April 2005
Entrepreneurs we love

They’re risk takers, big-picture thinkers and creative strategists. They’re the ones we all watch — and sometimes copy. They’re the...

By Maxine Golding



The only way for Kerry Smith to validate his hypothesis was to make it happen.

This driven entrepreneur knew that readers of Event Marketer were spending more on face-to-face events, but it took missionary work to convince advertisers and exhibitors that the worlds of consumer shows, business-to-business shows, trade shows and sponsorships were a single industry.

What really delivered the message was the first event his company, Red7Media, produced in April 2003 at the Peninsula Hotel in Chicago. “With only three issues on the street, we sold out; the facility wasn’t big enough, and it killed us to turn people away,” he recounts. “They thought it was a ploy.” Smith and his colleagues became instant players, and the buzz around the show signaled success.

Smith is one of a new breed of exposition entrepreneurs. Like many before them, they’re passionate, ambitious and creative — and stubborn, willful and driven. But there are differences from the legendary entrepreneurs of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. Many come with years of line and management experience to complement their gut instincts. Both are critical, though, in this era of lightning speed to market and soaring demand for added value.

What separates those who succeed from those who don’t?  It’s not the great idea, but a level of will power or fear of failure that helps them stay the course. “Everyone on a launch will say no to you first,” says John V. Golicz, CEO, Unicomm. “Passion can overcome obstacles and make it a success. When passion leaves a show, it dies.”

That’s unlikely to happen for this special group of eight show producers.

John J. Mooney
Founding Partner and CEO, M|C Communications. 
Shows: 89 medical education conferences and exhibitions in 2004, plus a long-term management contract with the American Institute of Architects for its National Expo
Strategy: To be the preeminent education provider for primary care physicians around the world. The company has forged licensing agreements in Mexico, Brazil and Spain and launched in the United Kingdom, and is now looking at Europe and Asia.
Web site: www.mc-comm.com
Honed Skills at: Publishing and trade show divisions of Reed Elsevier Publishing PLC, including Cahner.

A networking encounter with a fellow Boston College alumnus set John Mooney on the entrepreneurial path.

Jack Connors, then chairman of Hill Holiday Connors Cosmopolous and active in health care in New England, liked the trade show space and clearly saw something in Mooney. “Sit in an office for six months,” Connors told him in 1994, “and come up with a big idea.”

As Mooney watched managed care disrupt the health care landscape, a radical idea gestated in his mind. The pressures on primary care practitioners to be the system gatekeeper and see ever more patients made it nearly impossible for them to expend time and money at national meetings for the hours of education needed to keep their licenses active. Could world-class CME — and a show floor filled with products and services — be delivered to practitioners locally?

Since getting doctors to attend would be the biggest obstacle, Mooney signed Harvard Medical School to deliver a turnkey education program. He brought in the leading managed-care organizations in New England as marketing partners. And he set up an exhibitor steering committee to help build an event that met suppliers’ needs. “There was begging and groveling, and fear of failure,” he laughs.

Fifteen months later, Primary Medicine Today attracted 3,600 practitioners from the greater-Boston area the first shot out of the box. The exhibit side, though, was brutal. “We sold 22,000 square feet and lost money,” says Mooney. But when companies saw the attendance, they began to buy in.

Today, the Pri-Med Conference and Exhibition is produced in every region of the country and attracts more than 30,000 clinicians. And confirming Mooney’s vision, Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm, bought controlling interest in the company in August 2004.

Biggest Mistake: When Mooney launched the third Pri-Med, this time in Chicago, a key data point was overlooked: doctors in Illinois at that time didn’t need CME credits. Three years later, after the state required CME, Pri-Med returned, this time successfully.

What’s Changed in Expositions: “Regional education – it should be on the top of every show producer’s list going forward.”

Most Influenced by: Terry McDermott, former president of Cahners, who as CEO of AIA “took a shot” on outsourcing exhibit sales and audience promotion to Mooney’s new company. Neil Perlman, President and COO, Entrepreneur Magazine Inc., formerly president of Reed Exhibition Cos. and an ex-Cahners colleague, who was influential in getting Mooney into line management, and “a dear friend and advisor the past 10 years.” And Jack Connors, part father, brother, partner and full-time friend, “a very short line of one” who was willing to back Mooney’s company and the Pri-Med event with more than a million dollars over three years.

