How a show progresses
The stages a trade show moves through from first draft to closing day, what changes for exhibitors and visitors at each one, and what has to be true before it can move on.
A show does not simply exist or not exist. It moves through stages, and each one changes who can see it and what they can do. Knowing which stage you are in answers most day-to-day questions — why exhibitors cannot apply yet, why the public site still shows the floor plan instead of the programme, why you cannot open ticket sales.
The stages
Draft
You are building the show and nobody else can see it. Add the dates, the venue, the floor, your pricing — as much or as little as you like, in any order.
Nothing is public and nothing can be sold. This is the stage to change your mind in.
Submitted for review
You have said the show is ready. It goes to Bidancer for a check that it is a real, complete event — not a judgement on your prices, your tiers or your policies, which stay yours.
If something is missing it comes back with a note saying what. You fix it and submit again.
Approved
The show has passed review. It still is not public — approval means you are cleared to publish, and publishing is your decision and your timing.
Open to exhibitors and sponsors
You publish. The show's own site goes live and starts selling: the floor plan is visible, packages are purchasable, and businesses can apply for booths or sponsorship.
This is the acquisition stage. Everything on the public site is pointed at the people who might take part.
Onboarding closed
You confirm the show. The floor is settled, and the site turns around to face visitors instead — who is exhibiting, what is on, why to come.
You choose when this happens. It is not automatic, because only you know when your floor is full enough.
Show days
The doors open. Visitors check in at the entrance, exhibitors capture leads at their stands, and your team works from the live view of what is happening.
Wrapped up
The show is over. Everything from it — who attended, who exhibited, the leads captured — stays available.
A show can also be cancelled
At any point before it runs, and a show that fails review is turned down rather than left in limbo. Neither is a dead end you have to work around: a cancelled show keeps its record.
Why you cannot always move forward
Each move has a checklist behind it, and the show will tell you what is unfinished rather than failing quietly. The commonest blocker at publish is a payment account that has not been connected — nothing can be sold until there is somewhere for the money to go.
Every unmet item links straight to the setting that fixes it, so "why can't I publish" is a question the screen answers.
The reason for the friction is simple. An exhibitor who pays for a booth at a show with no venue has a problem the platform helped create. The checks exist so that a stage only becomes reachable when the things it implies are actually true.
Exhibitors and sponsors have their own progress
Someone taking part moves through their own sequence, independent of yours. A show being open does not mean a particular exhibitor has paid.
An exhibitor is invited or applies, chooses a booth, pays, and is confirmed.
A sponsor is shorter: expressing interest, paying, confirmed. There is no floor position to allocate, so there is nothing between agreeing a tier and settling it.
Either can withdraw or be turned down, and both show you exactly where they are — so "who has actually paid" is something you filter for, not something you reconstruct from a spreadsheet.
Signing up is one flow
Whether someone arrives to exhibit, sponsor or attend, they follow the same sequence: give their details, choose what they are buying, create an account, verify their business, pay, and they are in.
They can start before creating an account — being asked to sign up in order to find out the price is exactly the friction that loses an organiser exhibitors. Progress is remembered, so closing the tab or switching to a phone does not lose their place.
If someone abandons it, the booth they were looking at goes back on the floor rather than sitting reserved for nobody.
Registering & passes
How to register for a show, claim a pass someone shared with you, what the different kinds of pass allow, and what happens when you check in.
Costs
Who pays what on a trade show — the organiser, exhibitors and sponsors each have credit charges — how each of them earns credits back, and why none of it touches your ticket and booth revenue.