April 2001 

10 of the industry’s top show sites

By Cathy Chatfield-Taylor

What makes a show Web site great? The second- and third-generation sites promoting this year’s events offer more features and functionality than ever before. But even the most sophisticated technology is for naught if users can’t find what they want or don’t know how to use what they find. It all boils down to the user experience. 

The best show Web sites are easy to navigate; offer help by e-mail, phone or fax; and use simple forms for speedy registration, housing and travel arrangements. They have appropriate and engaging content, with enough pizzazz to generate real excitement. And they provide handy tools to help attendees get ready for the main event. 

Online registration and housing, searchable exhibitor directories, conference and exhibit schedulers, and online floor plans are now commonplace — available on half of all show Web sites, according to EXPO’s Show Management Web Survey (November/December 2000). But the best sites need not have every bell and whistle. All they need are the features their users want. For some, it’s exhibitor matchmaking, for others it’s peer-to-peer networking. 

Those who create the best show Web sites know one thing to be true: People make their events successful. If users have a great experience before the show, they’re more likely to have a great show. “We provide a quality site that meets the expectations of the people who go to NAB,” says Peter Ratkevich, Marketing Manager, Interactive Promotions, for the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), Washington, DC. “As traffic on our site has gone up, the number of registrations has gone up. Success is defined by the number of people who come to the show.” 

USER EXPERIENCE


NAB 2001
April 21–26
Las Vegas Convention Center and 
Sands Expo Center
www.nab.org/conventions/nab2001

Produced by NAB and powered by TSCentral, Wellesley, MA, the NAB 2001 Web site has it all. From a Flash introduction by “Joe Attendee” to an online exhibitor service kit, the site solidifies the NAB brand as a digital communication technology showcase. “We want to capture everything about the show,” says Ratkevich. “It’s the encyclopedia of the NAB convention.”

Despite hundreds of Web pages, most generated on the fly from sophisticated databases, the site’s information architecture makes it easy for exhibitors, attendees and the press to use. “We went through the story of their experience leading up to the show and attending the show, then mapped out, in a linear fashion, what they need to know,” he says. 

Specific features and functions were selected with one goal. “Branding for us is key,” says Chris Brown Sr., Vice President, Conventions and Expositions. “The kinds of services we offer reflect our penchant for technology.”

Ratkevich executed plans for the site using an army of vendors. “That allowed us to get the best possible technologies without spending a large sum and still retain control,” he says. Multimedia designer Don Schaaf & Friends, Washington, DC., created the graphic look. TSCentral (www.tscentral.com) provides the ExpoTour, ExpoManager and Expodite modules that enable the exhibitor search, online floor plan, appointment scheduler, booth inventory management and online exhibitor service kit. Atlanta-based ExpoExchange (www.expoexchange.com) 
handles online registration, and ExpoVision (www.expovision.com), Falls Church, VA, drives the online housing and travel services. 

An in-house programmer built the database-driven conference section, including a keyword search and a scheduler that allows attendees to create a personal itinerary, complete with conference sessions, selected exhibits and appointments. All print promotions point to the site, where news about speakers, exhibitors and special events is updated daily. “We print smaller four- to six-page pieces or postcards that drive people to the Web site for all the detailed information they need,” Ratkevich says. More than 90 percent of the 116,000 attendees register online.

For NAB’s 1,700 exhibitors, the online service kit replaces two 300-page manuals. Equipped with a user ID and password, they can access all the forms they need, get reminders about deadlines and submit orders online. Exhibitors also maintain their own standard or enhanced listings with logos and graphics, product descriptions, contact names, audio and video files, press releases and brochures. The database-driven listing in turn populates the print directory, improving accuracy and reducing production costs for NAB. 

Internet-based back-office tools give the NAB sales force access to booth space, sponsorship and other product inventories from any office. Sales staff, exhibitors and attendees all see the most up-to-date floor plan. Tied to the interactive map and exhibitor database, the robust search engine lets attendees search by category, subcategory, company name or keyword, then map out their itinerary for covering the 950,000 square feet of exhibit space.

For a non-profit association with just two people devoted to its show site, NAB 2001 attests to the power of technology to present an impressive front. “As an Application Service Provider (ASP), we can build out the hardware and software infrastructure,” says Tom Woods, TSCentral Product Manager. “If the client can’t justify the capital expense or doesn’t have the wherewithal to maintain the technical challenges, they can still have a high-end product.”

FOR ATTENDEES

Licensing 2001 International
June 12–14
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York
www.licensingshow.com

Advanstar’s Licensing 2001 is not about selling products. “It’s about relationships,” says Diane Stone, Group Show Director for the Global Licensing Group, based in Milford, CT. “Attendees have appointments every 20 minutes for three days.” Scheduling appointments in advance, and knowing where exhibits are located, helps attendees have a more productive show. 

