Exhibitor training Give them a reason to come back
Tracie Crites founded Events Authority after more than fifteen years in the IT channel, buying sponsorships as a Chief Channel Officer and owning a festival's sponsor relationships. CRN 2025 Channel Chief and Woman of the Channel.
Exhibitor and sponsor training for conference, association, festival and trade show organizers: we get the companies on your floor ready to earn a return from it.
A sponsor who got a return this year has a reason to book next year. Helping them get it is part of keeping them.
What you get
- Scope. Training before the show on what decides whether a booth or sponsorship pays off, plus short coaching sessions on site during the event. That is the shape it took the one time it has run, not a fixed package; we fit it to your event.
- Outcome. Exhibitors and sponsors who arrive with a plan for the floor and leave with conversations worth following up. We don’t put a number on it, because there is no host result on record yet.
- Timeline. Before your event, while exhibitors are still planning, and on the floor during it.
- Who it’s for. Event hosts in any industry who own exhibitor and sponsor renewals.
- Who it’s not for. A company that wants to train its own booth team. That’s trade show consulting.
How does it work?
The training walks your exhibitors through the habits that separate a booth that pays from one that just shows up.
- Huddle first. Before the doors open, each booth team agrees on its message and what it wants from the show.
- Talk, don’t pitch. Open with curiosity. A good question does more than a closing line.
- Own the booth. Phones away, faces to the aisle, lunch somewhere else.
- Carry the brand off the floor. Badge on, no venting in public. The brand goes wherever the team goes, afterparty included.
- Follow up on purpose. A short sync after the show, or at the end of each day, so contacts from the floor turn into real conversations.
Where has this run?
Tracie Crites, through SALT Strategies, ran these sessions at no charge before and during IT Nation Connect 2025.
Before the show, she co-presented a webinar with ConnectWise for the vendors heading to it, on getting a better return from the event. During the show, she offered short, complimentary brand and booth sessions in the Coaching Café, open to vendors and IT service providers who booked a slot.
That is the record so far, and it was unpaid.
From ConnectWise, the day after the webinar:
“Tracie Crites I wanted to send a note to THANK YOU for the time and expertise you generously volunteered to support our vendor community in preparation for the IT Nation conference during yesterday’s webinar. You shared invaluable perspective and contributions toward educating and equipping our participants.”
Davina Collins, Manager, Global Event Sales, ConnectWise (IT Nation) · LinkedIn, October 15, 2025
Separately, and before this service existed, the founder of The Tech Tribe thanked her in 2024 for supporting its first event:
“Thanks so much for supporting our first ever event”
Nigel Moore, Founder, The Tech Tribe · LinkedIn, October 2, 2024
Why she does it, in her words from the post announcing the webinar:
I’m passionate about helping vendors show up with purpose, presence, and impact.
Tracie Crites · Founder, Events Authority
Events Authority is led by Tracie Crites. She leads every engagement.
Common questions
What does the training cover? What decides whether a booth or sponsorship pays off: the message and goals set before the show, conversations instead of pitches, presence on the floor, conduct off it, and a follow-up plan for afterwards.
How is it delivered? The one time it has run, it was a pre-show session for exhibitors plus short coaching sessions on site during the event. Treat that as a starting shape; we fit it to your show and the companies on your floor.
Who delivers it? Tracie Crites leads every engagement, before the show and on your floor.
Has this been done before? Once, at no charge, before and during IT Nation Connect 2025. This is the first time it is offered as a paid service.
We exhibit at shows. Is this for our booth team? No. The event host buys this for the companies on its floor. If you want your own booth team trained, our trade show consulting is the right fit.
Designing the sponsor program itself? See sponsorship program design.
Where do you start?
Tell us about your event, who exhibits at it, and which sponsors you most want back. You get a written read on where they are likely to lose the return they paid for.