What They Say About Me: “I’d like to think I’m creative, a good marketer and fierce competitor. And that I nurture talent.”

My Epitaph: “John did it right.”

John V. Golicz
CEO and Founder, Unicomm
Shows: 17; November 2004 and January 2005 Adventures in Travel Expos drew 70,000 attendees and 1,100 exhibitors
Strategy: Launch in nascent or unserved marketplaces
Web site: No corporate Web site; each show has its own address
Honed skills at: Expocon, an independent show organizer, which Advanstar acquired in 1997. Then managed publications and shows in Advanstar’s electronic commerce and printing division.

A serial entrepreneur, John Golicz learned early that not every idea takes the first time around. So he flies quietly under the radar screen, talking little about himself or what he’s doing.

Even with his fifth entrepreneurial endeavor, Unicomm, it took a few years to hit the blockbuster. But hit it he did. More than 22,000 consumers, nearly 3,700 travel and meeting industry professionals, and 500 exhibitors inaugurated Adventures in Travel in New York City in January 2004.

Long before this, he spotted his first show opportunity after his first company, which made peripherals for data centers, was acquired. As an exhibitor, he used to spend $100,000 and be treated “horribly” by the association show. He swore he would launch a more responsive event. On Demand, for digital and graphic arts, was born in 1994 just as digital publishing turned red hot. It was a home run from day one.

Clearly, Golicz is comfortable with risk. “We actually monetarize the risk, so we know what the downside could be,” he says. “If we’re prepared to spend the money, we’re happy to go forward.”

He saw plenty of upside when he launched the Human Resources Outsourcing show in New York in 2003. The debut event tracked a billion dollars worth of deals flowing. That number rose to $2.5 billion its second year, when the show grew by almost 50 percent. “For the first time in my life, there wasn’t one exhibitor complaint,” he says. It’s oversold at the New York Hilton in 2005, and 4,000 are expected to attend.

Still, gut instincts mean something to Golicz. Even though travel was depressed following 9/11 and the recession, Golicz believed in the adventure travel concept, especially with the growth of direct booking by consumers on the Internet. When The New York Times launched a competitive show a month after Golicz’s, like a true entrepreneur he set an aggressive strategy to go nationwide as fast as possible: San Francisco last fall, and Dallas and Los Angeles in 2005.   

Biggest Mistake: A show for customer relationship marketing (CRM), “back before it existed.” Even with a strong partner and 35,000 square feet of exhibit space, attendance was poor. The missing data points: size of the deal and number of buyers at that point in time.

Lesson learned: Make sure you’re not too far ahead of the market cycle. Three years later, hundreds were buying at mass market prices.

Most Influenced by: Fred Favata, founder of Expocon, who gave Golicz a stake in the business and was “a visionary and extraordinary manager to work with and for.”

What They Say About Me: “Competitors will say we don’t give them room to make a mistake.” 

My Epitaph: “ ‘Loved by family and friends,’ because at the end of the day, that’s the most important thing. I don’t live for the business.”

Mark Rayner
CEO, Richmond Events
Events: 23 conferences on cruise ships; largest attracts 900, smallest 150
Strategy: Expand U.S. operations, opening a California base to broaden events beyond ships
Web site: www.richmondevents.com
Honed Skills at: Andry Montgomery in the early 1980s, where he worked on overseas trade shows. Joined East Midlands Allied Press in 1987, testing his ideas for two-and-a-half years.

The big problem with trade shows, says Mark Rayner, is that they don’t work at all for senior people who make senior buying decisions.

Prospects actually do want to meet suppliers — they just hate shows and halls. “These are not places where they want to conduct business, and visiting with temps or juniors at booths is a complete waste of their time,” he says.

When Rayner saw a Dutch floating exposition while managing trade shows in the Far East, the idea clicked. He thought he could tap into the way ships normally work for vacations and at the same time convert the show concept with a computerized system for one-on-one appointments.

No one, however, said it would be easy to do. The first two events he launched in 1990 for East Midlands Allied Press (emap) lost a million dollars. The four events he ran in 1991 dropped another $1.7 million. “It’s a business model that requires more financial commitment than is usual for trade show companies,” he says. “But we were confident of the satisfaction of customers.”

