Marie Dubois
Head of Procurement @ Lyon Retail Group
14:00 – 14:20
For trade show & congress organizers
Matchmaking for
Trade Shows & Congresses.
Walk-in traffic turns into planned business meetings. Converve connects exhibitors, trade visitors and congress attendees, with pre-planned 1:1 meetings at the booth and networking around sessions and speakers.
- Exhibitor ↔ Visitor matching
- Congress & sessions
- Badge & on-site check-in
Keynote: Procurement 2030
Michael Padell
Speaker · Industry 4.0
Lukas Brenner
Trade visitor @ Brenner Automation
Booth B12 · 14:00 – 14:20
Decline Accept
Trusted by leading trade show and congress organizers
The challenge
Thousands of encounters, but the right ones?
At trade shows and congresses, thousands cross paths, but do the ones who actually do business meet? Converve turns halls and sessions into a fully planned agenda of relevant meetings that you can measure.
Exhibitor ↔ Visitor matching
The meeting matrix controls who can meet whom. Exhibitors, trade visitors and buyers are brought together with purpose, never at random.
Congress: sessions & speakers
Session matching, speaker profiles and program networking, talks and 1:1 meetings interlock seamlessly.
Meetings right at the booth
Automated scheduling with booth and table assignment. Clash-free schedules for exhibitors and visitors, synced across the entire venue.
Lead capture & reporting
Badge scan, lead capture and reporting that proves trade show success in numbers, meetings, contacts and satisfaction at a glance.
Planned meetings 
From trade show chaos to a clash-free agenda
From trade show chaos to a clash-free agenda How it works
From trade show chaos to a planned agenda.
Exhibitors, visitors and speakers record what they offer and what they're looking for. The MyMatch algorithm suggests fitting contacts, both sides send meeting requests, and Converve automatically builds a clash-free booth and session schedule from them.
- Exhibitor, visitor & speaker categories freely definable
- Booth-based scheduling, adjustable live
- Session & speaker matching for the congress program
- Lead scan, badge printing & on-site desk
Exhibitor portal & event website
One portal where exhibitors handle everything themselves.
Managing hundreds of exhibitors usually means: collecting data, maintaining profiles, chasing deadlines. In Converve's exhibitor portal, exhibitors maintain their profile, booth staff and offerings themselves, and become instantly matchable. The event website is built in the same system: program, exhibitor list and registration are always up to date. For ILA Berlin, the exhibitor portal and matchmaking platform were delivered on schedule despite the short planning window.
- Exhibitors maintain profiles & booth data themselves
- Every exhibitor profile is instantly matchable
- Event website with program & exhibitor list
- Your own branding, your own domain
“We received a lot of positive feedback on the event app. Thanks to Converve, people talked with more of the right people.” — Malte Kettler, E.I.S Profi Treff 2026
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fully planned booth meetings
The process
Three steps to a fully planned trade show.
From the exhibitor portal to the lead report, this is how B2B matchmaking works at your trade show with Converve.
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Create profiles & categories
Exhibitors, trade visitors and speakers register through their own paths; the exhibitor portal collects booth data and profiles. Using the meeting matrix, you define which groups can see and meet each other.
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Request & confirm meetings
The MyMatch algorithm suggests the best-fitting contacts to both sides. Visitors request meetings at the booth, exhibitors confirm, and the clash-free schedule automatically rules out double bookings.
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Show day: meet, scan, measure
Everyone arrives with a ready-made booth and session agenda. On site, check-in, badge printing and lead scanning all run through the same platform, and afterwards the reporting proves meetings, contacts and satisfaction.
Typical pain points
Where trade show networking fails in practice, and how Converve solves it.
These six problems are the ones we hear from trade show and congress organizers again and again. For each one there's a built-in answer.
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Exhibitors question their ROI
Booth space alone justifies the cost less and less often. Pre-planned 1:1 meetings with qualified visitors give exhibitors a measurable reason to attend, and to come back the following year.
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Walk-in traffic instead of decision-makers
Lots of contacts, little substance. Supply and demand profiles plus the meeting matrix make sure buyers and providers find each other with purpose, not by the random luck of the aisles.
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Booth meetings clash with the program
Keynotes, sessions and 1:1 meetings compete for the same time slot. Converve schedules booth meetings around the congress program, one agenda for everything, with no overlaps.
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Leads fade away after the show
Stacks of business cards instead of usable data. Badge scan and lead capture make every contact instantly exportable, including the meeting history, via Excel export or an interface into your CRM.
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Meetings scattered across the whole venue
Booth and table assignment factors in locations, instead of sending attendees back and forth across the halls. Changes on show day are pushed live to both sides.
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Success stays a gut feeling
The reporting proves meetings, contacts and satisfaction, per exhibitor and for the event overall. Exactly the numbers that convince exhibitors for next year.
What is B2B matchmaking at trade shows and congresses?
B2B matchmaking at trade shows means the targeted, pre-planned scheduling of 1:1 business meetings between exhibitors and trade visitors, instead of hoping for random booth visits. To do this, a matchmaking platform like Converve compares supply and demand profiles, suggests fitting conversation partners and schedules confirmed meetings clash-free right at the booth, coordinated with congress sessions, check-in and lead capture. Organizers such as ILA Berlin (Messe Berlin) turn walk-in traffic into measurable business meetings this way.
Frequently asked questions
How does scheduling meetings at the trade show booth work with Converve?
Trade visitors find exhibitors through profiles and MyMatch suggestions and request meetings; the exhibitor confirms. Converve schedules all confirmed meetings clash-free with booth or table assignment and places them around the congress program. Both sides receive a personal agenda that updates live when something changes.
Can exhibitors manage their meetings and profiles themselves?
Yes. In the exhibitor portal, exhibitors maintain their company profile, their booth staff and their offerings themselves; every team member has their own meeting calendar with their own availability. This takes pressure off the project lead and keeps the data current, from the catalog entry to the matching profile.
How do the leads get from the booth into our CRM?
With a badge scan, contacts are captured digitally at the booth and linked to the meeting history. All leads can be exported as Excel or transferred directly into CRM systems via the documented REST API and Zapier (1,500+ apps), with no manual retyping after the show.
Does Converve also work for congresses with a talk program?
Yes. Sessions, speaker profiles and program networking are integrated: attendees are matched to relevant program items (session matching), and 1:1 meetings are scheduled automatically around the booked sessions. Talks and meetings interlock that way, instead of cannibalizing each other.
How do check-in and badge printing work on site?
Converve supports session-based check-in, barcode scanning and badge printing right at the entrance or counter. The info desk tool helps your team reschedule meetings, answer attendee questions and handle last-minute changes on show day.
Can Converve be integrated with existing trade show systems?
Yes. There's a fully documented REST API, a Zapier connection to over 1,500 apps, XML/CSV data import and export, plus hardware integrations for badge scanning and ticket printing. Existing registration or exhibitor systems can feed in data or receive it.
What trade show sizes is Converve designed for?
Converve is designed for B2B events with roughly 50 to 5,000 participants, from the specialist congress to international flagship trade shows like ILA Berlin. What matters is less the size than the goal: if planned business meetings between exhibitors and visitors define your trade show success, Converve is a fit.
What does Converve cost for a trade show or congress?
The price depends on the participant count and the modules you choose, such as matchmaking, exhibitor portal, event website and on-site tools. On the pricing page, the configurator gives you a ballpark figure in two minutes; a non-binding quote follows in a conversation with our event experts.
Are you planning a trade show or congress?
Let's talk about your format, we'll show you how Converve brings exhibitors, visitors and speakers together. Free and with no obligation.