Google My Maps is a great free way to drop pins on a satellite map. ExpoFP adds indoor floor plans, booth inventory, and booth sales, and it still works outdoors.
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For attendees
Google My Maps is free, familiar, and very capable for what it was built to do: custom maps on top of Google's base maps and satellite imagery. Anyone with a Google account can drop pins, draw lines and shapes, color-code by category, and group items into layers. You can import a spreadsheet (CSV, XLSX, or Google Sheets) or a KML file, share a link, give teammates edit access, and embed the map on a website with an iframe. That's why so many outdoor festivals, county fairs, farmers' markets, street fairs, and car shows use it to show where food trucks, artisans, stages, restrooms, and parking are. Outdoors, on a real satellite view, it works.
The limits show up when your vendor map needs to work as a floor plan. My Maps has no indoor floor plans, so the moment part of your event moves into an exhibition hall, barn, or convention center, you're back to a PDF. A pin marks a point, not a booth, so there's no booth inventory, no booth sizes, and no "available / reserved / sold" status. Vendors can't reserve or pay for a spot on the map, and they can't update their own listing unless you give them edit rights to the whole map. Booth status still lives in a spreadsheet. And My Maps has documented limits on layers and on the number of rows per import, which matter as your event grows.
This page is for organizers who pin their vendors in Google My Maps and are looking for a Google My Maps alternative for trade show floor plans, festival vendor maps, and fair and market booth layouts. Google My Maps is free, and we say so plainly. The question is whether a free pin map is still the right tool once you're selling booths and handling hundreds of vendors.
| Feature | ExpoFP | Google My Maps |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose-built for event floor plans | Yes. An interactive floor plan platform for trade shows, expos, fairs, festivals, conferences, and venues | No. A general custom-map tool built on Google Maps |
| Indoor floor plans | Yes. Halls, levels, and multiple buildings, with booth-level detail | No indoor floor plans; points and shapes on the outdoor base map only |
| Outdoor / area map | Area map showing parking, entrances, hotels, and transport around the venue; outdoor GPS positioning available | Excellent. Google base map and satellite imagery |
| Drawing / editing booths | FP Designer: drag, drop, merge, and resize booths in the browser; changes go live instantly | Pins, lines, and polygons; no booth objects with sizes or status |
| Import an existing plan | Upload a file or image and the ExpoFP team builds it, or draw it yourself in FP Designer | Import pins from CSV, XLSX, Google Sheets, or KML (row limits apply per import) |
| Live booth availability | Yes. Available, reserved, and sold status shown on the map | No. Status has to be shown by recoloring pins by hand |
| Booth reservations | Exhibitors reserve directly on the map; organizer approves and tracks in one place | Not supported |
| Online booth payments | Exhibitors can pay by credit card on the map (payment collection is a plan option) | Not supported |
| Exhibitor profiles & directory | Logo, description, and contacts per booth, plus a searchable directory | Pin title, description, and photos; no directory |
| Exhibitor self-service updates | Personal auto-login link; exhibitors fill in their details, organizer approves | Only by giving editors access to the whole map |
| Attendee search & filters | Search by company, booth, or category; category filters; bookmarks | Layers can be toggled; search within a custom map is basic |
| Wayfinding / routes | Turn-by-turn, accessible routes across floors, buildings, and the area map; GPS, QR-code, and blue-dot positioning available | Directions to a pin via Google Maps; no routing between booths or indoors |
| Mobile, sharing & embedding | Browser-based, no app or sign-in; custom URL (yourevent.expofp.com), embeddable in websites and event apps, kiosks with offline mode | Works in the browser and with Google Maps on phones; share link, public map, iframe embed |
| Sponsorship / monetization | Sponsored listings, featured placements, banner ads, logos in booths, sponsorship packages | None built in |
| Analytics | Included: searches, booth views, routes, exhibitor activity | No event-level map analytics |
| Cost | Free to start (7-day trial, no credit card); DIY $149/mo; done-for-you from $990 one-time | Free with a Google account |
My Maps costs nothing, but running vendors through it costs time. A typical season goes like this. Vendor applications arrive by form or email. Someone copies the approved vendors into a spreadsheet, adds a column for "spot number," and either imports the sheet into My Maps or drops pins by hand on the satellite view. Pins are points, so you write "Spot B-14, 10×20" into each description and hope the field crew reads it the same way.
Then the changes begin. A food truck cancels, a sponsor wants a bigger corner, and three late vendors need spots. Each change touches two places: the spreadsheet that says who paid, and the map that says where they are. When the two disagree, two vendors get promised the same spot. Anything indoors, such as the exhibit barn, the craft hall, or the expo tent, needs a separate PDF floor plan, so attendees juggle a pin map and a PDF.
On event day, attendees can see roughly where the food zone is. They can't search for "honey" or "leather goods," they can't see which booth number to walk to inside the hall, and sponsors have no measurable visibility beyond a pin.
| Step | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor placement | Pins on a satellite map, with booth size in a text note. | Real booths drawn to your layout in FP Designer, both outdoors and indoors. |
| Booth status | A spreadsheet plus hand-colored pins, with double-bookings possible. | Availability shown on the map, with every reservation in one place. |
| Selling spots | Forms, emails, and separate invoices. | Vendors reserve or pay by credit card directly on the map. |
| Indoor areas | A separate PDF for each hall or barn. | One map that covers the area map, buildings, and levels. |
| Attendee experience | Browse pins and layers. | Search, category filters, bookmarks, and turn-by-turn wayfinding from parking to booth, with no app download. |
Try ExpoFP Free: 7 days, no credit card. Or Book a Demo and we'll look at your current My Maps layout with you.
Export your vendor spreadsheet, and take a screenshot of your My Maps layout or export it as KML for reference. If you have a site plan or venue drawing, grab that too.
On the DIY plan ($149/mo), you lay out booths in FP Designer, dragging, merging, and resizing them in your browser. Or upload your site plan or image and the ExpoFP team builds the map (Light, Standard, or Pro plans). Standard covers up to 3 buildings or levels, and Pro covers unlimited buildings and levels.
Assign them to booths, then send each one a personal auto-login link to add their logo, description, and contacts. You approve every change. If you use a registration, ticketing, or CRM system, ExpoFP integrations can sync exhibitor data both ways.
Let vendors see live availability and reserve or purchase spots directly on the map. Add sponsorship packages or featured placements to bring in extra revenue.
Publish on your custom URL (yourevent.expofp.com), embed it on your website, put QR codes on signage, and add standing kiosks with "you are here" if you need them. Next year, copy the map and vendors to your new event.
For a free, quick map of an outdoor event, Google My Maps is hard to beat. It's a good fit for a neighborhood parade route, a pop-up market in a parking lot with a dozen stalls, a run or ride course, or a "how to get here" map with parking and shuttle stops. If you don't sell booths, don't have indoor spaces, and don't need vendor self-service or analytics, My Maps does the job at zero cost. Many organizers also keep it as a simple regional map, for example of partner hotels, while ExpoFP runs the event grounds and halls.
You can use it as your starting point. Export your vendor list as a spreadsheet, and share a screenshot or site plan of your layout. The ExpoFP team can build the interactive map from it, or you can draw the booths yourself in FP Designer. Because My Maps stores points rather than booths, you'll define real booth shapes and sizes in ExpoFP.
Information on this page is based on publicly available product materials and may change over time. Google My Maps is a trademark of its respective owner. This is ExpoFP's own comparison and reflects our perspective based on publicly available information and user-facing product research.