An entrepreneur was born, and in March 1992, Rayner completed a management buyout with venture capital to form Richmond Events.

Using chartered, luxury cruise ships and developing matchmaking software for its events addressed what he saw as the shortcomings of expositions. Delegates are invited to come free of charge. The software allows them to see who will be there and book meetings with those they want to meet. “We’re neither begging for someone’s time nor forcing him to meet someone he doesn’t want to meet,” Rayner says.

Participants select the three or four conference sessions that really interest them. The appointment system books their sessions, filling one-on-one meetings in between. With 60 hours on board ship to mix with peers, “the trip is real value for their time,” he says.

Steady growth and good profits through the 1990s have buttressed Rayner’s vision. Even with the economy’s downturn in 2001 and a “bit of consolidating” in 2002, revenues have grown to $40 million. Indeed, the opening of a West Coast office aims at new opportunities to adapt the appointment system model to technology, pharmaceutical and biotech sectors. And the company is finding a licensing market for RichMatch, the matchmaking software it developed.

Biggest Mistake: Not to sell Richmond Events at the end of the 1990s. “It’s easy to say this in hindsight, and to be honest, I didn’t want to sell, but it was my most costly mistake,” Rayner admits.

What’s Changed in Expositions: “Expos were valid before telephones, telexes, faxes and now online. But the world has changed completely, and ours is one of the early new models.”

Most Influenced by: Hugo Johnson at Andry Montgomery who developed many of the first trade shows in the Middle East and Far East. “He taught me not only about shows but also how to get along with people,” and he now works for Rayner.

What They Say About Me: “Some competitors probably describe me as arrogant, but the people with me respect me for being fair, honest and straight.”

My Epitaph: The poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling.

Sean Guerre
President and CEO, The Trade Fair Group
Shows: 11; largest is Electric Power with 73,000 NSF of exhibits and 6,485 attendees. About 60 percent of events are equity-owned, 40 percent managed or joint ventures.
Strategy: Serve energy and industrial sectors through face-to-face, print and online products, reaching $10 million in revenues in five years
Web site: www.tradefairgroup.com
Honed Skills at: Penn-Well, where he was recruited out of college to help with sales.

The heart of an entrepreneur — and poker player — always beat in Sean Guerre.

Small businesses he ran in high school and college whetted this desire. Then he was introduced to trade shows and the energy industry at Penn-Well, where he saw what the market was missing: an event producer that could focus on show management, launches and joint ventures.

Financing this start-up out of his back pocket, Guerre contracted to handle operations and preplanning logistics for a Penn-Well oil and gas show in West Africa. He and a staff of two worked on modular furniture and handed each other floppy disks in place of a server.

“It’s difficult to be entrepreneurial in bigger companies,” he says. “They become bureaucratic with processes that make them run, and those very things tend to drive entrepreneurs away.”

Still, the realities can be daunting: “Everything takes longer than you think and everything costs more than you think. But everything is worth much more than you ever thought it would be,” he says.

His No. 1 obstacle was lack of capital; everything had to be done on a shoestring. And while he had a reputation, the company didn’t, making it rough going in a very competitive marketplace. The solutions: Guerre did the most with the funds he had, creating high-quality brochures and Web sites that delivered the right visibility. He took on a partner, David Johnson, who knew the power side of the industry and brought decades of experience at Penn-Well. And he based the company in Houston, a major hub for the industry.

In rapid succession, the company launched Clean Gulf and Electric Power, contracted a series of managed shows with association partners, and started niche events. When the American Society of Mechanical Engineers came to him for help in launching a trade show alongside its ICONE conference, a joint venture was born.

Eight years later, the Trade Fair Group boasts $3 million in annual revenues and a staff of 14. At this rate, odds are that Guerre won’t find time for his favorite poker game, Texas Hold ’Em.

Biggest Mistake:  “Falling in love with my ideas and launches,” he rues. “Entrepreneurs are like wildcatters – you don’t hit wells every time, sometimes a dry hole.” He started an event in the national gas industry for production, pipeline and end-user. It didn’t take, but he mined the experience for a couple of conferences that are profitable.

What’s Changed in Expositions: The drive to gain qualified attendees. “We’re devoting more people to customer service and attendee sales.”

