Behind the Booth: The Hidden Work of Academic Conferences

Academic conferences have long been a cornerstone of university press marketing. We sat down with our Academic Marketing Specialist, Ann Bingham, to talk about how conferences have evolved, what goes into planning and budgeting, and how authors can make the most of these events. Read on for a closer look at how UNC Press brings its books to these spaces.

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Hi Ann! You’ve been managing conferences and exhibits at UNC Press for how long now?

I’ve been doing this for almost eight years now.

Do you remember the first conference you attended with the press? What were your thoughts?

The first conference I attended for UNC Press was the Southern Historical Association in 2018. By the time SHA had rolled around, I had been working on conferences for a few months. It was great to finally get the chance to see how all of the preparations come together in person. And it was especially rewarding for a meeting like SHA—since it is one of our biggest meetings, I had spent a lot of time planning & preparing for it.

I go to a handful of conferences each year & my favorite part is always getting to meet our authors (past, present, & future). At that SHA in particular, I got the pleasure of handing an author the first finished copy of their book. We had gotten lucky that advances had arrived early and I was able to carry it with me in my suitcase.

How have academic conferences changed since you first started?

Conferences are always adapting, especially since the cost of hosting in-person events continues to rise. But the biggest change I’ve had to navigate was the pandemic. About a month before lockdown was the first time someone raised the question about whether or not COVID would impact conferences. At the time, I couldn’t even fathom it. Fast forward to March when we all got sent home & I spent two-ishyears navigating various virtual event hosting platforms.

I do think those virtual conferences gave us all a chance to reevaluate why we gather for conferences & what makes them valuable. And I credit the pandemic for a lot of our increased digital promotions surrounding conferences—we still build virtual booths not because they are our only avenue for getting to a conference, but because we know not everyone has a chance to make it to the exhibit hall. I think it has helped us make conferences more accessible.

Roughly how many conferences does UNC Press attend each year?

It varies year to year, but we’re usually scheduled to attend 25 conferences a year.

How far in advance of a conference do you start planning?

In terms of the overall schedule, I start building that for the upcoming fiscal year (which for us is July – June) in late January/early February. It takes some time for us to finalize it as we consider the budget & ensure we have someone who can attend each conference, but we’ve got a good sense of where we will be in the upcoming year by spring.

On an individual conference basis, the first step is to register and for some of our meetings, we are registering for the following year before the current conference has even wrapped. Active planning on my part usually begins about three months out.

How do you decide which books attend which conference?

One of the great things about working at UNC Press is that we publish a lot of great books. However, that does become a struggle when we are faced with very real space constraints at conferences. We do prioritize the new books so at almost all of our conferences, we are showing books from the most recent four seasons (roughly two year’s worth).

This is also one of the advantages of continuing to build our virtual exhibit—we are able to include more books there than we can in-person. I’ll also add that our conference promo code works on almost every book, so even if we don’t have something with us at the booth, feel free to ask for details on the conference promo code.

You mentioned the price of hosting events. Authors may not know just how expensive conferences can be for publishers. Roughly how much money is the average conference with a standard booth size?

Costs vary widely depending on the size of the conference. For our tabletop meetings, most of those are a few hundred dollars. For our booth meetings, a single booth is usually over $1000.

Outside of just buying the booth there are a lot of the “hidden” expenses that people may not think about. What are other things outside of the booth we have to pay for?

Expenses add up at conferences!

Thankfully, registration for our staff at conference is comped as part of our booth reservation. However, we do still have to factor in travel expenses for every staff member we send.

Filling the booth usually costs the most money. The table at a tabletop meeting is provided in the cost of the booth, but for our booth meetings we usually have to rent furniture (tables, chairs, etc.). Sometimes we get some of that included with the cost of the booth, but a lot of times that doesn’t cover everything we need. Then there is the cost of the stuff we send to the meeting: books, marketing materials (banners, posters, swag, flyers, etc.), and even just the basic supplies (box cutter, pens, etc.). And all of that has to be shipped. So there are shipping charges to account for as well as material handling/warehouse storage fees.

On top of that, there are always options for us to add stuff to our booth package, like advertising or sponsorships. So there can be extra expenses for that as well.

How can authors get more involved at conferences?

As an author, conferences are a great opportunity for you to market your book. We always have a lot of great books on display, so as the author, you can be your book’s best advocate to make it stand out.

Please stop by the booth to say hello—we love meeting our authors! While you are there, make sure you take a photo with your book to share on social media. And encourage your friends & colleagues to stop by as well. Especially if they haven’t already purchased your book because they can get it at our conference discount.

Additionally, if you are on a panel, that can be a great way to plug your book even if the research you are presenting isn’t solely tied to your book.

To close out this Q&A, what is one thing you always tell authors to take with them to a conference?

The most important thing an author can bring with them is something to promote their book. Even just having a copy of the book with you so someone could flip through it to help them decide whether they want to purchase it can be useful. We are happy to send our authors a PDF flyer for their book that they can print out and take with them. Contact me if that is something you need.

And I’ll also add that over the years, authors have shown me swag they have personally designed for their books. So if you have funds to spend & some time to create a design (Canva can be a great tool for this), you can get creative with the ways you promote your book.