April 2004
Best Practices: Privacy please
Booth space-demo suite combo gives exhibitors more privacy at Design Automation Conference
By Cathy Chatfield-Taylor

How do you sell software that’s so secret you can’t display it? The Design Automation Conference (DAC), June 7–11, 2004, at the San Diego (CA) Convention Center, solved the dilemma for companies in the cutthroat semiconductor industry by combining booth space with private demonstration suites.

“It amounted to turning the show floor inside out,” says Lee Wood, Co-President of Boulder, CO-based MP Associates, which manages DAC for the three sponsoring associations.

DAC draws about 5,500 computer scientists and engineers looking for software to design electronics and silicon chips. In the past, exhibiting companies protected their intellectual property by buying custom-built demonstration suites in an adjacent hall.

“The intent was to qualify people in the booth, then run them over to the suite to see a demo,” Wood says.

Exhibitors complained that it was expensive to set up and staff a booth and a suite. Attendees grumbled that there was too much back-and-forth between halls to be productive. When the $5 billion industry nosedived in 2002, the exhibitor advisory committee suggested cutting costs by eliminating the requirement for all but first-time exhibitors to buy a booth if they wanted a suite.

“Their booths weren’t performing. All the action was in the suites,” Wood says. “But the trade show was important, because the suites were closed off. There was no sense of community, no buzz.”

When an exhibitor suggested combining the booths and suites in one hall, they knew they’d hit on a solution. Using a shopping mall model, they designed a floorplan with two main aisles where store-front exhibits had enclosed suites in back. To accommodate sizes ranging from 10-by-10 to 14,000 square feet, the design pushes large exhibits to the perimeter and clusters small exhibits in the center.

It was a tough sell. Anchor exhibitors with the most priority points were accustomed cherry picking prime real estate up front during the annual space draw. Now they had to order space and trust show management to design a layout that gave them visibility while honoring requests for proximity to other companies.

“There were some rough meetings at the show last year,” Wood says. “They had a lot of hard questions about how the layout would help them get the most out of their investment.”

Wood reworked pricing to come up with a composite space rate. The old rate was $31 per square foot with various discount levels, plus $14 per square foot for a suite up to 1.5 times the booth size. (Beyond that, they paid the higher rate.) The new rate is based on a graduated discount in 1,000-foot increments, starting at $27.50 for the first 1,000 square feet and dropping to $22.50 per square foot for 3,001 square feet and above. Early orders are discounted 15 percent.

About 55 percent of exhibiting companies have already purchased suites, compared with 30 percent in 2003. Suites now comprise nearly 60 percent of floor space, compared with 47 percent of net square footage in 2003. Some exhibitors consolidated their space, accounting for a 10 percent drop in net revenue. Total net footage is expected to lag 2003 by about 2 percent.

Although the net result for show management is less revenue, the consolidation of exhibit space and demonstration suites in one hall stands to reduce exhibitor costs by an average of 25 percent.

“This is a major turning point in the value of the show,” Wood says. “In the long term, we’ll make up for it.”

The logistics of combining custom-built suites and exhibits in one hall are complicated. The move-in schedule makes time for the general contractor to lay carpet and build suites before exhibitor-appointed contractors install exhibits. New rules and regulations allow for the 10-foot-high, sound-absorbent panels that enclose the suites; unrestricted food-and-beverage service in the hall; and a limit of 75 decibels on sound levels.

How quiet will the suites be amid the hubbub of the show floor? That remains to be heard.

“The walls are well-insulated, but there’s a lot of ambient nose that floats over the top,” Wood says. “That’s the one issue that could derail us.”

Cathy Chatfield-Taylor is a freelance writer/ editor. E-mail cathy@cc-tunlimited.com.