Most Influenced by: His parents, who fanned the flames of his entrepreneurial vision, partner David Johnson, expo industry veteran Michael Hough, and Denyse Selesnick, President, International Trade Information Inc.

What They Say About Me: “I’m fair, honest, hard-working and energetic.”

My Epitaph: “We’re not here for a long time, but we are here for a good time.”

Kerry J. Smith
President and CEO, Red7Media
Shows: 5, including The Folio Show with 2,700 attendees and 13,000 NSF of exhibits
Strategy: To compete with “big players in our space” by delivering a quality experience that builds a brand long-term
Web site: www.red7media.com
Also Launched: PROMO magazine (and subsequently a trade show) with his father, who had owned a marketing/communications agency. They sold the business to Primedia in 1996.
Honed Skills at: Primedia as group publisher for eight magazines, including PROMO.

It took Kerry Smith a summer of house painting to decide to become an entrepreneur a second time.

His first taste came when he and his father launched PROMO in 1987, using the venerable Folio (for the publishing industry) as its model. While they taught themselves the publishing and show business, he recognized how much more he had to learn.

So Smith views his six-year stint at Primedia, which bought PROMO, as a “terrific experience, like a master’s degree in the big-company ways of doing things.” It also gave him access to systems, infrastructure and talent on which to draw. “You feel a little safer in a big-company environment,” he admits.

The last few years, though, stopped being fun. “The key to entrepreneurs,” he says, “is a supportive spouse. Mine said she would rather see me happy and unemployed, rather than miserable and employed.”

Painting away high on that ladder, Smith had time to cogitate on the category he knew best — promotion. Big marketers were moving dollars out of traditional media and creating action “below the line.” This was forcing new dynamics in the face-to-face arena, and Smith thought he could apply the PROMO model to a fragmenting industry.

With fresh vigor, he returned to the entrepreneurial fold, starting Red7Media in the basement of his house. While he had access to venture capital, he chose to finance the operation himself. “I didn’t want to answer to anybody,” Smith says. “There’s nothing like the fear of losing your house to motivate you to succeed no matter what.”

He launched Event Marketer in October 2002, its conference in April 2003 and about the same time M10, a magazine to compete with Folio’s 32-year-old brand. After the fifth issue and without big-company resources, the upstart purchased Folio and its shows (folding in M10), and Circulation Management. With a “passionate” staff of 30, three magazines and five events, Smith plans another magazine launch this year and an event for that marketplace in 2006. He’s projecting 2005 revenues of $9 million. 

Biggest Mistake:  “As an entrepreneur, you want to control everything and get caught up in the details. The toughest thing is to let go, put faith in the people you hire, and step back and think strategically. I struggle with this all the time.”

What’s Changed in Expositions: Show producers “can’t be complacent. We must constantly reinvent ourselves and put ourselves in attendees’ shoes. There are a lot of other places they can go rather than a tired show.”

Most Influenced by: “My father, Kerry E. Smith, a very driven and passionate person. He used to say, ‘If you have a vision, don’t let anyone bump you off the track.’”

What They Say About Me: “I am quick to see an opportunity and act on it. I’m aggressive, creative, passionate and empowering.”

My Epitaph: “He died laughing.”

Ken Moyes
President, EH Publishing 
Shows: 2 Electronic House Expos; Fall 2004 hosted 65,000 NSF and 7,497 attendees. TecHome Builder launches in May and is projected to cover 17,000 NSF and draw 2,000 attendees; Worship Facilities Expo debuts in October and is projected to draw 2,500 attendees and cover 20,000 NSF.
Strategy: To be the leading media company in home electronics and facilities technology
Web site: www.ehpub.com
Honed skills at: Peat Marwick Mitchell for five years. Left to run large, troubled companies.

Ken Moyes loved his first working years in accounting. But the accountant’s job, he soon realized, is to record history. He wanted to create history, and he could only do that as an entrepreneur.

Success at turnarounds in the ensuing years showed him that the discipline is the same from business to business. “You have to identify a real need, what it costs to fulfill that need, and what people will pay for it, and then go do it,” he says.

