Mapzest Is the Official App of the West Country Business Show 2026
The West Country Business Show 2026 has partnered with Mapzest for its official event app - a live, searchable floor plan of Westpoint Arena with 120+ exhibitors and 25 talks. Here's how we turn a static floor plan into something visitors can use, on phones and kiosks.
10am – 4pm
The official app of the West Country Business Show
Tuesday 10 November 2026, Westpoint Arena, Exeter
We're delighted to share that the West Country Business Show has chosen Mapzest as its official event app for 2026. On Tuesday 10 November, from 10am to 4pm, more than 120 exhibitors will fill Westpoint Arena in Clyst St Mary, with 25 talks and seminars running across the Keynote Theatre and three seminar halls. Every one of those stands and sessions is now on Mapzest - on a live floor plan you can search, filter and carry around the hall in your pocket. Entry is free, and so is the app. We're exhibiting at the show too, so this one is close to home: you'll find us on Stand 17, and yes, we're on the map.
Every show starts with a floor plan
Every exhibition has one. A carefully drawn plan of the hall, with every stand numbered, every aisle laid out and every theatre in its place. It's the single most useful document an organiser produces - and on the day it usually ends up as a PDF on a website, a board by the entrance, or a folded sheet in a visitor's back pocket.
The trouble is that a plan on its own only answers one question - where is stand 56? It can't tell you who's on stand 56, what they do, whether they're worth a visit, or that the talk you wanted to catch starts in ten minutes on the other side of the hall. Our job at the West Country Business Show was to take that plan and make it answer all of those questions at once.
From a static plan to a living map
Every stand, every exhibitor, exactly where they are
We started with the show's own floor plan of Westpoint Arena - the same one the organisers use to sell and set out the stands - and turned it into an interactive map. Every exhibitor sits on their own stand, coloured by what they do, with names that appear as you zoom in and arrange themselves so they never pile on top of one another. Tap a stand and you get the business behind it. Search for a name, a service or just a stand number from someone's lanyard, and the plan glides straight to it. Filter to Tech & Digital, Marketing & Media, Finance or any of the other categories and the people you need light up across the hall. We won't give away every trick we used to get there, but the short version is that a plan that would normally take weeks to digitise by hand was live, accurate and stand-perfect in a fraction of the time.
Twenty-five talks, one tap away
The whole programme, in time order, on the day
A business show is as much about what you learn as who you meet, and the West Country Business Show has a packed programme - from This Is Bigger Than Youth in the Keynote Theatre at 10.15am, through talks on online search, earnings, workplace wellbeing, LinkedIn, public sector contracts and AI, right through the afternoon. Switch the map to Events and the whole line-up appears in time order, each talk with its speaker's photo, times and theatre. On the floor plan itself, the sessions sit inside the theatres where they happen, and the next one up is highlighted above the stage with its start time - so a quick glance at your phone tells you what's on now and what's coming next.
Speakers and exhibitors, joined up
Hear a talk, then walk over and carry on the conversation
Plenty of the people speaking at the show are exhibiting there too, and we've linked the two together. A talk shows its speaker's own business alongside it, and that business is a tap away from its stand on the plan. It's a small detail with a big payoff: if a session sparks an idea, you don't need to queue at the front afterwards or hunt for a business card - you can find the speaker's stand and pick the conversation up over a coffee.
A home screen that belongs to the show
Partners, sponsors and what's just been added
Open the West Country Business Show in Mapzest and the first thing you see is the show itself - its partners and sponsors in a swipeable carousel at the top, followed by a What's New & Updated panel that shows exactly which exhibitors and talks have been added or changed, and when. Exhibitor lists change right up to the doors opening, and with Mapzest a late booking or a new speaker is updated once and is live for everyone straight away - no reprinting, no second PDF and no out-of-date copies doing the rounds.
VibeCheck - the show as a feed
Exhibitors, speakers and round-ups of what's coming up
Not everyone wants to start with a map. VibeCheck turns the whole show into a visual feed, a little like scrolling Instagram - exhibitor photos, speaker portraits with their dates, and Coming up round-ups that gather the next few hours of talks into a single, TV-style schedule. Tap anything and it opens full screen, with the exhibitor or speaker front and centre and everything you need to find them. It's a great way to get a feel for the show before you arrive, or to spot something you'd otherwise have walked straight past.
Share posters for every talk and exhibitor
Helping speakers and exhibitors bring their own audience
The people who do the most to fill a show are often the speakers and exhibitors themselves, so we've given them something worth sharing. Tap share on any talk or exhibitor and Mapzest builds a ready-made poster - the title, the date and time, a countdown to the day, the show and venue, and the speaker's name - with a Get Mapzest QR code so anyone who sees it can pick up the show's app for free. Swipe for different looks, choose which photo leads, pick a Story or a feed Post, and send it straight to Instagram or Facebook Stories, save the image or copy a ready-written caption. It takes a couple of taps, and every share is another person arriving at the show with the app already on their phone.
On a phone, or on a big touchscreen
Everything you've seen here runs in the Mapzest app on a visitor's own phone, and that's how most people will use it on the day. But the very same map also runs on a large touchscreen as a Mapzest Kiosk. At a hall entrance, in a conference foyer or in a hotel reception, a kiosk becomes a self-service information point - visitors walk up, search for an exhibitor or tap through the plan, and see exactly where to go.
When nobody's using it, the screen doesn't sit idle. Autopilot takes over, playing through the show's speakers, exhibitors and coming-up round-ups - each talk shown full screen with where and when it's on, and a QR code to scan - to catch the eye of passers-by. Touch the screen and it's straight back to the map, and it resets itself to a fresh start after each visitor walks away. It's the same content as the app, kept up to date in the same place, just on a much bigger screen.
More about Mapzest KioskA few more screens from the official show app
Tap any image to see it full size
Why it works for everyone at the show
Visitors find who they came for in seconds, discover businesses they didn't know they needed, and catch the talks they'd otherwise have missed. Exhibitors get far more than a stand number - a place on the plan, a page of their own and a way for visitors to find them long after the stands come down. Speakers get a programme slot people can actually find, and a poster to promote it with. Sponsors and partners get pride of place on the home screen. And the organisers get a guide that's quick to build, simple to keep current and never needs reprinting.
And because every listing lives on the wider Mapzest network rather than in a one-off event app, a business that's on the map at one show is already there, ready to go, for the next.
Come and see us on Stand 17
We'll be at the West Country Business Show at Westpoint Arena, Exeter, on Tuesday 10 November from 10am to 4pm, on Stand 17. Download Mapzest before you go, have a look around the hall, pick out the talks you want to see - and then come and say hello. We'd love to show you how it all fits together.
And if you run an exhibition, conference, trade show, festival or venue and you're wondering what your own floor plan could look like on Mapzest, come and find us on the day or get in touch. We can usually show you a working version of your event far quicker than you'd expect.
Talk to us about your event