April 2007
Regional shows: What drives growth?

Whether it’s a stand-alone event or a complement to your national show, regional shows can offer a new source of revenue, as well as expand your attendee and exhibitor base, and strengthen your brand. EXPO examines the rules of the road and offers best practices for growing your regional show.

By Maxine Golding

There’s money to be made in regional shows. The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) will produce five regional shows around the United States in 2007. Hanley Wood hosts four JLC Live shows in the most active remodeling areas of the country. Fresh Cup (www.freshcup.com) turned its annual show into a successful series of seven roadshows.

There’s clear evidence, though no hard data, that regional shows fill exhibition facilities from coast to coast. More than 80 percent of the Rhode Island Convention Center’s trade show business is regional and drive-in. The Ontario (CA) Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) estimates that about 20 percent of the shows in its convention center draw from seven Western states — Washington to New Mexico. And about 50 percent of the shows in Austin, Texas’ capital city, represent a combination of regional and local business.

Show producers looking to develop regional shows need to know that certain rules apply:

Rule #1: The smaller the event, the smaller the margin.
Even though their parameters are not all that different, national shows, by virtue of their size, deliver more attractive margins than regional shows. As a result, organizers of regional shows must keep an especially close eye on fixed costs. “We have to be more astute in the facilities we pick,” says Amy Percha, Event Services Manager for SME (www.sme.org). “We can’t warrant above average rental rates.”

Careful contract negotiation and good efficiency make regional shows like JLC Live more profitable, says Rick McConnell, Vice President, Hanley Wood Exhibitions (www.hanleywood.com).

Rule #2: Bigger fish, smaller pond.
JLC Live New England brings in more attendees than any other show for the Providence Warwick CVB and always meets its room block over five or six hotels. Its measurable economic impact to the region endows the show with power.

It’s also easier for regional shows to make a bigger splash in smaller markets, as well as gain publicity through local newspapers and radio stations. In 2005, says Gary Mikola, Director of SME Events, Michigan’s governor declared “Manufacturing Week,” and at WEST-TEC 2006, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa walked the show floor, met with local companies, and interacted with local students, bringing considerable attention to the event.

“In a second- or third-tier city, the whole association and people are ready to tell a story and can get the attention,” says Mikola. “In Vegas and Chicago, we’re just another show.”

Rule #3: “Drive-in” by definition.
Regional shows define themselves by their drive-in radius. That’s why parking affordability and availability become such important issues for planners. “Believe it or not, the price of parking is what people complain about the most,” says Bob Brown, President & CEO, Ontario CVB, and General Manager and CEO of the Ontario Convention Center (www.ontariocc.com). 
But parking is meaningless without access. For Ontario, that means six major freeways, a location two blocks from Ontario International Airport, and 3,000 hotel rooms within walking distance of the convention center. “People can get off a plane, go through luggage claim, be picked up, and walk into a meeting in under 20 minutes,” he says.

Parking was a key issue when Austin built its convention center in 1992, says Roy Benear, Senior Vice President, Austin CVB (www.austintexas.org). The city knew it had to ensure that enough parking was available within a block or two of the building, and rates had to remain affordable.

Rule #4: Hard to get ’em, harder to hold ’em.
Intent has to be strong for show attendees to travel to a destination city, since with the Internet, information abounds. For regional events, it takes even more of a commitment for attendees to leave their workplace. They may sign on in advance, but if they can’t get out of the office that day, there goes attendance. And if the weather is bad, these shows are particularly vulnerable.
Meanwhile, more limited exhibitor budgets in recent years leave companies unable to support two or three shows within the same market — even with different attendee bases, says Skip Cox, CEO, Exhibit Surveys Inc. (www.exhibitsurveys.com). “They’ll generally gravitate to the stronger of the shows.”

SME finds that it retains between 30 and 40 percent of pre-registrants at regional shows, depending on the venue. The rest of attendance comes on site, when people make decisions at the last minute.

Keeping attendees at regional shows is another matter. Compared with national shows, their compressed time frame makes the headquarters hotel connection to the convention center particularly important. “People don’t want to waste time traveling to and from the building,” says Martha J. Sheridan, CMP, President/CEO, Providence Warwick CVB (www.pwcvb.com).

Rule #5: Smaller scale, greater flexibility.
Most regionals, as scaled-down versions of national shows, still have similar needs for facilities, food and beverage, and audio-visual. In fact, SME uses the same checklists for all its shows, big or small. Yet hotel room blocks tend to be exponentially smaller at regional shows, making block management and attrition less of an issue.