But when his first idea in the media field came to him, he began to see significant differences from one model to another. In home security products distribution, he had 25,000 customers and the products they wanted, but no margin. While looking at the company’s position in 1992, he saw a magazine called Electronic House, with only 2,000 readers. Moyes liked the name and suddenly saw a future when people will want to install more electronic products in the home.

He intended that the security distribution business buy the magazine for its name. But when a large, public UK company that was the major shareholder at the time refused the magazine purchase, Moyes bought the magazine himself. By late 1994, he started learning the publishing business full-time. 

It took four years of publishing for the market to catch up with the idea. “You have to have real readers and meet a consumer demand,” he says. “It’s the same with shows and attendees. You have to have pizzazz and solve a need right away.”

When Moyes hit 20,000 readers, he was ready to start a show. The first Electronic House Expo debuted in 1999 and it’s grown slowly, but with quality. An agreement with the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) allows Moyes to tap into marketing and logistical opportunities, and CEA to broaden into the connected home industry, which today represents $15 billion.

Closing its first decade, EH Publishing’s revenues will top $20 million in 2005. Moyes financed his operation his way — without venture capital. “It’s personally gratifying to do things with the resources you have,” he says proudly. No investor can make him sell the company in two years to get his money back. “It’s the best part of my life.” 

What’s Changed in Expositions: “Attendee value. You have to make lots of things happen for attendees to do when they are at your show. This is much more expensive, but essential to maintain the asset and grow it. A lot of successful shows don’t do this; they may not die quickly, but they’re dying.”

Most Influenced by: Gary Shapiro, President and CEO, CEA. “He’s a good friend and supporter who is involved in our shows and strategy.”

What They Say About Me: “Very customer-focused, very smart in how we run the business and approach a market.”

My Epitaph: “I cared about the people I worked with.”
Elyse Kroll
President, ENK International
Shows: 23; Fashion Coterie is the largest with just under 500,000 SF, 1,100 vendors and 15,000 to 17,000 attendees
Strategy: Expand show production outside of fashion as sole owners or with partners.
Web site: No corporate Web site; each show has its own address.
Honed Skills at: A consumer lifestyle magazine startup and a public relations company for fashion clients

Elyse Kroll tells a classic story of being in the right place at the right time.

On the way to dinner with a friend to commiserate about leaving her job, Kroll happened to sit in on a meeting with a group of designers who wanted to break away from a large trade show. Having worked in public relations — and clearly no shrinking violet — she kept raising her hand to say something. “I’d get this look of ‘Who are you?’ ” she laughs. “But some of the clients I worked for were notable, so they began to pay attention.”

Kroll had always wanted to do her own thing, and here was her chance. She created the Designers Collective (now called The Collective) in 1981, and a year later launched ENK.

Along the way, Kroll bought Pier 94 in New York City and converted the former warehouse into a singular alternative to typical convention settings with 180,000 square feet for ENK shows and others. And even that is turning out to be not big enough for the shows’ 25 to 30 percent annual growth.

Despite never working for an exhibition company, Kroll found her perfect match in event planning. She loved having to promote her own product and plan it all.

If she faced one obstacle in the early going, it was how good a salesperson she could be. “I needed to go out and convince people to join a show when the fashion industry didn’t welcome trade shows and thought they were pedestrian,” Kroll says.

Her idea was to put together the best people and companies she could find and make the event exclusive; people would then clamor to take part. She also focused on producing a dazzling event, rather than the same-old trade show. For example, she held events in hotels, with sleeping rooms as exhibitor showrooms, making the atmosphere very intimate and highly exclusive.

What really keeps ENK on the map is Kroll’s decision to invest a lot of money in her shows. “Other people would be cautious, but I know where I should lead the company,” she says.

What’s Changed in Expositions:  “The ante has been raised. Fashion is a global business, and customer expectations are extraordinarily high. Shows have to be more theatrical, and it’s an atmosphere that is often quite expensive to create and a lot more complicated. And you have to keep proving yourself more so than ever before.”

Most Influenced by: Her dad. “I was always deeply affected by my critics, but he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the ball. Don’t worry about it, unless it’s an important criticism and you have to do something about it.’”

What They Say About Me:  “For sure, they think I am passionate. They’ll also say I’m difficult, because I want things done a certain way, even if it means spending a lot of money to correct something – like reprinting 25,000 invitations that are about to mail. Who but me really knows that I meant them to be in another color? My CFO is not happy about that.”

