Yuengling Shamrock Marathon Leverages EventHub to Sell Out Booth Space

Meet: Yuengling Shamrock Marathon (by J&A Racing)

Type of Event: Endurance road race and expo
Attendance: 30,000
Affiliations: Running USA

Overview: Every March Virginia Beach-based J&A Racing produces its annual flagship event, the Yuengling Shamrock Marathon. The race features a large expo of more than 70 partners, with a blend of sponsors, retailers, samplers, and other race promoters. Read below to learn how they leveraged EventHub’s core platform features: their marketplace-listed registration page to sell out of booth space, an interactive expo map to organize layout and booth assignments, and EventHub’s management tool-suite to streamline exhibitor logistics and communication.

Challenge: New Role, No Time, No Problem

Expo manager James Bryan took over expo management in 2023 and was tasked with surpassing 2022 expo results. While they had sold out of expo space the previous year, it came at great effort and opportunity cost of focusing on other aspects of the race and expo. James was initially apprehensive about learning a new software system while also learning a new role. However, after his first onboarding session James felt that “It was almost ‘dummy-proof'” and that “everything was easy and intuitive”.

EventHub Result and Core Benefits:

$40,000 In Marketplace Generated Revenue

Surprising everyone was their immediate success upon launching their expo registration page on the marketplace. James reported that the marketplace directly led to booth sales for more than 30% of their exhibitors, and upwards of $40,000 in revenue. “I had such great interactions with everyone who inquired about us,” shares James. The system helped spur demand for premium spaces like corners and islands, which were marked up 10-15% versus inline space.

Selling Out of Booth Space Faster and How to Accommodate Excess Demand

James highlighted that they sold out of booth spaces three to four weeks faster than the previous year. “We had so much demand early on that we needed to find ways to add additional booths to the expo and eventually just had to shut it down as sold out.” “The (interactive expo) map created by EventHub but being editable in real-time by us (within the platform) was very helpful was very helpful with figuring out how to add those additional spaces.” In addition, he mentioned that even those who couldn’t make it in this year were primed to jump at the launch of booth registration next season.

Management Tools Saved More than a Week of Work

James discussed how the time-saving tools within the platform saved him more than a week’s worth of labor on management aspects of the expo alone. Even more so, when he considers the outreach time not needed to solicit additional exhibitors. “We collected COIs and food permitting (permits) through the document manager, and even when people emailed documents in directly, I could upload it (to their order).”

Stellar Support from EventHub Account Manager

James mentioned several times how easy it was to work with EventHub’s customer success team. “Everybody was very easy to deal with, and your support team was awesome in teaching us how to use certain features (like bulk messaging and logistics) as we got closer to the event.”

Conclusion: An ROI of nearly 25X BEFORE Time Savings

James concluded his customer interview by adding, “It’s well worth the investment. You pay for the platform but you don’t have to lift a finger, the vendors just come to you.” Editors note: James’ EventHub Rep Jamie Nassar feels that James is maybe being a bit modest here, and observed some smart decisions with pricing, marketing, and timing with their registration launch within EventHub that set the stage for their success. It has been exciting to see a growing number of events see this type of exponential success on the platform, both time savings around management efficiencies and in new revenue generation. Partially due to the success of their first cycle with EventHub, J & A added a second expo for their upcoming season that is also on EventHub. With multiple listings, the event pages amplify and feed one another by linking and also aggregating into an organization portfolio page. When discussing their additional event, James mentions that it “Takes the edge off of having to stress out about something else we don’t normally have to do, day-to-day, when we have something like this working for us.”

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