Measuring hall utilisation rate across a portfolio of very different venues

The portfolio pack ranks eight shows by hall utilisation rate. The show at the bottom, 80 per cent, gets fifteen minutes of attention and a request for a recovery plan. The show at the top, 94 per cent, gets a well done and a suggestion that the rate card could take a rise.

The show at 94 per cent occupies a hall where only 46 per cent of the gross area is sellable. It is filling a small denominator. The show at 80 per cent has 55 per cent of a much larger hall available and is leaving nearly 20,000 square feet unsold, which is more absolute empty floor than the other show has inventory to lose. The ranking put them in exactly the wrong order and nobody in the room could see it, because the pack showed one number.

Why does hall utilisation need two ratios?

Utilisation of sellable is sold net square feet over sellable net square feet. It answers a sales question: of the inventory we built and put on the map, how much did we place?

Utilisation of gross is sold net square feet over gross hall area. It answers a rent question: of the floor we are paying for, how much is generating space revenue?

Both are legitimate and they are not versions of each other. A sales director should be judged on the first, because the second contains decisions they did not make. A portfolio director signing venue contracts should look hard at the second, because that is the one connected to the rent cheque.

Report the pair, always, in the same row: 92 per cent of sellable, 41 per cent of gross. Two numbers, no ambiguity about which question is being answered, and the gap between them is itself informative.

The arithmetic on three real-shaped shows

Take three shows in one portfolio, each in a different building.

Show A occupies a purpose-built European hall of 420,000 gross square feet. Sellable comes in at 244,000, which is 58.1 per cent of gross. It sold 224,000. Utilisation of sellable is 224,000 over 244,000, which is 91.8 per cent. Utilisation of gross is 224,000 over 420,000, which is 53.3 per cent.

Show B occupies a North American convention centre of 310,000 gross with a large permanent registration hall, a heavy column grid and a service corridor down one side. Sellable is 142,000, or 45.8 per cent. It sold 133,500. Utilisation of sellable is 94.0 per cent. Utilisation of gross is 43.1 per cent.

Show C sits in a 180,000 square foot hall with 99,000 sellable, 55.0 per cent, and sold 79,200. Utilisation of sellable is 80.0 per cent. Utilisation of gross is 44.0 per cent.

Rank the three on sellable and the order is B, A, C. Rank on gross and the order is A, C, B. The show that led one list is last on the other, and both lists are correct.

The absolute numbers settle it. Show C left 19,800 square feet unsold. Show B left 8,500. At the same 30 dollar rate that is 594,000 dollars against 255,000, so the show with the worse-looking percentage is also the bigger hole, but only by 339,000 dollars, and Show A left 20,000 square feet unsold while sitting second on one ranking and first on the other. Percentages compress the thing you actually care about, which is square feet you did not sell.

Splitting the gap into what you inherited and what you chose

The gross to net ratio for each hall is a fixed input, and the term by term build-up is F22's subject. What a portfolio view needs on top is a split of the non-sellable area into two buckets.

Inherited loss is the part the building imposes: columns, dock aprons, permanent registration structures, low clearance bays, egress and fire lane provision set by the venue and local code. Nobody in your business can move it.

Chosen loss is the part you spent: feature areas, catering footprint above the minimum, the show office sitting inside the sellable envelope, aisle width above what code requires.

Split Show B's 168,000 non-sellable square feet into, say, 121,000 inherited and 47,000 chosen, and you can compute a third figure. Achievable net is gross minus inherited loss, which is 310,000 minus 121,000, or 189,000. Utilisation of achievable net is 133,500 over 189,000, or 70.6 per cent. That number says something neither of the others does: the show is filling its map, and 47,000 square feet of its building went to decisions somebody made and could revisit.

Do the same for Show A, with 176,000 non-sellable split into 108,000 inherited and 68,000 chosen. Achievable net is 312,000, and utilisation of achievable net is 224,000 over 312,000, or 71.8 per cent. Two shows that looked two points apart on sellable and ten points apart on gross are one point apart on the measure that reflects choices rather than architecture.

The split takes an afternoon per hall with the floorplan and the venue's technical pack. It is the only part of this that requires judgement, and it is worth writing the classification rules down once so the same wall gets classified the same way next year.

Should a portfolio hold one utilisation target?

There is usually pressure to set one utilisation number for the group. Ninety per cent across the portfolio, chase the laggards.

Demand for exhibition space is not distributed evenly enough to support that. UFI's 34th Global Exhibition Barometer, published in February 2025 from 390 companies across 56 countries, measured space rented in 2024 against 2019 and found a global figure of plus 9 per cent sitting on top of enormous dispersion. Germany came in at minus 12 per cent and China at minus 8, with France at minus 2 and the United Kingdom and Australia flat. India was plus 40 per cent, Argentina plus 34, Malaysia plus 22, and both the United Arab Emirates and Brazil plus 18.

A German hall at 85 per cent utilisation of sellable and an Indian hall at 85 per cent are not the same commercial achievement, and holding both to 90 will produce a rate card cut in one market and a queue of unpriced demand in the other. The same barometer found 71 per cent of North American companies expecting increased activity in the first half of 2025 against 42 per cent in Asia-Pacific, which is a 29 point spread inside one portfolio target.

For the United States specifically, the CEIR Q2 2025 Index, published in September 2025, put net square feet sold 4.9 per cent below Q2 2019, with exhibiting companies 8.8 per cent below. A US show holding utilisation flat over that period grew share.

Set targets per show against that show's own market and its own three edition history. Use the portfolio number for the group's total exposure to rent, which is what it is genuinely measuring.

What the pair looks like in a pack

One row per show, five columns: sellable net square feet, sold net square feet, utilisation of sellable, gross hall area, utilisation of gross. Then a sixth column with unsold square feet in absolute terms, because that is the column the commercial conversation actually runs on.

Add the venue name and the edition date, and keep the row where the rest of your exhibitor analytics can reach it. Half the arguments about utilisation across a portfolio turn out to be about a show that moved buildings two years ago and whose series therefore contains a step change nobody labelled.

Do not add a portfolio average of the percentages. An unweighted mean of eight utilisation rates is a number with no referent. If you want a portfolio figure, sum sold square feet and sum sellable square feet and divide, which weights by size and is at least the answer to a question.

Where this stops

Utilisation of sellable is comparable across editions of the same show in the same hall, and comparable across venues only once you have the ratio for each one written down. Even then it is a capacity measure and says nothing about price. A show can run at 96 per cent utilisation on a rate card it has not raised in four years and be leaving more money on the floor than a show at 82 per cent that priced properly. Ranking a portfolio on utilisation alone will reward the shows that undercharge, every time. The price side of it is revenue per net square foot, which is F37's subject.

The proper fix is to rank on how far each show beats what its venue, city and sector would predict, which is a modelling exercise and belongs with space yield across shows in F38. Utilisation is the input to that, and on its own it is a diagnostic rather than a scorecard.

The second limit is that the inherited and chosen split is a judgement call and will be argued. Whether a 6,000 square foot catering area is chosen or inherited depends on whether the venue's food and beverage contract requires it, and that is a contract question with a different answer in every building. Publish the classification with the number so a reader can disagree with the specific line and still use the total.

Start by adding one column to whatever utilisation report you already produce: gross hall area for each show, taken from the venue's technical pack. Compute utilisation of gross beside utilisation of sellable for the last edition of every show, and see whether your ranking survives.