My Epitaph: “ ‘This is completely unacceptable.’ I say that every day about something.”

Joel A. Davis
President and CEO, JD Events 
Shows: 4; largest owned is Satellite Application Technology Conference & Expo (15,000 SF of exhibits and 2,000 attendees); management contract for St. Louis Auto Show (350,000 SF and 450,000 attendees)
Strategy: Trade show incubator — start, succeed, and sell new properties or acquire and rebuild distressed ones
Web site: www.jdevents.com
Honed Skills at: Reed Exhibition Cos. for 10 years; President of Cowles Event Management, which Primedia acquired; President of Intertec Exhibitions; President and COO of eMarketWorld; and Vice President and General Manager at Imark Communications

At perhaps the darkest time in the event and travel industry — fourth quarter 2001— Joel Davis convinced 11 investors and trade show veterans to commit nearly a million dollars to fund an “incubator.”

The largest was Davis himself, who put up a majority of his family’s life savings. “The biggest reason companies fail,” he says, “is that they don’t have enough money to survive. It’s incredibly scary.” Yet he had a gut feeling this was the best time to start this particular business — when all the chips were down and everything was at rock-bottom.

In hindsight, Davis didn’t need all that money. On Day 1, he had an office, fully-staffed team and cash flow, courtesy of a contract to run Ad:Tech from his former employer and technology trade show producer, Imark Communications. The capital did help him spin off two launches that were in development at Imark, and ultimately buy Ad:Tech.

It must have been unnerving to announce at the end of 2001 a next-year launch in the travel technology sector. Still, the Travel Commerce Conference & Exposition found an audience and gained momentum; by year two attendance grew 40 percent, even though it took place the week after the Iraq War began. Similarly, SatCon launched when the telecom sector was being “annihilated,” Davis says.

After a good profit its second year, company revenues hit $6 million in 2004. Davis and his team of eight rang up thier first sale this past January, when dmg world media acquired Ad:Tech. It proved his business concept worked: launch or revive shows, examine them for future asset potential, build their value and sell them to large organizers. “These companies grow through acquisitions,” says Davis. “They aren’t successful at establishing entrepreneurial cultures or products.” His goal: “for the buyer to want to buy from us again.”

Meanwhile, by staying small and nimble, JD Events can change on a dime and not answer to anyone. Davis won’t let his team get caught up in reports or budgets or meetings; they stay focused on how to build relationships in the marketplace.

Now Davis has two new acquisitions to work on: ShowBiz Expo bought from MindShare Ventures will relaunch in 2005, and the Symposium on Health Care Design from IIR (a former Imark property).

Biggest Mistake: “Working for someone who turned out not to be someone I could trust. This taught me a tremendous amount about choosing your partners in business and life. It was a blessing in disguise.”

What’s Changed in Expositions: Businesses are more careful and measured about exhibiting and attending, so shows are no longer “automatic.” Customers have gotten smarter, so “we’ve had to become smarter about how to market and deliver value to both parties.”

Most Influenced by: Two industry veterans “who believed in me at an early stage and helped guide me in career decisions”: Gerald L. van Dijk, to whom Davis reported at Cahners, and John Mooney, Davis’ senior at Reed and one of his investors.

What They Say About Me: “I’d like to think people consider me a good guy who works hard and treats people well. I don’t hide the fact I’m very ambitious and competitive.”

My Epitaph: “Loved his wife, loved his children, loved his business.”


Putting ‘Entrepreneur’ in ‘Association’
Gary J. Shapiro, J.D.
President and CEO, Consumer Electronics Association, owner and producer of International CESTM (www.ce.org)

Perhaps the lowest point for Gary Shapiro came in 1994, when his association board lost its summer show to a fledgling upstart powered by rebelling videogame makers. It was a painful lesson in not taking customers for granted.

In the years since, he has taken that lesson to heart, propelling International CES into first place among North American shows. With more than 140,000 attendees and 1.53 million NSF of exhibit space, the nonprofit association show is a case study in how to be “entrepreneurial.” His team even managed to grow international attendance from 18,000 to 23,000, despite considerable security and visa restrictions. “A good leader’s job is to turn lemons into lemonade,” Shapiro says.

