For those unfamiliar, the Niche Conference is put together by Ryan Dohrn and his team, and it's one of those events that punches way above its weight. Publishers, printers, media entrepreneurs — it draws a focused crowd of people who are genuinely trying to build something. The sessions are substantive, the energy is real, and the hallway conversations are the kind that actually lead somewhere.
ExpoTrac was on the exhibit floor this year, which was a great opportunity to connect with other niche media publishers and talk shop about what we do: budget-friendly event registration and badge printing software built for organizations running multiple events without wanting to get nickel-and-dimed on every ticket, every attendee, or every event.
What made this particular conference a little special for us is that Ryan and his team were already using ExpoTrac for badge printing on-site. So in a fun way, we were both exhibiting at the event and quietly powering part of it behind the scenes.
During the conference, Ryan made an announcement from the stage that we weren't expecting to be quite so public — and we loved it. He shared that going forward, Niche events will be using ExpoTrac for the full registration experience, from sign-up to badge printing, start to finish. He was candid about the friction points he'd experienced with his previous system, and we appreciated that kind of transparency. It's exactly the kind of problem we built ExpoTrac to solve.
We're proud to be the partner Ryan and his team are trusting with that experience — and we're already looking forward to supporting the fall event and the 2027 Niche Conference in Atlanta.
Beyond our own news, the programming delivered. The opening keynote from Cole and Emily of The Adventure Crews was a highlight — their story about stepping back from burnout to pursue more meaningful work hit home for a lot of people in the room. Dr. Jeffrey Magee brought sharp, practical thinking around revenue strategy, particularly around identifying streams that have been underutilized or quietly overlooked.
The Speed Networking session (hat tip to Publication Printers for sponsoring) was one of those formats that sounds a little awkward on paper and somehow works brilliantly in practice. We met a lot of great people in a short amount of time, and the O32 Outsourcing-sponsored networking event gave us more room to follow up on those conversations.
Niche media publishers face a lot of the same challenges we built ExpoTrac to address: producing multiple events a year, managing varying attendance sizes, and distributing tickets that have assigned value even when they're given away for free — all without software costs that eat into already-tight margins. American Business Media and organizations like it don't need enterprise bloat. They need something that just works, without a fee structure that punishes growth.
The feedback we got from exhibitors and attendees at Niche reinforced that. We're a good fit for this community, and we plan to keep showing up for it.
Here's to the next one.
ExpoTrac is event registration and badge printing software built for organizations that run a lot of events and want to keep costs predictable. Learn more at expotrac.com.
