Event and booth analytics

Booth analyticsfor trade shows and events

Ariadne counts everyone who passes your booth, how many step in, how long they stay at the product wall, the demo, and the meeting lounge, and how that changes from show to show. Exhibitors see what a booth delivered beyond the scanned leads, and organisers can measure the halls and gates around it.

No cameras. No app. No badge scans needed.

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Siemens, Big Dutchman, Lutron, and the booth builder Pico measure trade fair booths with Ariadne.

Booth · Hall 4 · Show day
Live

Booth visitors today

2,860

Entrance count

Stepped in from the aisle

21%

Avg dwell at the booth

6 min

Booth visitors every 15 minutes, by zone

Illustrative view of Ariadne Analytics for one booth on a show day.

Booths and events measured with Ariadne

Big Dutchman logoCity of Traunstein logoEuropa-Park logoGolden State Warriors logoIntegrated Systems Events logoPico logoSiemens logoSkydeck Chicago logo

What it is

What booth and event analytics measures

Booth analytics is the measurement of how many people pass a booth, how many step in, how long they stay in each part of it, and how that changes from show to show. Event analytics extends the same measurement to the halls, gates, and fan zones around it. Ariadne does both with Hybrid Fusion, its patented camera-free method: Time-of-Flight sensors count entries at the booth and at hall doors, and phone signal sensing follows movement through the aisle and the booth zones. Both streams are combined centrally, live during the show and in the report after it.

Counting is the base layer of Ariadne's people counting platform, which also covers people counting for events and venues at larger scale, and the same sensors run consented visitor marketing and browser-based wayfinding. For organisers, read the event crowd management data playbook, and for stadiums, stadium ingress and egress design.

Products

What Ariadne measures at a booth

People counting is the layer underneath. Each of the six views on top of it answers one question an exhibitor or an organiser asks about the show.

Select a view to see what Ariadne measures at a booth

1 of 7

01

People counting

Used by: Every team at the show

Entries at the booth and at hall doors, visitors and dwell per zone, and flow between zones. The layer every view below runs on, measured without cameras.

95%+ counting accuracy in typical deployments

People counting platform

Illustrative sketches of what Ariadne measures at a booth and around it.

Show day

One booth, one show day

A show day decides what the booth was worth. Ariadne shows where visitors are at every hour: passing in the aisle, crowding the demo, settling into meetings, and thinning out before close.

  1. 09:30Doors openThe aisle fills first. Turn-in shows how many of the people passing step into the booth.
  2. 11:00Live demoThe demo area fills and dwell rises, and the aisle slows down in front of the booth.
  3. 14:30Second demoA second peak, and the visitors who stay move on to the meeting lounge.
  4. 17:30Last hoursFewer visitors, longer conversations: the meeting lounge peaks while the aisle empties.

Before

Plan staff and demo times on the last show's curve, and start from the booth layout that held visitors longest.

During

Live counts refresh as often as every five seconds on Ariadne Advanced, and threshold alerts reach email or Microsoft Teams.

After

A report per booth zone and per day as PDF and CSV, and a named show to compare the next one against.

Ariadne counts visitors, not leads. It shows what the booth drew, not who each visitor is.

Illustrative figures for one booth on one show day.

Uses

Booths first, events too

Most teams start with one booth at one show. The same measurement scales to brand activations, whole halls, fan zones, and city events.

  2. 02Brand activations and launches

    Activation audience per day, dwell in the experience zone, and opt-ins from a QR code.

    Who acts on it: Brand and agency teams

    • Dwell
    • Opt-in
    • Comparison
    Pop-up and activation footfall
Reference: what is measured and who acts on it
Where Ariadne measures booths and events, what it measures there, and who acts on it
UseWhat Ariadne measuresWho acts on it
01Trade fair boothsAisle traffic and turn-in, dwell per booth zone, flow inside the booth, and show-against-show comparison.Exhibitors, trade show managers, booth designers
02Brand activations and launchesActivation audience per day, dwell in the experience zone, and opt-ins from a QR code.Brand and agency teams
03Halls and conference floorsArrivals per hall entrance, flow between halls, and the busiest hours on each floor.Organisers, venue operations
04Sports venues and fan zonesArrivals per gate, concourse surges at half-time, and dwell in fan zones and sponsor areas.Venue operations, sponsorship sales
05City events and festivalsTurnout across streets and squares, flow between event areas, and the effect on local retail.City marketing, event organisers

Every booth and venue reports in real time on Ariadne Advanced, or daily on Essentials.

Dashboard

The booth dashboard

One view of the booth in Ariadne Analytics: visitors by zone every 15 minutes, turn-in from the aisle, dwell by zone and hour, and how this show compares with the last.

