Think it depends on the clients you are after, I was back to back with a pest control company from the local area at the one we did our first year in business.
I could hear them giving out coupons and signing people up for inspections and first treatments.
Since we were at the time general wildlife management/control we setup the booth with a variety of things to just get people talking us about wildlife. We did
a sand box for the kids to stamp tracks in (rubber tracks from acorn naturalist - great for kids).
Had excluder equipment, remote cameras, skulls, antler & horn, fake scat (acorn naturalist - again great for kids and makes adults lose their minds with laughter).
Had a ton of great conversations and did get a few clients from it that I know of but ultimately wasn't the right setting for what we were hoping for.
If I was to do it for one or two species like bats and birds and focus on that I think they could be productive but our local home show was so many folks just looking
for things that weren't related that it didn't seem like we had enough going to justify the 3 full days we spent there and the money spent.
I know they work, just make your expectations and setup agree with each other is my .02 I guess.... I had some amazing conversations about wildlife but many
were just talking, not having issues they wanted to discuss, whereas the pest guys had plenty of folks with ants, mice, spiders, etc... that were perfect for signing up...
I think every form of advertising takes knowledge and skill to employ the right way, some are great, some less so, all depends on the people exposed to it I suppose...
