Of all sales promotion activities, only one is similar to a holiday – an exhibition. Everything contributes to it – beautiful booths, a dressy crowd, music and the festive mood of all participants. In general, an exhibition is the intoxicating aroma of an extravaganza, which, moreover, is enjoyed during working hours and for a wage.

Exhibitions and fairs occupy a special place in the arsenal of means of advertising impact, because they represent a very wide range of opportunities to demonstrate advertised products to establish direct contacts with direct buyers and consumers. Despite the fact that the boundaries between the concepts of fairs and exhibitions are often indistinguishable and tend to be limited to a minimum in practice, it would be appropriate to make a semantic opposition of fairs and exhibitions.

A fair is an event directly related to retail or wholesale trade, held regularly in a certain place and at a certain time.

Exhibition is an event associated with the demonstration of products, goods and services, contributing to their promotion in the domestic and foreign markets, taking into account its conjuncture, creating conditions for business negotiations to conclude supply agreements or protocols of intentions, creation of joint ventures, obtaining investments.

In a trade fair, a considerable number of enterprises use samples to give a representative picture of the product/service offer of one or more industries and strive to inform end consumers about their firm and its products with the ultimate goal of facilitating sales.

Fairs originated as a market event, the main purpose of which was to sell products (goods). On the contrary, exhibitions emerged as a means of public demonstration of certain human achievements; initially they were purely educational in nature, but as they developed, they became more commercially oriented.

Thus, the purpose of a fair is to give its participants an opportunity to exhibit their production samples, demonstrate new achievements and technical improvements in order to conclude commercial deals. At the same time, the exhibition aims to show scientific and technical achievements of one or several countries in one or several fields of production, science and technology.

It should be noted that the custom established at many trade fairs or exhibitions of allowing non-commercial public attendance at specific days and hours in no way indicates a change in their character.