Convention centers and exhibition centers are the foundational infrastructures of the event industry. As venue operators, they simultaneously coordinate conventions, trade shows, and corporate events across highly demanding technical perimeters.
According to the ICCA, France consistently positions itself among the top three global destinations for professional meetings, with Paris maintaining a leading rank for the number of international conventions hosted each year.
Sources: UNIMEV, Ministry of Economy and Finance, ICCA
Unlike convention bureaus, whose role is to promote a destination, convention centers and exhibition centers are operators: they commercialize their spaces and produce the events.
Designed for conventions, medical congresses, scientific conferences, and corporate events. They combine a main auditorium, breakout rooms, catering areas, and adjacent exhibition zones.
Built for trade shows, public consumer fairs, and large-scale conventions. They feature vast modular halls, heavy technical logistics, high hosting capacities, and substantial exhibitor flows.
Combining both functions within a single perimeter. They seamlessly host conventions, trade shows, exhibitions, and corporate events. A complex operational model that requires real-time, multi-typology coordination.
Operating a convention center or an exhibition center involves constraints that classic event venues or conference hotels simply do not face.
A single site can host a medical convention in the auditorium, a trade show in a main hall, and a corporate meeting in breakout rooms all at the same time. Availability tracking must be fully consolidated in real time.
For trade shows and conventions hosting exhibitors, the commercialization of additional services (furniture, technical services, catering, signage) must be orchestrated through a dedicated portal, complementing the main space rental.
Audiovisual, official catering, security, cleaning, and signage: multiple stakeholders must be managed across tight setup and teardown schedules, guided by precise function sheets.
The actual margin of an operation closely depends on the mix of space rentals, technical services, and add-ons. It must be monitored in real time to secure commercial decisions.
These sites are frequently operated under public concessions, semi-public companies, or public local companies, requiring them to deliver consolidated metrics to licensing authorities: number of events, attendees, economic impact, and occupancy rates.
Lab Event is the premier ERP/CRM software built exclusively for the event industry, perfectly adapted for convention and exhibition centers. The platform covers the entire value chain: sales prospecting, briefing, operations, billing, and reporting.
Track leads, recurring corporate clients, and business referrers (convention bureaus, event agencies, professional organizers).
Consolidated vision across multi-room and multi-site locations, featuring real-time conflict management, options, and confirmations.
Configure room layouts, catering, accommodations, technical specifications, and signage. All metrics centralized per file.
Automated generation for operations teams and external vendors directly sourced from the initial commercial brief.
Create digital proposals in PDF or web page formats complete with dynamic custom fields, online signing, and version history.
Invoicing, deposits, balance payment schedules, event margin monitoring, accounting exports, and electronic invoicing support.
Track occupancy rates, revenue breakdown by event typology, attendee economic impact, and institutional indicators.
Sync natively with Google and Outlook for calendars and emails. Open API capabilities allow integration with your existing business tools.
Online portal dedicated to clients and exhibitors to view details, order additional amenities, and access files autonomously.
Our team assists operators through setup, configuration, and user onboarding. Test out our management platform completely free, no strings attached.
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