app.
Officially, exhibitors can request a nightly CSV or authenticated API—but whether that’s available depends entirely on the organiser’s licensing deal with MYS.
But let’s face it: exhibitors rarely need this list. It’s the attendees—trying to plan their visit—who do.
But here’s the twist: the exhibitor data already lives in a public-facing feed used by the site itself. It’s not a “hidden API”—just the same JSON the browser consumes. A contact of ours asked ChatGPT for help and got a basic .csv from it in seconds. Of course, it would be better if the categories were included!
This means that, technically, the data is already being served to the public—it’s just not offered in a friendly format via MapMyShow and the event organizers. That shouldn’t be necessary. If motivated attendees can do that with AI in a few minutes, something’s broken.
To be clear, Map Your Show’s Terms of Service prohibit automated scraping.
IBC and NAB mirror these rules in their attendee terms and conditions, meaning bulk-downloading exhibitor data without permission can result in account suspension or badge revocation. We’re not against digital tools in common use by trade show organizers. We just want them to work for users, not against them.
Who benefits when trade shows lock down their data? It’s certainly not the attendee and definitely not the exhibitor. Show management captures first-party data and monetises it through premium listings. Data vendors like Map Your Show reinforce this by locking up value inside proprietary tools.
Then, ironically, lead-gen middlemen sell you the very same list you were trying to download for free.
Everyone else bleeds time and money.
You might wonder how these list brokers claim to have 40,000 IBC contacts. Maybe it’s scraped. Maybe it’s stolen or just made up. Whatever the case, it’s usually not GDPR-compliant—and yet it’s somehow easier to buy than to export the official exhibitor list.
What “Better” Looks Like
1. Instant CSV export for everyone. Everyone registered should be able to grab a nightly, GDPR-compliant spreadsheet of the categorised exhibitor list—no hoops to jump through. This one simple act solves 80% of the planning pain.
2. Modern, searchable taxonomy. Replace the 208 antiques with a slim tag system and add AI / natural‑language search so people can simply type, “Show me IP / ST 2110 vendors.”
We ran the Media Connect 365 series for years: a transparent, people-driven metadata layer that helped connect buyers and sellers in a meaningful way. (More on that here.)
It’s a benchmark organisers can aspire to—and for everyone else, a reminder to plan smarter around today’s limitations, whether that means curating your own contact list, setting meetings early, or using third-party tools like we did with Media Connect 365 to match buyers and sellers directly.
The Bottom Line
Trade shows succeed when they reduce friction, not preserve it.
Trade show organizers should enable download access to a simple, structured list of who’s exhibiting. No emails, no personal data, just names, categories, and booth numbers. GDPR doesn’t block that, and their Map Your Show software already supports it.
The need is obvious.
This simple fix helps attendees plan and increases the odds that exhibitors get meaningful visits. It should be standard.
We should also point out that not every trade show organizer has such locked-down practices, as I wrote in my article on expanding trade show strategies.
Those who register are there to see the exhibitors, but the exhibitor list is technically accessible but functionally locked down. A basic “Download Exhibitor List” button—behind email verification if you must—delivers more planning value than any virtual lobby, AI widget, or glossy app.
When an exhibitor list is hidden or incomplete:
· Attendees burn hours
· Exhibitors miss out meeting interesting prospects and
· Organisers lose goodwill and, ultimately, re‑bookings when meeting ROI drops—because qualified connections, not badge scans, keep a show alive.
The value of a trade show is measured in how quickly it connects people who need each other. Anything that slows that down erodes the business case for everyone involved.
Just make it possible.
Janet Greco, August 2025
Broadcast Projects helps media and entertainment technology companies cut through the noise. Whether you're refining your positioning, creating standout content, or supporting commercial goals around trade shows, our work turns communications into meaningful business outcomes.
We also support the media and entertainment technology community with resources and support including:
> The IBC and NAB Annual Party Lists
> Our TV Industry Events Hub - calendar of industry events
> And our press release distribution service
Want to prep smarter for your next trade show?