CHICAGO — Trade Show Executive (TSE) has compiled the data for Q3 trade shows in 2025, revealing sluggish rates of growth.
“Exhibit space and exhibitor numbers ticked up just 0.8% and 0.6%, respectively, in the third quarter of 2025, while total attendance dropped (2.1)%,” Carri Jensen, Director of Research for TSE, said. “Still, roughly one-third of the shows in the TSE Q3 Dashboard managed double-digit growth in at least one of the three key metric categories. The report spotlights two TSE Gold 100 standouts, WEFTEC (Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition & Conference) and the triennial International Baking Industry Exposition (IBIE), who shared the effective strategies driving their success in September.”
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The Q3 Dashboard analyzes 38 trade shows in total. While overall nsf growth slowed for the fourth quarter in a row, individual events still had positive, if minimal gains to report. Twenty-five shows expanded nsf while five achieved double-digit improvements. In terms of exhibitors, 25 gatherings experienced upticks, six of which had growth in double-digits. Merely 16 trade shows recorded attendance gains, however six of those attained double-digit increases.
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To present the clearest picture of the industry, Dashboard data is filtered to remove outliers and shows without a consecutive two-year comparison. The adjusted metrics reflect 3,734,191 nsf, 16,049 exhibitors and 256,770 attendees in total throughout all events in the sample.
The lagging growth metrics of Q3 are the latest data point along a concerning trend line for the industry. With the exception of a slight rise in attendee growth between Q4 2024 and Q1 2025, growth has stagnated throughout the previous four quarters and attendees are declining. It remains to be seen if shows in Q4 2025 will continue this trend or reverse it, but escalating economic uncertainty and policy issues such as the recent shutdown of the U.S. government suggest a troubling outlook for the near future.
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This is certainly not the first time in recent memory that the industry has seen declines in attendance. Attendees dropped at a significant (12.8)% rate in Q1 2022 and slid again by (0.8)% in Q2 before rebounding with 12.5% growth in Q3. During that time, nsf and exhibitor growth stayed the same or expanded. While much of the fall off in attendance can be attributed to caution surrounding the COVID omicron variant, exhibiting companies showed few signs of altering event strategies as evidenced by the unabated return towards pre-COVID numbers in both nsf and exhibiting companies. The movement of these two metrics in the 2025 Q4 Dashboard as well as the 2026 Dashboard reports will be key in clarifying whether exhibitors perceive the current economic headwinds as a temporary obstacle to be navigated or long-term issue requiring strategic adjustments.
Check out the full Dashboard in the December issue of TSE Magazine. Subscribe to receive a copy today at https://tsx.magserv.com/cgi-bin/subscribe.
To submit show data to be included in TSE’s quarterly analysis, use this link: https://tradeshowexecutive.com/dashboardentryform.
