Meeting backfill

Cancellations are guaranteed at any event, so the difference between programmes isn't whether slots open up — it's whether anything fills them. Backfill turns a dead twenty minutes into a bonus meeting, and for hosted buyer programmes it protects the contractual quota when a buyer's diary gets holed by an exhibitor pulling out. The mechanics need preparing before the show, not improvising during it: a waitlist of participants who requested meetings with the cancelled party but didn't get slots, a ranked list of near-miss matches the algorithm scored highly, and a human — usually someone on the matchmaking desk — with authority to make the swap and the tools to notify both sides instantly. On-site messaging matters more than the matching here; a perfect replacement is worthless if the notification sits in an unread inbox while the person stands three halls away. The common mistake is treating backfill as an on-the-day scramble with no pre-built standby list, which means every cancellation becomes a permanent loss because there's no time to find alternatives from scratch. One honest nuance: backfilled meetings are colder than mutually chosen ones, and both parties know it — set expectations honestly ("your original meeting cancelled; here's a strong alternative") rather than pretending the substitute was the plan.