Sponsor and exhibitor (SPEX) packages at membership association events have come a long way from the days when a couple of disinterested sales staff with a limp pull-up banner were banished to the corner of the room. But for some membership associations, SPEX revenues still fall far short of their potential.
Wonderly runs events of all sizes in a variety of sectors, from the RCGP’s headline-grabbing annual conference to one-day conferences and seminars. And in June, we drew more than 11,000 attendees to the latest CIPD Festival of Work, where HR and L&D professionals come together with business leaders to discover and debate the human-centric future of work.
SPEX revenue is central to the Festival, and this year saw records smashed yet again, with year-on-year overall revenue growth of 50% and an increase in rebookings among exhibitors of 87% for the 2025 event. We asked the team behind the numbers for their tips on maximising SPEX revenues at professional association events.
1) Get the basics right
It might sound obvious, but without a compelling proposition that connects with your core audience, you won’t have an event that industry partners want to be associated with. That starts with deeply understanding your target market – who exactly you are expecting to attend, including their demographic details, spending power and precise job titles – and connecting with them in a way that positions your event as the answer to their key challenges.
2) Maximise delegate footfall
The primary driver for attending most professional association events is content, and this can be expanded into the exhibition halls with additional stages – these can house research presentations, expert panels and industry-sponsored sessions that run throughout the day in parallel to the main programme, keeping the energy in the hall high with exhibitors and sponsors all day long. Added interest can be generated through poster boards, meet the expert and networking sessions, and wellbeing areas. Sponsors and exhibitors that enjoy a high level of engagement with quality delegates throughout the day are most likely to rebook for the following year.
3) Personalise the visitor experience
“We want to make sure not only that people come in, but that they stay here,” says Jade Scaffardi, Wonderly’s commercial director. The key is a floorplan that shows delegates how easy it is to find the content they want – and includes sponsors and exhibitors as a central part of the experience.
As Jade points out, that starts before delegates arrive – the 2024 CIPD Festival of Work featured a colour coded exhibitor directory which aligned with the broader content topics of the event and flowed through into the floorplan. First time exhibitors were particularly highlighted. Moving to a new venue, London’s ExCeL exhibition centre, meant we could accommodate more visitors and afforded us the space to better integrate exhibitors into the content stages, so they benefited from as much passing traffic as possible.
Exhibitors were particularly pleased with a new “demo trail” which showcased businesses with software and other tech solutions to show off. “From a visitor point of view, watching a demo is often the best way to understand how a product or service works,” says Jade.
4) Maximise the opportunity
It’s not unusual to see sponsored lanyards, wifi or charging stations at professional association events, but at this year’s Festival we looked outside as well as inside for inspiration. Digital screens and banners added colour and dynamism to the main routes from local stations to the venue itself, creating a buzz before delegates arrived – and drummers and dancers on the event’s opening morning only enhanced the experience. The move to ExCeL also afforded us more choice when it came to digital sponsorship opportunities, which offered a more interactive and creative approach to branding.
It all constituted a new sponsorship opportunity, and exhibitors were only too pleased to get their names in front of visitors before they arrived through the doors. And once there, the first thing many delegates look for is detail on talks and presentations – which is why the opportunity to advertise on information screens was one of the hottest tickets at the Festival.
5) Stay away from sales pitches
Done well, offering sponsors speaking slots and other content opportunities is a win-win – it generates additional revenue, better integrates them into the event and delights delegates as it adds to their conference experience. Done badly, however, it can be a major turn-off.
“Content sessions that turn into sales pitches don’t work for our audience. In fact, they don’t work for any audience,” says Ross Banford, partnership director at Wonderly. “It’s about shared learning and case study-led activity.”
Having a sales team which works closely with programme committee and organisers to fully understand the topics and themes of the show means they can help brief sponsors to seamlessly fit into these themes and maximise the impact of their speaker sessions. Many are encouraged to bring clients with them, to speak to visitors on a peer-to-peer basis.
6) Take a consultative approach
Selling SPEX opportunities is a year-round undertaking for the Wonderly team; conversations begin months before the Festival of Work agenda is announced, and centre around what exhibitors want to achieve from the opportunity. Is it about brand awareness, or direct lead generation? Do they want to impress visitors with their subject matter knowledge or demo a new product?
It helps if you have a portfolio of products you can sell across, rather than a standalone event – but in either case, says Jade, helping clients feel they are co-creating a solution rather than being involved in a transaction is key.
“We try to offer a multi-channel approach to exhibitors – you get to be in the hall, on the website, in the magazine, and you can activate lead generation after the event too. Our commercial team has worked incredibly hard this year to deliver the fantastic results we’ve seen at the CIPD Festival of Work, and that’s all down to the deep relationships they have developed with clients.”
Find out more about our commercial work with the CIPD on the Wonderly website, or get in touch to discuss how we can help you maximise your sponsorship and exhibition revenues.
