Attending PTO Today Expo Events With Your School PTO Group

PTO Today offers publications and resources for PTO (Parent Teacher Organization) groups a public and parochial schools across the Unites States. One of PTO Today's most popular resources is their annual PTO Today Expo events that are held at select cities every spring.

The PTO Today Expos provide PTO officers, members, and fund raising committees and assembly/ enrichment planners and opportunity to network with businesses that provide products and services specifically for PTO groups. The PTO Today Expos are designed to be both fun and informative, but for the first time attendee, the experience can be a little overwhelming if you are not prepared. This article offers tips and planning advice to help first time PTO Today Expo attendees (as well as Expo regulars) get the most out of their visit to the PTO Today Expo.

The PTO Today Expos are usually held in the same cities every year. 2011 cities and dates include Philadelphia (March 2nd), Atlanta (March 10th), Houston (April 6th), and Chicago (May 3rd). Additionally, in 2011, the PTO Today Expo is expanding to reach PTO planners in Michigan with a new event on April 26th in Novi, Michigan.

Register Early and Save Money

There is a nominal charge for PTO members to attend the PTO Today Expo. Attendees who register early at the PTO Today website can often take advantage of "early bird" registration discounts. The Expo also often offer 2 for 1 registrations and discounts for multiple PTO members that attend from the same school and register at the same time. Therefore, your PTO group should begin promoting the Expo at meetings early in the school year to judge interest and compile a list of members who are interested in registering.

Typically, PTO groups ask general members to pay for the registration for the event out of pocket, but often Expo registrations for school PTO president, vice president, etc are paid for by the groups PTO general funds.

Planning Before The Expo

There are usually 60-100 vendors at a PTO Today Expo. Vendors include providers of school assemblies, companies that offer classroom supplies, spirit wear, parenting magazines, and fundraising companies that offer everything from tie-dyed shoelaces to homemade cookies.

You can get the most out of your PTO Today Expo experience, by planning ahead and decide what types of information your PTO group would like to collect. If you need fundraising ideas, then you will want to make the fund raising booths your priority. But, if you already have your fundraising ideas for this year, you may want to concentrate on some of the other vendors.

A good strategy is to assign different attendees from your PTO group with gathering information from different types of vendors. One group could collect school fund raising ideas, one group could information on school assemblies, and one group could collect classroom and spirit wear ideas. You can then all meet up and discuss what interested you, and revisit select vendor booths as a group.

Sometime Being Late Is Good

Unlike in school, it is okay to be "tardy" to the PTO Today Expo. A majority of the attendees arrive when the Expo opens and the first hour of the vendor hall is packed with people. During this time, it can be hard to get an opportunity to really talk with the

The last 2-3 hours of the Expo are usually the slowest. Arriving during this time will give you an opportunity to browse the vendors more leisurely and talk with the representatives one on one. You will also not have to fight your way through crowds in the trade show aisles.

As a bonus for arriving towards the end of the Expo, many vendors have extra product samples that they do not want to take home with them. This means that instead of getting a sample of a cookie, you might just get a whole box of cookies to take home, or instead of just a wrapping paper brochure, you may get a full roll of wrapping paper.

If you arrive too late, however, many vendors begin packing up during the last half hour of the event because the attendance is so slow. If you are going to arrive late, be sure to arrive a minimum of 2 hours before the scheduled close of the vendor hall.

It is Okay To Say "No Thank You"

Every vendor booth you stop at will want to give you their sales pitch and brochure. They are there for the sole purpose of generating sales leads and making connections with schools. If a vendor has a product or service that you know your school would not be interested in, it is okay to tell the representative you are not interested.

Taking brochures from companies that you have no interest in will make sorting information after the Expo more difficult and will waste your time.

Sign Up For Mailing Lists

When you pick up your registration badge the day of the Expo, you will be given a sheet of pre-printed stickers with your address and email contact information. This allows you to quickly provide your contact information to vendors that interest you.

Signing up for information is also a good way to limit the number of brochures that you have to carry around, as you can ask the vendor to mail you information.

A word of caution! Only sign up with the companies that you are truly interested in, because each vendor you sign up with will be following up with you by mail and email after the Expo. If you sign-up with every booth you stop at, you will soon become overwhelmed with emails and mail. This will quickly become frustrating, and may cause you to overlook an email or information that you were truly interested in.

Have a Follow-up Meeting

Shortly after the Expo, you should plan to meet with everyone in your PTO who attended the event. This will allow you to share notes and discuss products and services that you found interesting. It is at this meeting that you can also decide if you would like to request more detailed information from any of the companies. The sooner you schedule the meeting, the fresher the information will be in everyone's minds.

You can then decide which vendors you want to follow up to get quotes, and other planning information.