Here are some ideas:
• Incentivize every employee. All 140 employees at Consumer Electronics Association, the show’s parent with $50 million in revenues and 2,000 corporate members, have a vested interest in the show’s success.
• Adopt a strategy of partnerships (25 at the last show) and exceed the expectations of every one. Without them, “we couldn’t grow the show by ourselves,” he says.
• Listen to customers. More than 15 surveys after each show address attendee, exhibitor and partner categories and their issues.
• Provide a value proposition for all attendees. They should fear they’ll lose something if they’re not there or gain something by being there.
• Identify ways the audience is changing to find new target audiences.
• Look for the next new trend. Attendees have come to expect that, both in conferences and “Tech Zones” on the exhibit floor.
• Create entry-level opportunities. At International CES a circular kiosk gives a supplier a presence, just not as big as a booth.
• Make each show fresh and exciting. “We are not complacent,” says Shapiro. “We must give every attendee another reason to come.”

Chuck Yuska
President and CEO, Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (www.pmmi.org)

PMMI shook up the exposition industry when it decided to act as its own general services contractor for PackExpo International. For associations used to being risk-averse, it was a wake-up call that they, too, could no longer sit on their laurels.

“Nonprofit doesn’t mean ‘non’-profit,” says Yuska. “That’s just a tax status. We run this association like a business.”

That means a board of directors that empowers activism, as well as a streamlined decision-making process. When Yuska had the chance to compete with a for-profit organizer to buy 50 percent of a show in Mexico City, he met the owners and completed the deal without going back to his volunteer leadership to run the numbers.

“It made business sense and served our mission,” he says. “I even acted more quickly than the for-profit.” PMMI bought the other half of ExpoPack last year.

For PMMI to decide to become its own contractor was truly entrepreneurial. It required the association to make presentations to exhibitors and outline the worst-case scenario: doors might not open and machines might not work. Exhibitors said it was worth the risk, if PMMI could stabilize and lower costs. “We learned a lot and made a few mistakes, but we did maximize the value to exhibitors and attendees and improve customer service,” he says. “After understanding the size and logistics of moving in a 1.2 million-square-foot show with 1,600 exhibitors and 70,000 attendees, I told Don Freeman, ‘This is a job!’”

With its new-found knowledge, PMMI can help exhibitors avoid wasting money because a missed target date forced an overtime situation, for example. Every exhibitor who did not order services 30 days before the show was called and told why charges would be 30 percent more after the deadline.

The greater emphasis on service boils down to one thing: accountability. “When I started out, every show was always promoted as bigger and better,” Yuska says. “Now we’re told, ‘Show me what I can get out of it.’ ”

Jason McGraw
Senior Vice President of Expositions, International Communications Industries Association Inc. (www.infocomm.org)

ICIA’s InfoComm International®, with 25,000-plus attendees and 350,000 NSF of exhibit space, and other ICIA events contribute 60 percent of the organization’s funding. So this association needs to continue to innovate and produce vibrant events — always looking to deliver more value and return on investment for exhibitors and attendees. “We run our shows like a for-profit, but with the heart of an association,” McGraw explains.

ICIA took three actions the last few years to stimulate growth:

1. It developed new technology pavilions (now  seven) for InfoComm in areas that started to “bubble on the surface.” Matching educational content is presented in conference courses and on the show floor, with a media partner to help with marketing. “This helped drive 100 of 180 new exhibitors last year,” McGraw says. So did a first-time exhibitor package that takes care of hundreds of pounds of freight, electricity, tables and chairs, for more than $1,000 in savings over  “a la carte.”

2. ICIA increased sponsorship revenue at InfoComm 20 percent year over year for the past three years by integrating its sales approach. The expo team meets with the top 25 exhibitors, listens to their needs, and customizes proposals that can include sponsorships, banners, pre- and post-show recognition, and even meeting space. One account rep is dedicated to each company and personally handles services on site in a “cradle-to-grave” relationship.

3. Thanks to its board, ICIA takes risks and makes investments in events that expand its global reach. Either alone or with partners, it has developed international shows in Europe, China and Asia under the Integrated Systems brand. The second edition of the European show doubled attendance and exhibitors, and the other two international events are seeing the same trending.
“You have to offer a more compelling reason for people to invest not just money but time to come to your events,” McGraw says.