Powered by TSCentral’s ExpoTour and ConferenceManager modules, the Licensing show site, launched in February, allows attendees to create and print a personal calendar and customized floor plan of the show’s more than 450 exhibitors. When an exhibitor accepts an attendee’s e-mail request for a meeting, the appointment is automatically entered in the event planner. “That’s a neat feature because if you come to the show without any appointments, you’ll be lost,” says Show Manager Elizabeth Waiksnis. With a plan in hand, attendees can navigate 275,000 net square feet of exhibit space in a logical sequence. 

Attendees can also add conference sessions to their event planners — a handy tool for creating a tentative agenda to submit for a supervisor’s approval. About 50 percent of the 14,000 attendees register online through Advanstar’s central registration system. “The Web is an integral part of my overall marketing program,” says Stone. “That results in bodies walking through the door.”

FOREXHIBITORS

Financial Service 
Forum 2001
April 1–4
MGM Grand, Las Vegas
www.societyforum.com

A straightforward user interface for the Financial Service Forum 2001, produced by the Society of Financial Service Professionals, Bryn Mawr, PA, directs exhibitors to a menu of online tools for making booth space reservations, setting up online booths and managing leads year round. Exhibitors who purchase an upgrade to the standard booth can maintain an online product catalog — complete with streaming audio and video — capture contact information for visitors who sign a “guest book,” and import leads into in-house contact management systems. 

Having all the information exhibitors need accessible 24/7 has improved sales. “It shortens the sales process,” says Exhibit Manager Michelle Connor. “Sales are about 20 percent better this year.” With a section dedicated to sponsors, sponsorship sales have also grown.

Forum 2001 is powered by a2zShow (www.a2zinc.net), the Web-based application for marketing and managing events online. Rajiv Jain, President and CEO of a2z Inc., Columbia, MD, says the society has complete control of the site through a secure, browser-based administration area. “They can sell and assign booth space to exhibitors online in real time,” he says. The live floor plan highlights reserved space, then reveals the company name once the sale has closed. Exhibitors can see where their competitors are and make decisions accordingly.

With 1,000 attendees, 100 exhibiting companies and 30,000 net square feet of space to manage, the small society staff appreciates the ease with which they can maintain the conference information, including a custom-designed database for continuing education credits that can be earned toward various designations. “We wanted the site to be easy to update, so we could refresh it daily,” says Asha Williams, Ph.D., Vice President of Marketing and Communications. “And we wanted a site that could handle online registration.” About 25 percent of attendees registered online, which was available for the first time this year.

FOR SPEAKERS

PITTCON 2001
March 4–9
Morial Convention 
Center,New Orleans
www.pittcon.org

The Pittsburgh Conference and its sponsoring societies, the Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh and the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh, schedule more than 2,000 technical papers at PITTCON 2001. For the volunteer conference organizers, managing submissions would have assumed nightmarish proportions without the back-end support of ShowExperience (formerly GES Interactive). The Las Vegas ASP customized the browser-based administration area so speakers upload their own abstracts. 

Site search engines help the 27,000 attendees find papers they want to hear at sessions and companies they want to visit, and the personal calendar flags any conflicts. After the show, the agenda builder may be adapted as a depository for technical papers. “Unlike traditional ASPs, where customers don’t have the ability to modify the application, we perform modifications that meet customer needs,” says Thomas Fleming, Director of Sales for ShowExperience. 

With more than 1,200 exhibiting companies, PITTCON also caters to exhibitors, with an exhibitor production schedule, online registration and housing, and service contractor information. “This portion of the site is being used a great deal,” says Annette Wilson, PITTCON 2001 Webmaster. “Our goal is to get enough pertinent information on the Web site to decrease the number of questions exhibitors need answered via phone calls.”

REGISTRATION/HOUSING

InternetWorld 
Spring 2001
March 12–16
Los Angeles Convention Center
www.pentonevents.com/spring2001

Expectations run high for performance of Cleveland-based Penton Media Inc.’s InternetWorld sites. “Our entire audience — attendees, exhibitors, press — is high-tech. The pressure is really on to have a cutting-edgeWeb site,” says Courtney Muller, Vice President, InternetWorld Events. 

After five years and as many iterations, Penton relaunched the InternetWorld Spring 2001 Web site in November 2000 with San Diego-based Total Service Provider Cayenta (www.cayenta.com) delivering the look and feel and MOMENTIX,(www.momentix.com) serving up applications, such as a searchable exhibitor list and conference agenda. In-house Web Project Manager Diana Dulaney maintains the content and customizes navigation, which she’s simplified so users don’t have to guess where to click to get the information they need. “We learned a lot from our Fall InternetWorld site,” she says. Condensing the attendee and exhibitor tool bars and including a “Floor Plan” link in both menus makes the Spring show site options more intuitive and less overwhelming. 

One of the main goals for the site is to process online registrations fast, according to Stacey Huzi, Director of Attendee Marketing. For that, Penton relies on Carrollton, TX-based Accureg (www.accureg.com), which handles 100 percent of the exhibit hall registrations and 85 percent of the conference registrations online. The “Register” and “Hotel & Travel” links feature prominently as part of the site-wide top menu bar. Clicking through the series of simple forms takes just minutes. The Westport, CT, travel agency, Lee Travel Group, uses Attendee Relationship Management software from b-there.com, also of Westport, to power InternetWorld’s online air, car and hotel reservation system. Together these vendors simplify the chore of getting to the InternetWorld event.


