October 2006
Equity partners
50 percent equity partnership teams for-profit with association to grow show revenue

By Cathy Chatfield-Taylor

When the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA, www.nfpa.org) approached Marc Rosenstock about buying America’s Security Expo in 2000, he countered with an offer to buy their World Safety Conference & Exposition. The standoff generated a compromise: a 50-50 joint venture to launch America’s Fire Expo at America’s Security in 2001.

“It fulfilled its purpose,” says Rosenstock, President of Lisle, IL-based ROC Exhibitions (www.rocexhibitions.com). “It fostered growth, we discovered we could work together, it was a nice complement to what we were doing, and it was a low-risk launch because it was co-located with America’s Security.”

That courtship produced ROC NFPA LLC, a 50-50 partnership dedicated to the global growth and profitability of the NFPA brand. This for-profit entity advances one mission: To reduce fire, safety and security hazards worldwide.

The two-year-old partnership brings together ROC’s core competence in sales and customer service, and NFPA’s expertise in training and education. As owner of four events and partner in seven others, ROC prefers the 50 percent equity model. “A management contract is not as lucrative as having an equity stake,” Rosenstock says. That’s been proven by ROC’s sister company, Show Management & Services, a family-owned business that manages 17 trade shows with ROC.

“Greed definitely plays a role in what we do,” he says. “We don’t hide that from our partners. We’re there to make money, and we hope they make money and use it for wonderful things.”

Making money on NFPA’s flagship event was imperative. Now in its 35th year, the World Safety Conference & Exposition stagnated under outside management in the late ’70s, rebounded under in-house management through the ’90s, then hit a plateau and declined for three years. The 2004 event in Salt Lake City drew just 2,534 attendees and 262 companies exhibiting in 50,400 net square feet.

Under the LLC, with Rosenstock as President, day-to-day management of the event is now overseen by Kristen Terry, Vice President of ROC Exhibitions, and Linda Bailey, Assistant Vice President of Conferences & Meetings for NFPA. ROC maintains staff in NFPA’s headquarters in Quincy, MA, where operations are fully integrated. However, ROC focuses on the exhibition and NFPA, on the conference. 

After one year under new management, the 2005 show in Las Vegas grew 55 percent in attendance and 29 percent in exhibit space. By 2006 in Orlando, the show drew 4,205 attendees and 312 companies exhibiting in 65,300 net square feet. Rosenstock attributes the growth to mining NFPA’s database of 80,000 members in 100 countries, moving the venue from second- and third-tier cities, and assigning four people to sales. Previously, NFPA had no dedicated sales staff.

“ROC Exhibitions has brought many ideas to the table, including suggesting changing the venue to first-tier cities,” says Bailey. “They recommended Las Vegas, NFPA agreed to give it a try, and it turned out to be one of our most successful events. We’ll be returning to Las Vegas in 2008.”
ROC and NFPA now partner on all four of their security and fire events, including the annual America’s Fire & Security Expo in Miami, and intend to expand into Mexico and Latin America. The first such venture is the Mexico Fire & Safety EXPO, Nov. 15–17, 2006, at Centro Banamex, Mexico City.

What makes the partnership successful? By all accounts, teamwork, communication and brand marketing. Rosenstock sums it up: “We both bring things to the table that ultimately make the customer happy.”