Exhibiting takes 40.8 percent of exhibitor marketing budgets, ranked the number one channel in the mix. (CEIR, 2026 Marketing Spend Decision Report)
Good news for everyone who builds in this market. The second number is the one worth sitting with.
Exhibit space now takes 40.5 percent of total exhibit spend, up from 37.9 percent in 2017. (CEIR, How the Exhibit Dollar Is Spent, April 2026)
Floor space is the largest line inside the largest channel, and it has gained 2.6 points in eight years. Every point it gains comes out of something else.
Satisfaction moved first
Exhibitor Net Promoter Score rose from minus 6 in 2021 to 35. A 41 point swing in four years. (CEIR, May 2026)
Roughly 40 percent of exhibitors added events to their programs in 2025. Nearly 30 percent expect to add more in 2026, and 47 percent plan to exhibit at the same number as last year. (CEIR)
Three quarters invest in digital channels alongside the show rather than instead of it. The channel is not being replaced. It is being surrounded.
Where the money is not going
52 percent plan to use their existing booth as is. (CEIR, April 2026)
Hold those two facts together. More shows, same booth. Budgets are expanding across the calendar while the physical asset gets amortized across more dates.
Rational for a brand manager. Difficult for a builder. Growth in the channel does not automatically become growth in the work.
What it means for the people who make the experiences
The spend is real. United States exhibitor direct spend runs to 30 billion dollars, and that figure excludes downstream economic impact. (CEIR)
But the shape of the spend is shifting toward fixed cost. Space is bought before creative is briefed. When space takes a larger share and booths are reused, the discretionary pool that funds strategy, content, measurement and the experience itself is the line under pressure.
The agencies that grow here will be the ones selling something other than fabrication. Measurement wired to the CRM. Content that travels between shows. Programs that make one booth carry a longer calendar.
What the Pulse tracks
Exhibit space as a share of total exhibit spend, year over year.
The share of exhibitors reusing rather than rebuilding.
The split between fabrication revenue and strategy, content and measurement revenue at agencies in this market.
Headcount movement on experiential growth and measurement seats.
The work
AP staffs the seats this shift creates. Growth leaders who sell a program rather than a build. Measurement and operations people who can prove what a show returned. Strategists who make a reused booth carry a new idea.
Sources: Center for Exhibition Industry Research, 2026 Marketing Spend Decision Report, reported by Trade Show Executive, May 8, 2026. CEIR, How the Exhibit Dollar Is Spent, Nancy Drapeau, VP Research, via Trade Show News Network, April 21, 2026, survey fielded late 2025.