I was enjoying my first meal of the day on the last Saturday of BETT 2008, arguably the largest education show in the world. It was 4.30pm, I was exhausted, BETT-ed out. At the table behind me I heard two teachers launch into their post-BETT debrief. But the question they posed: ‘What did you get out of the show?’ presents two very different answers when comparing the London-based ‘trade show’ with 30,000 attendees and its smaller cousin, The Scottish Learning Festival (formerly called SETT), a 7,000 participant show based in Glasgow.

Given the choice of which event to attend, most companies may see the choice as clear – head for the bigger pond where there's more to be caught.

BETT doesn't hide its colours. The front page of its programme proudly states its position as the ‘world’s largest education trade show’, and reminds us that, as such, we shouldn't bring under-18s with us.

The Scottish Learning Festival might by comparison seem less attractive to vendors – a smaller exhibition space and programme heaving with more than 150 seminars and other events, meaning that a teacher can happily learn from colleagues and experts without having to set foot in the exhibition hall.

But what I find interesting, and what would push me to attempt to cover both of these UK learning festivals as a vendor, are the two different answers one would get to that initial question.

Question: ‘What did you get out of the Scottish Learning Festival?’ Answer: A complex range of new teaching strategies and enlightening demonstrations of classroom-based technology given by the same under-18s that will use it should you choose to buy.

You have seminars and fringe events that encourage small groups from the 7,000 attendees to get together, share a coffee or a beer and explore some new teaching and learning ideas.

Question: ‘What did you get out of BETT?’ Answer: A lovely mug and a logo-ed orange. (You had to be there to get it, the BBC handing out thousands of taxpayer funded oranges with their emblem somehow etched onto the peel.)

BETT's 'trade show' mark may mean for some vendors the attractive possibility of large numbers of Local Authority reps with purses at the ready. It's rare for any other learning festival to pull in so many attendees and so many education budgets. It also means fewer kids to pilfer all the freebies.

However, I wonder if more long-term customer relationships can be built in other ways, through the seminars supported by the trade but not 'owned' by them, through hooking up with those innovators and experts taking to the seminar stage – two aspects that the smaller Scottish Learning Festival has in spades.

I don't know many teachers who want to be sold to. I know plenty, though, who want to share what they currently do and learn new ways of working. I know plenty, too, who are keen to make great products work even better than their makers had envisaged, and in ways they had never thought of. If there has been criticism from the 'edublogosphere' of this year's event at Olympia, it has been that there was nothing new, nothing inspiring coming from the trade floor. Often, in fact, educators have more to gain from listening to how colleagues are exploiting existing technology.

The message coming through loud and clear for many is that we really don't need more of the same, we need to exploit what's out there already, including an increasing amount of free technology. I'm no businessman, but I wonder if the new trick for vendors at these shows might be, in fact, to vend less and learn more.

Ewan McIntosh at edu.blogs.com advises on social media, education and the future, working with governments, business and media corporations