By Chuck Nyren, http://advertisingtobabyboomers.blogspot.com
Last September I was on
a
speaking/consulting tour in Europe. One of the stops was
Utrecht, The Netherlands at a private business symposium coinciding with the
annual 50PlusBeurs.
The symposium was running
late. Very late. ; Just before I was to go on (an hour and a half after
I was scheduled) they asked me to do a twenty-minute presentation instead of
my usual fifty. ; I did (and wasn’t happy with the way it went), then headed
out of the conference room with Brent
Green, Carol
Orsborn, and my More-Significant-Than-I-Am Other to look around.
We’d
never seen anything like it. I’d heard what it was, but was nowhere near prepared.
Ninety-five thousand people in five days. Over twenty thousand the day we were
there. ; Six huge halls. Five hundred and eighty exhibits. The sheer immensity
was overwhelming. ; AARP
puts on an Expo every year – but it’s one-quarter the size.
And with only an hour and
a half to goof off we only saw about one-quarter of the exhibits, maybe. ;
The four of us were racing around. ; That’s how big it was. Nobody could
see it all in one day.
For example, there must’ve
been fifteen bicycle exhibitors with at least one hundred bikes to check out
– and room to ride them in a demo area. ; Next, I climbed in and out of
about twenty motor-homes – but never made it to the automobiles or motorcycles.
No time. ;
I never even entered four
of the six halls. ; One I just glanced in. ; It looked something like
this: ;
Almost every exhibit was
over the top, a show in itself. ; Click
here to watch a Windows Media Video that gives you a good idea of the quality
and variety of offerings. ;
What’s really amazing about
this event is the return rate for exhibitors: 85%. They make money, they know
it’s a great investment, great promotion. They know it’s a great market segment.
The
average age of 50PlusBeurs attendees is sixty-one. So the entertainment
and general feel is for a slightly older demographic than Baby Boomers. My guess
is that this will change over the next five or so years.
Time was up. ; We had
to fly to Munich. I was working, not playing (I kept telling myself – for practically
the whole two-week tour).
I want to get back to 50PlusBeurs
someday so I can really soak it in.
If
you are involved in the European 50+ Market, 50PlusBeurs is
something you should see. ; And don’t worry about waiting a year or two
if you can’t make it next month. ; It’ll just get bigger and bigger. This
year they’ll break 100,000 in attendance. ; My guess is that the turnout
won’t plateau for a decade. ;
Download
the English version of the 50PlusBeurs Brochure for 2008.