Booth · Hall 4 · Show day
Live

Booth visitors today

2,860

Entrance count

Stepped in from the aisle

21%

Avg dwell at the booth

6 min

Booth visitors every 15 minutes, by zone

Visitors per booth zone by hour

AisleEntranceProduct wallDemo areaMeeting room
09:0013:0018:00

EventsSpring show 2026Compare withAutumn show 2025

Auto-refresh5 s1 min1 h

Illustrative data. Labels and controls match Ariadne Analytics.

  1. Booth visitors by zone, every 15 minutes or any interval

    See the demo peaks and the quiet hours, zone by zone.

  2. Turn-in from the aisle

    Passers-by in the aisle against the visitors who stepped in.

  3. Dwell bands and returning visitors

    Separate a quick look from a real conversation, and see who came back the next day.

  4. Show against show

    Name each show once and compare it with another show or day.

  5. Live counts

    Optical sensor views refresh as often as every five seconds on Ariadne Advanced.

  6. Threshold alerts

    Rules on any count reach email or Microsoft Teams while the show runs.

  7. Reports and access

    PDF reports by email, CSV exports, and accounts for your agency or regional teams limited to the booths they run.

  8. Threa AI

    Ask about visitors, dwell, and flow in plain language.

See Ariadne Analytics

Exhibitors and organisers

Know what the booth delivered, beyond the leads

For exhibitors and brands

  1. Count every visitor, not only scanned leads

    Aisle traffic, visitors who stepped in, and dwell per zone, including everyone who never stopped to talk.

  2. Test the booth layout

    Flow inside the booth shows which zones pull visitors and which they skip, so the next build starts from data.

  3. Compare shows on the same measures

    Name each show once and set this booth against the last one. Siemens measured its booth at The smarter E Europe 2025 with Ariadne.

  4. Turn interest into an opt-in

    A QR code at the booth can double as the opt-in. At the NRF Big Show, 1,900 attendees scanned one, at a 46.3% click-through rate.

For organisers and venues

  1. Staff entrances to the arrival curve

    Arrivals per entrance every 15 minutes show when to open lanes and where. The playbook is in event crowd management data.

  2. Show exhibitors and sponsors their footfall

    Visitors and dwell per booth or sponsor zone, ready for the exhibitor report.

  3. Plan the next edition on this one

    Name the event once, compare it with the next, and let the forecast learn its effect.

Lead scans capture the visitors who stop to talk. Ariadne counts everyone who came by.

Hardware

What installs at a booth

Three ways to put Hybrid Fusion into a booth or a venue, chosen by how long the show runs and what the venue already owns. All three feed the same dashboard.

  • Ariadne ToFu People Counter

    Time-of-Flight at booth entrances

    Ariadne ToFu counts every person entering the booth or one of its zones, with or without a phone. Compact and calibrated by Ariadne.

    Ariadne ToFu

  • ArubaCiscoRuckusSophosTP-Link

    The venue's own access points

    For whole venues, EaseLink runs Hybrid Fusion on the Aruba, Cisco, Ruckus, Sophos, or TP-Link access points a venue already has. For the Laver Cup, Chase Center's own access points worked alongside Ariadne sensors.

    EaseLink

Install path

From booth plan to show report

  1. Booth plan and zones

    Entrances, product wall, demo, lounge, and meeting rooms marked on the booth plan.

  2. Sensor plan per zone

    Ariadne plans where each sensor goes so every zone is covered.

  3. Install during build-up

    Sensors mounted and connected while the booth goes up.

  4. Calibration

    Counts checked against a manual count before the show opens.

  5. Live, then the report

    Live views through the show, then a report per zone and per day.

Sensors can run on their own power with a SIM connection, so nothing touches the venue network or the booth's own Wi-Fi.

Integrations

Booth data reaches the people and tools that plan the next show

Reports
PDF by emailCSVXLSX
Business intelligence
Power BITableauGrafana
CRM
SalesforceHubSpot
Messaging
Twilio
All integrations

Privacy

Visitor measurement without cameras, biometrics, or identity

Ariadne captures no images and no biometric data, and no MAC address by default. Time-of-Flight records the geometry of a passing person, not a face. Signal sensing records presence and movement, not identity. Nobody installs an app, and identifiers are stored only when a visitor explicitly opts in, for example by scanning a QR code at the booth.

For a booth that means every visitor can be counted without a camera on the stand and without knowing who anyone is, at a show where many visitors would object to being filmed. In procurement, Ariadne is a non-biometric measurement system that sits structurally outside the EU AI Act's biometric categories, rather than relying on an exemption. The reasoning is set out in Ariadne's camera-free approach.

Compare

Ariadne compared with lead scans and manual counts

Every booth already scans leads. The question is who the scanner never saw.

