Exhibitor Online has a fantabulous article posted today that highlights the 10 ideas that changed the trade show industry. From the McCormick Place fire (safety standards followed) to the invention of velcro (less need for nails, tacks and blood when creating displays) – it’s a funny, well-written piece about the gig we all know and love.
Here’s a snippet that details the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations in London in 1851 – kinda ground zero for trade shows:
For centuries, trade shows were as boring as the livestock, cloth, or herring they displayed. People convened near churches to swap or sell goods displayed on foul-smelling donkey carts. Pressured by industrialization and rising consumer markets, the doddering system passed into history in 1851 at the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations in London. The Exhibition’s crown jewel was the Crystal Palace, the McCormick Place of its day. Designed by Sir Joseph Paxton in just 10 days, and built in only nine months, the 746,592-square-foot glass-and-iron exhibit hall was so huge that management was forced to bring in hawks to control the rogue sparrow population, which flew in the Palace’s many entrances to scavenge the litter of free food left by its six million visitors.
Setting the stage for exhibitions to come, here were some of the highlights of the show:
- New product launches, including false teeth, flush toilets, and Colt revolvers.
- Live product demos. English physicist Frederick Bakewell demonstrated an early version of what became the fax machine.
- Oversized props and bizarre attractions, including a 4-ton crystal fountain that squirted water 250 feet in the air, and the first life-sized reproductions of dinosaurs.
- Celebrity-for-celebrity’s-sake appearances, from Queen Victoria to Czar Alexander II of Russia.
- Profit for the show sponsor — $17.5 million in today’s currency.
Enjoy!
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