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Professional Courtesy: It’s (Always) Showtime by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine

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It’s (Always) Showtime
by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine

National dental meetings are like portable bigbox stores with aisle after aisle of dental products; all the equipment, services and supplies that make it possible for me and you to make a living. This longstanding concept is quite logical. Take the items that are often only seen in catalogs and bring them to life so a dentist can rapidly gain an appreciation for the items available in the marketplace. However, the system seems a bit broken lately with some shows reporting a decline in attendance and exhibitors under financial strain to justify the enormous expense associated with exhibiting at a show. We are the participants in this system and it will be up to us to guide the solution. I have provided questions after each section to generate some discussion online about this complex topic.

How many shows is enough?

I referred to national dental meetings in the opening paragraph and I should provide more detail. Each year I attend some of the biggest meetings in the country: CDA North, ADA, Greater New York, Chicago Midwinter, Townie Meeting, CDA South and AGD to name a few. We should not forget Yankee Dental Congress and the Hinman Dental Meeting which, similar to Chicago, are local meetings with a national presence. I would be remiss not to mention the Western Regional Dental Meeting held in Arizona every spring. There are also state dental meetings for nearly every state in the union, as well as local dental society meetings and numerous academies. You get the idea. Do we need to change the number of meetings?

The financial burden on exhibitors is tremendous.

I know a couple of you said, "I'm glad, their stuff is too expensive." There is not enough room for that debate right now. These exhibitors are incurring an expense to support their customers' state and local dental associations. The booth space alone at a dental meeting can cost thousands of dollars; add to that the cost of shipping their supplies and add the cost of people in the booth, travel, hotel rooms and food. Imagine the business that they need to generate every time they attend a dental meeting in order to justify the expense. What would it cost you to take your office staff to a dental meeting that required airfare and hotel for three days? If you don't fly with your team, do you take them to the biggest dental meeting in your area each year?

Is this meeting "exhibitor friendly"?

Meeting organizers work very hard to encourage attendees to visit the exhibit space. They will make announcements after CE lectures, serve food, hold contests and even schedule special blocks of time with the express goal of getting attendees to visit the exhibits. Any and all efforts are appreciated by the exhibitors, and as attendees, we should remember that the exhibitors often carry the financial burden of the meeting. Do you make it a habit to spend a reasonable amount of time in the exhibit hall when you attend a dental meeting? If not, why?

My name tag has a target on it.

The color-coded name badges are certainly a clever innovation but they have also scared more than one person away from the exhibit floor. Some vendors cannot control their enthusiasm and the dentists often complain that they are "attacked" when they try to stroll through the exhibits. Every two years, I attend the largest dental meeting in the world - IDS in Cologne, Germany. I never feel attacked there because the exhibit hall is so busy the attendees are vying for the exhibitors' attention. Simple lesson: there is safety in numbers, so bring a bunch of people into the exhibit hall with you. How would you improve the experience for attendees visiting the exhibit hall?

The show special isn't so special anymore.

Let's face it, one of the motivators for dentists to spend money is getting a great deal. Since the dawn of the dental meeting, the "show special" was just that: a deal you could only get during the show. This concept seems to provide the best of both worlds: motivation to attend the show and the appropriate pressure to make a purchase. With the vast number of shows, the pressure to please their customers and a number of other possible explanations, the show special has lost its sparkle. I can often call a vendor and ask for the current show special over the phone. This is likely one of those times that nobody wants to go first, but I think exhibitors should return to the notion of specials that can only be found at shows. After all, we need to justify the trip to ourselves somehow and saving a few hundred dollars makes the hotel bill a bit more palatable. What advice would you give to exhibitors that want to attract more dentists to their booth?

I hope this commentary will spark your interest to share your comments online in the message board thread associated with this article. You can also send comments to me via e-mail: tom@dentaltown.com or find me on Twitter @ddsTom. Make it your New Year's resolution to attend one new dental show in 2014 and choose the Townie Meeting in Las Vegas, April 23-26!
Dentaltown Magazine
September 2025
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