Markus AI, the team behind the h+h americas event app, has published a case study on the first h+h americas Fall Edition, held Sept. 30 – Oct. 2, 2026 at Reliant Center in Houston, Texas. It looks at how a personal app experience helped a first-year show in a new market connect buyers with the right exhibitors, sessions and people. Read the full case study on the Markus AI site.
Spring inspires. Fall delivers.
Koelnmesse brought h+h americas to Houston for its first Fall Edition: a B2B marketplace where retailers and brands connect, place orders and plan their seasons. With seven in ten buyers walking the floor for the first time, the show needed every visitor to find their way quickly.
The show at a glance
- 2,005 total attendance
- 256 exhibiting companies, 38 of them international
- 70% of buyers new to h+h americas
- 47 states represented
- 44,215 net square feet of exhibits
Built around every visitor’s goals
“Launching a new show in a new market, we knew seven in ten buyers would be walking our floor for the first time. We didn’t need another event app. We needed every visitor to feel the show was built around their goals from the first hour. Markus treated personalization as the core of the experience, not an add-on, and they were willing to build it with us through every round of testing. That partnership mindset is what made the decision,” said Darrin Stern, President and Managing Director of Koelnmesse Inc.
The app ran alongside Swoogo for registration and ExpoFP for the floor plan. Visitors set goals before the show, were matched to the right exhibitors, received session recommendations and sent meeting and connection requests. Exhibitors had their own space with lead capture and voice notes, so every conversation stayed in one place.
What the app data showed
According to Markus AI:
- 53% of buyers on site used the app, along with about half of exhibiting companies.
- 111 attendees set 954 goals between them, an average of 8.6 each.
- Visitors who set goals were far more active: 40% sent a meeting or connection request, compared with 5% of everyone else.
- 37% of session scans were for a session the app had recommended to that person, about three times the rate for other sessions.
- Sourcing led the way. Supplier partnerships and product sourcing made up 40% of all goals, and nine in ten goal-setters had at least one sourcing goal.
Looking ahead, Darrin Stern points to three things for 2027: matchmaking that starts weeks before the doors open, goal data that helps shape the conference program, and clearer return for exhibitors, with every lead, note and follow-up in one place.
What’s next
h+h americas Fall Edition returns to Reliant Center, Houston, Texas, with the conference on Oct. 26 and exhibits Oct. 27 – 29, 2027. Apply to exhibit.
Next up is h+h americas in Rosemont, Illinois: classes May 4, show May 5 – 7, 2027. hh-americas.com