Presented with a weak block commitment, CVBs will require show organizers to be flexible with desired dates. The flip side is that regional shows generally are good revenue producers for convention centers. “We’re the convention center’s friend, but the bureau’s nightmare,” says SME’s Mikola. “Without the room block pick-up, we’ve had to work around the issue of securing dates.”

The answer, says Sheridan, is to fill need periods for destinations and facilities, when they can contract hotel rooms and exhibition space at lower cost. Jan Weigel, Director of Fresh Cup Roadshows (www.freshcup.com) and Fresh Cup magazine’s Publisher, President and CFO, preferred end-of-week days (Friday to Saturday), which worked well for participants and hotels. The request for proposal, however, allowed for date flexibility, so some shows ran Thursday to Friday or Saturday to Sunday.

Here, three regional show producers describe for EXPO their successes and challenges.

Case study: JLC Live fits offerings to the region served
There’s no “cookie-cutter” JLC Live for Hanley Wood Exhibitions. Its four regional shows succeed precisely because they match each show to the audience’s specific needs.

For attendees — entrepreneurial remodelers who operate in areas where older homes proliferate — JLC Live fits the educational offerings to the region served. For Southern California, issues of mold, earthquakes, and structural integrity loom large. In the Midwest, energy efficiency and siding are bigger deals.

The shows’ roots grew in New England, where the mother publication first served the custom home builder and remodeler. The regional show there remains the largest of the four, pulling 8,000 attendees into 45,000 net square feet (NSF) of exhibit space. Its Southern California sibling (Long Beach) hosts 5,000 attendees and 30,000 NSF of exhibits. JLC Live Midwest (in Minneapolis this year) and Pacific Northwest (Seattle or Portland) each draw 4,500, with 28,000 NSF of exhibit space at the former, 25,000 NSF at the latter.

No mega convention centers or first-tier cities for these shows. The small operators who fit the attendee profile want to get in and out of the convention center easily without spending $300 a night for a hotel room. “We want to make the show simple for them,” says McConnell.

That means “planting” JLC Live in the same city year after year. This makes for “strong word-of-mouth marketing from attendees who love the show and tell others about it,” he says. It also enables the show organizer to negotiate a multi-year deal with more advantageous rates and book the destination further in advance. “We’ve found four good cities and will keep coming back to them,” McConnell adds.

What he doesn’t worry about is attrition clauses, which Hanley Wood will not sign. “That means we have an obligation, as a good partner, to book blocks that are realistic,” he notes. With very good history, these regional shows deliver a snug block rather than one too big.

Multiple and exclusive strategic alliances in each city enhance traditional marketing through the magazine and in direct mail pieces. For example, JLC Live Midwest works with a local remodeling organization in Minnesota to market to its members. Since they’re required to obtain continuing education credits to maintain their state licenses, the show’s education becomes of critical value to their businesses. State licensing was not important in Illinois, the show’s former site, a good reason to move the show to a more responsive location.

Certain features distinguish regional shows, according to McConnell. JLC Live’s conference program is smaller (40 to 45 courses) than a national, and the number of concurrent sessions is limited. Show hours tend to be compressed. A national show will generally run an eight-hour expo day alongside education, while JLC shows feature morning sessions, five hours of exposition, and only limited overlap between the two. Exhibitors at national shows tend to entertain clients, with catering in booths or off-site a bigger deal. At regionals, attendees are either in the classroom or on the show floor, “capturing all the people and energy at one time,” he says.

Case Study: SME marries the manufacturing base and the regional destination
The equation for success for the SME’s regional shows is plain and simple: the stronger the manufacturing base and equipment sales in an area, the more local distributors of national machinery will exhibit and the more attendees they’ll draw.

That was brought home when SME, working with a local chapter in 2005, moved a regional show from centrally located Orlando to co-locate with another show in Tampa. “Florida is a good manufacturing state, and a lot of machinery is sold through local distributors,” says Mikola. “Holding the regional show in Orlando — the middle of the state — was always convenient for everybody.”

The new destination, while good for the local audience, was not an easy sale for exhibitors, who complained it didn’t serve the whole state. “We’re influenced by local distributors; if we don’t get them to participate,” Mikola says, “the audience doesn’t come.”