The usual setup

Lead scans and manual counts

Badge scanners, lead apps, clickers

With Ariadne

Ariadne

Hybrid Fusion, camera-free

What is counted

Visitors who agreed to a badge scan, or a clicker sample

What is counted

Everyone who passed, stepped in, and stayed, all day

The aisle

Unknown

The aisle

Passers-by and the share who stepped in

Inside the booth

Nothing beyond the scan

Inside the booth

Flow between the booth's zones

Dwell

Not measured

Dwell

Dwell bands per booth zone

Across shows

Lead counts that depend on staff

Across shows

The same measures at every show

Identity

A named lead

Identity

No identity. Opt-in only

Ariadne does not replace lead capture. Leads tell sales who to call. Ariadne tells the booth team what the booth drew.

Customers

Booths and events measured with Ariadne

Pricing

Start with one show, then the season

Three plans, priced per device per month. Which one a booth needs depends on one question: a report after the show, or live numbers during it.

  1. 01Daily reporting

    Ariadne Essentials

    Counting, sales integration, visitor forecasting, employee scheduling, capture rates, benchmarks, and automated weekly and monthly reports.

    Fits post-show reports and show-against-show comparison.

  2. 02Real-time reporting

    Ariadne Advanced

    Everything in Essentials, plus real-time reporting, Threa AI, people flow, demand forecasting, visitor opt-in, and marketing campaigns.

    The plan for live booth numbers and opt-in during the show.

  3. 03Custom features

    Ariadne Enterprise

    Volume pricing and custom features such as CRM integration, virtual queuing, alerting, and restroom traffic.

    Exhibitors with many shows a year, and organisers measuring whole venues.

  • Per device per month. Hardware is a one-time fee per device, lower when you bring compatible sensors you already own.
  • Annual billing saves up to 30%. Invoiced in EUR, shown in your currency.
  • For a single show, ask for a show quote.
Configure a quoteEstimate your ROI

Background

Where the booth and event work comes from

  1. Patents

    Hybrid Fusion is covered by DE102022115597A1, EP3964852A1, and CA3125501A1, from work that began at the Technical University of Munich.

    Research register

  2. Own booths

    Ariadne measures its own booths with Ariadne, at EuroShop 2026 and FTE Global 2025.

    Ariadne at EuroShop 2026

  3. Partners

    Event and venue partners, including b.sure analytics, Urban Lighting Innovations, Buro Happold, and Farnborough International, work with Ariadne.

    Partners

  4. Deployments

    Over 800 locations in 32 countries, across retail, shopping centers, airports, cities, and venues.

    Deployments map

FAQ

Booth and event analytics questions

How do you count booth visitors without cameras?

With Time-of-Flight sensors at the booth entrances, which record the geometry of a passing person rather than an image, and phone signal sensing across the aisle and the booth zones, which records presence and movement rather than identity. Both are combined centrally into one count of the booth.

Do the sensors need the venue's network or Wi-Fi?

No. At a trade show, sensors can run on their own power with a SIM connection. Where a venue has supported Aruba, Cisco, Ruckus, Sophos, or TP-Link access points, EaseLink can use those instead.

When do the sensors go in?

During build-up, after Ariadne has planned their positions on the booth plan. Counts are checked against a manual count before the show opens. Share the show dates and the install is planned around them.

How is this different from lead scanning?

Lead scans record the visitors who agree to be scanned. Ariadne counts everyone: the people who passed in the aisle, the share who stepped in, how long they stayed in each zone, and how they moved through the booth. Leads tell sales who to call. Ariadne tells the booth team what the booth drew.

Can we compare our booth across shows?

Yes. Each show is named once in the dashboard with its dates and booth zones, then compared with another show or day on the same measures.

Can we see live numbers during the show?

Yes, on Ariadne Advanced. Time-of-Flight counts refresh as often as every five seconds, live trajectories show movement as it happens, and threshold alerts reach email or Microsoft Teams.

Can organisers measure a whole hall or event?

Yes. The same measurement covers hall entrances, gates, and fan zones. For the Laver Cup 2025, Ariadne measured the entrances and fan zones around Chase Center for the Golden State Warriors.

Does Ariadne identify visitors?

No. Ariadne measures visitors without identifying them: no images, no biometric data, and no MAC address by default. Identifiers exist only for visitors who opt in, for example by scanning a QR code at the booth.

Resources

Booth and event reading

Field notes on booths, venues, and event days from the Ariadne blog.

Related

Where to go next

Talk to us

Two questions, twenty minutes, a real walkthrough of your venue's footfall.

What to expect

  • 20-minute screen share, walked through on your venue map
  • Live walkthrough of Hybrid Fusion sensor outputs
  • Where Ariadne fits, and where it doesn't

Got a different question?

Send us a message

Anything that isn't a sales conversation. We'll route it to the right person and get back within one business day.