INTERACTIVITY

Broadband 
Year 2001
June 18–22
San Jose Convention Center
www.broadbandyear.com

From the Flash splash screen to rollover menu buttons, the Broadband Year 2001 Web site has pizzazz that incites users to get involved. Beyond the ballyhoo, iMark makes clear the importance of interactivity with its prominent placement of discussion forum and suggestion box links in the Event Overview section. 

“The discussion forum sets us apart from other events,” says iMark’s Laurel Mayer. “People can express themselves, get ideas and ask questions. We’re hoping the forum will be a place to meet before the show, and then they’ll connect at the show.” Attendance promotion brochures that mailed in March 

highlighted the discussion forum as a benefit of participating in Broadband Year 2001. By April, iMark expected usageto pick up, then peak in the weeks immediately before the show.

The Natick, MA, event producer selected Boston-based MOMENTIX (www.momentix.com) to power the Web site infrastructure so staff could focus on the content, look and feel. “We wanted our site to be sticky and give attendees more reasons to come back,” Mayer says. The 3,500 attendees and 100 exhibiting companies that gather at Broadband Year are a tech-savvy group. More than 90 percent register online. Many of this site’s features resulted from last year’s online survey. “Surveying our attendees helps a lot. We listen to their suggestions, take it to heart and provide them with what they’re looking for in a Web site and an event.” The suggestions box allows those opinions to be heard year round. 

COMMUNITY

Texas Home & 
Garden Show Series
Includes 11 shows in five Texas cities 
www.texashomeandgarden.com

Houston-based International Exhibitions Inc. cut its community-building teeth on OilOnline.com, an oil and gas industry marketplace launched six years ago by Atlantic Communications, the trade and consumer show producer’s publishing subsidiary. “We had a lot of Web expertise based on this,” says Jolanta Dryden, Director of Exhibitions and Conferences. “When we started a small Web site for our consumer shows, we focused on promoting the shows to get more exhibitors.” 

That site has evolved into TexasHomeandGarden.com, the self-sustaining online community for the Texas Home & Garden Show Series — 11 shows that run in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio. “We’d get calls after a show from people looking for our exhibitors,” Dryden says. “We were becoming the official yellow pages.” With more than 100,000 companies listed in 15 categories, the site now connects shoppers to merchants and enables online buying. 

Web-site Manager Wendy Bogema constantly tweaks the site to help consumers find what they need. “We get an email from someone saying, ‘I can’t find this,’ but we know it’s there. So we reword it, post it and point them to it. Then they say, “Oh, that’s just what I needed.’” she says. “That makes it fun. We’re addressing their needs immediately.” The staff also consults with exhibitors to help them enhance their presence by including information their customers want. 

A sense of community is what brings consumers back time and again. Sections for each Texas market offer city-specific how-to articles, an “Ask the Expert” column and message boards. And, of course, visitors can get discount coupons to shows, search the exhibitor directory for products and print exhibit hall floor plans. 

BRANDING

Pizza Expo 2001
March 20–22
Las Vegas 
Convention Center
www.pizzaexpo.com

When Pizza Today publisher Macfadden-ProTech LLC, New Albany, IN, wanted a new Web site for its three Pizza Expos, the company gave eShow2000 developer Netronix (www.eshow2000.com) a wish list of features. Topping the list, “We wanted something that says ‘pizza,’” says Linda Keith, CMP, Vice President, Meetings& Conferences. From an Italian color scheme to slice-shaped menu buttons, the Chicago-based ASP delivered a mouth-watering look and feel for the first site, powered by a back-end database that lets Keith keep the site upto date without neglecting her trade show responsibilities. 

“Since we’re in the publishing business, we think it’s important to be graphically superior,” says Bill Oakley, Show Manager. “We had high expectations for the site to complement what we’re doing with our print promotions.” More than 10 percent of the 6,000 attendees registered online, an option made available for the first time this year through Registration Systems Inc. (www.regisys.com), Livingston Manor, NY. 

The 430 exhibiting companies had online access to the exhibitor kit through GES Interkit (www.gesinterkit.com). But the interactive floor plans proved most popular. “Our exhibitors love it because there’s so much information in the pop-up windows for their booths.” With a menu of advanced features to choose from, Netronix is making the next two Pizza Expo sites to order. 

CONTENT

CTIA Wireless 2001
March 20–22
Sands Expo & Venetian Hotel - Las Vegas
www.ctiashow.com

Powered by Expo-Exchange, the Web 
site for the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) annual convention and exposition, CTIA Wireless 2001, does more than complement the event’s marketing campaign. “As users got more sophisticated, we built in more functionality. Now the site maintains the look and feel of our campaign, but it also has substance — everything you’d want to know about the show,” says Heather Lee, CTIA Senior Marketing Manager. 

With more than 200 speakers, 900 exhibiting companies and 400,000 net square feet of exhibit space, CTIA Wireless attracted about 35,000 attendees, and as many as 45 percent registered online. