From humble beginnings at the Brisbane Home Show, we began a revolutionary change in event registration and data capture. What started as a simple request to digitise competition entries quickly evolved into a game-changing solution for trade shows and consumer events.
This mini-series takes you through our early days—from the first event to the first year in the market—shedding light on the challenges, breakthroughs, and the vision that continues to shape the Lüp today.
Here’s Part 1 of our story.
When was Lüp launched?
Lüp was officially launched back in March 2011 at our very first event: the Brisbane Home Show. It was a nine-day event held at the RNA Showgrounds.
At the time, my business partner Joe had a contact at the Home Show who wanted to digitise their competitions. They had around 30,000 attendees, but no clear understanding of how many people were entering their competitions. They also wanted to draw a prize every two hours, which was challenging given the event was spread across multiple buildings at the RNA Showgrounds with no internet connection and no live data sharing capabilities.
On top of that, we were dealing with an older demographic — many attendees were unfamiliar with smartphones or computers. We had to come up with a unique and simple way to manage the registration and prize draws.
Despite all the challenges, we successfully registered about 70% of all visitors across the nine days — a groundbreaking achievement at the time. It was the first time a system like this had been used.
Lüp’s first 12 months in the market
The first 12 months were tough.
The trade show industry was still very traditional, and the consumer show space had never seen anything like what we were offering. There was no online ticketing back then — visitors would just turn up on the day, get a paper QR code ticket at the door, and use it to scan with exhibitors.
Everything we were doing was new and innovative, so there was a lot of education involved.
In the first year, we did:
- The Brisbane Home Show in March.
- The Brisbane Home Show again in September.
- A couple of travel expos, including Cruise Expo and Discover Europe Expo.
The travel expos were particularly successful; they were packed out, and we registered thousands of visitors, delivering valuable data for the organisers. Despite the challenges, we actually made a profit from our very first show.
What inspired the creation of Lüp?
Lüp was mainly inspired by that initial request from the Brisbane Home Show — they needed a way to register visitors and manage competition entries across the event.
I’ve always been passionate about technology and solving real-world problems, so this was a perfect challenge. We had to reduce friction for visitors, simplify the process, and make it all work seamlessly in a difficult environment. That drive to create innovative, user-friendly solutions is what led to the birth of Lüp.
Where did the name ‘Lüp’ come from?
Interestingly, we originally launched under the name Expo News, and it was a bit of a last-minute decision. We had two minutes to pick a name so we could register the company. We thought visitors would be signing up for news about the expo, so Expo News made sense at the time.
But as we evolved, we realised it was too generic, so we went through a proper branding process. We wanted something modern, simple, and memorable, which led us to the name Lüp.
The concept of Lüp comes from the complete visitor journey — the ‘loop’ that starts when visitors first hear about a show, then register, visit exhibitors, scan with sponsors, receive follow-up communications, and ultimately return for future events. That complete customer journey loop is what inspired the name.
What did Lüp 1.0 look like and how did it work?
Lüp 1.0 was very, very different from what we have today.
We printed black and white QR code tickets at the door, which were handed out to every visitor. Instead of the iPad we’re using now, we used Windows Thin Clients set up on large tables that we built ourselves. It took three or four van loads just to get all the equipment on site — around 20 machines in total, along with monitors, scanners, and setup gear.
Visitors would:
- Receive a QR code ticket at the door.
- Scan with exhibitors or sponsors throughout the show.
- Register themselves at a registration station (in any order; they could scan first, then register, or vice versa).
The system worked across multiple buildings at the RNA Showgrounds, with visitors scanning at stations branded with sponsor names like Clive Peters or Energex.
We were drawing a prize every two hours, so we needed the data to flow live to enable the prize draws — for example, Clive Peters was giving away a TV every two hours.
What problems were we trying to solve with Lüp?
The core problem we were solving was that event organisers had no real data about who was attending their events.
- Organisers wanted to understand who their visitors were and how they were interacting with the event.
- Exhibitors wanted access to that data to follow up with leads and better understand their ROI.
- Visitors wanted a simple, low-friction way to engage with exhibitors, enter competitions, and receive relevant event information.
We designed Lüp to make the process:
- Simple and easy for visitors (no complicated forms).
- Valuable for exhibitors (easy lead capture and follow-up).
- Insightful for organisers (rich data and clear reporting).
Another key focus was data privacy and compliance. We always believed that:
- Visitors own their data.
- Organisers act as custodians of the data, but ultimately, the visitor controls what happens with it.
- Nothing is shared or used without clear consent.
That visitor-first, privacy-conscious approach was rare at the time — but it’s been a core value for Lüp from day one.
Where was Lüp’s first office and who was in the initial team?
In the very early days, we worked from home. I had an office space, which I used occasionally, but a lot of the initial work happened from home.
The initial team consisted of two people. Lilis joined very soon after we formally launched, and has stayed with us virtually from the start, becoming our lead developer.
About a year later, we hired another team member based in Melbourne, to help with admin and operations.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series.
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