SME’s experience with regional shows is considerable. Its largest, the annual WEST-TEC in Los Angeles, draws 20,000 attendees to a 180,000-square-foot exhibition. It’s closely followed by EASTEC, held each year in West Springfield, MA. SOUTH-TEC, with nearly 6,000 attendees and 90,000 NSF, will draw almost 95 percent of attendees from within a three-hour car drive of this year’s destination, Charlotte, NC. HOUSTEX, drawing mostly from Texas, and GREAT LAKES, this year in Grand Rapids, MI, complete the 2007 regional show lineup. Depending on the market saturation and economy, not every region can support an event every year or even every other year.

SME “lays back” on regionals in odd-numbered years when it produces more national and international shows. With courses, certificate programs, clinics, five regionals and nine majors, SME will produce about 50 events this calendar year.

Once SME is done marrying the manufacturing base and regional destination, it can run into constraints with facility availability. For its regional shows, which typically run Tuesday through Thursday, SME requires a seven-day time frame, including move-in and move-out. Exhibitors need the weekend to bring in equipment and set up their electrical requirements, which go well beyond pipe and drape. Yet, “weekends, when many facilities put on public shows, can be hard to come by,” says Mikola.

“Destinations often pick us, rather than us picking the destination because of the concentration of industry within the area, and the size and infrastructure of their facilities,” adds Percha. But she and Mikola are well aware that room night utilization is “off balance” to the space needs of its regional events, with their heavy drive-in attendance. For example, SME’s peak room block for WEST-TEC is just 1,500 rooms for a 20,000-attendee show.

Once they pass that hurdle, SME’s regional shows utilize many CVB services: negotiation assistance, public relations, lead generation, telemarketing, collateral materials and even simple items like Web links and photographs. Larger bureaus provide SIC codes and contact databases. “And certain bureaus go out of their way to let hotels know we are coming to town and explain who we are,” says Mikola.

Case Study: Fresh Cup divides and conquers with its series of regional shows
With 250 booths and a couple of thousand attendees, the Fresh Cup specialty coffee and tea trade show was a success. Why, then, turn it into a series of regional shows?

“We saw a lot of companies with wonderful products that couldn’t afford the higher costs of a national show,” says Weigel. “And many owner-operators couldn’t take the time to fly across the country and spend three days at a national show. We were missing a lot of people.”

Two-day regional shows were just the ticket, close enough for attendees to drive to and short enough so they could leave their shops in the hands of a manager. But not in venues like Chicago or Orlando with “a ton of shows already,” she notes, and not in union hotels. “To save money on our end and their end, people had to be able to hand-carry” their exhibit materials.
To select the best destinations, Weigel turned to industry colleagues. They helped her identify strong attendee bases, venues with good road access and free or low parking rates, and “nicer” hotels so exhibitors would have a comfortable overnight stay. She then had to determine the roasters, distributors, manufacturers, and reps who serviced specific areas of the country.
She took the risk of plotting seven shows and their destinations before booking a single hotel. “A lot of advertisers and exhibitors in past shows were really excited and wanted to support me,” Weigel says. Then, she enlisted the local restaurant association in each destination to help market the show, along with her magazine, other publications and postcard mailings within a 700-mile radius.

Actual planning began in spring 2005 for the first three roadshows in 2006: Mesa, AZ, in January, Long Beach, CA, in February, and Tampa, FL, in March. Weigel signed three hotel contracts, but found later that she had booked “way too many rooms.” The first hotel was “very fair with me and didn’t charge the full amount of attrition,” she says. The hotel in Tampa was able to resell the rooms, so Weigel was not charged attrition. By then, “Hyatt saw I was a good client with the kind of business the company wanted.” Her pattern was set: 10 rooms the night before setup, 20 to 25 the next night, then 65 peak room nights.

Four more roadshows were produced last year: St. Louis in May, Minneapolis in July, Dallas in September, and Cherry Hill, NJ, in October. (Plans for 2007 shows were put on hold when Weigel’s business partner died. But she hopes to resume the regional shows in 2008.)

Requirements of about 10,000 square feet (40 to 50 exhibitors) and attendance of 500 to 1,000 placed these shows squarely in hotel venues. To get the best pricing, Weigel worked through Hyatt Hotels’ national sales office, and the properties “really took care of us.”

For attendees and exhibitors, the regional shows succeeded because they were much less costly and closer to home. They also brought qualified people, who exhibitors wouldn’t see at national shows, through the door. And exhibitors could call accounts in advance to come and see new products.

For this show organizer, though, flexibility was key. “One hotel wanted to book a $30,000 luncheon on my setup date,” Weigel says. “They won’t charge me for the day, if I can set up after lunch. It was exactly the time I needed, but it cut my costs, and we could get the information in advance to exhibitors, who were not putting up huge exhibits after all.”