B2B trade show and event glossary

MICE stands for Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions, the travel industry segment dedicated to professional gatherings and business events.

A trade show is a professional event where companies from an industry exhibit their products and services to visitors with buying intent.

A conference is a professional event that gathers an industry around a program of talks, panels and networking, built on content rather than exhibition.

An exhibitor is a company that books space at a trade show to present its products, gain visibility and meet potential customers face to face.

An exhibitor list is the directory of companies exhibiting at a trade show. It is the raw material of event prospecting for B2B sales teams.

An attendee list is the record of people and companies registered for a trade show or conference. It shows who will be in the room before the event starts.

Trade show, expo and exhibition largely describe the same kind of event. The terms differ in emphasis, audience and how commercial the event is.

A trade visitor is someone who attends a trade show for professional reasons, representing a company and holding buying power or influence over decisions.

A roadshow is a series of events a company runs across several cities to present its product to local customers with a short, repeatable format.

A trade show booth is the space a company rents and builds at a trade show to present its products and host conversations with visitors.

A vertical trade show focuses on one industry and its value chain. A horizontal show brings several industries together around a crosscutting theme.

A hosted buyer is a professional buyer a trade show organizer invites with expenses covered, in exchange for meetings with selected exhibitors.

Trade show networking is the work of building professional contacts during an event. Prepared well, it turns the show into an agenda of conversations.

A trade show badge is the credential that identifies each participant at a professional event, certifies their profile and grants access to the venue.

Lead retrieval is the system exhibitors use to capture the contact details of booth visitors, usually by scanning the badge each attendee wears.

Trade show ROI is the return a company gets on its investment in an event, comparing the business generated with the total cost of taking part.

B2B lead generation is the process of identifying companies that could become customers and getting hold of a qualified contact inside them.

A lead is a person or company that has shown interest in what you sell and whose contact details you have, so the conversation can continue.

An ideal customer profile or ICP describes the company that gets the most value from your product and focuses prospecting on the best-fit accounts.

B2B matchmaking connects the participants of an event according to their commercial interests and proposes meetings between those with mutual fit.

Lead scoring assigns each lead a score based on its probability of buying, combining company fit with the interest signals the contact shows.

A qualified lead is a contact that has passed a filter of fit and interest. MQL when marketing qualifies it and SQL once sales validates the opportunity.

Sales prospecting is the active search for potential customers, identifying the companies that fit your offer and the right person inside each one.

A buyer persona is the portrait of the person who decides or influences the purchase. It complements the ICP, which describes the target company.

A lead magnet is a free resource a company offers in exchange for a potential customer's contact details, such as a guide, a template or a tool.

Lead nurturing is the process of accompanying a lead with useful content and touchpoints until it is ready to buy, adapting the message to its stage.

Event lead generation is the practice of using professional events, especially trade shows, to identify and capture potential customers for a B2B team.

B2B event marketing is the strategy of using professional events to generate demand and build relationships with business buyers.

Event intelligence is the discipline of turning trade show and event data into actionable sales information, identifying and ranking attending companies.

Event tech is the set of technologies used to organize, manage and get value from professional events, from registration software to data platforms.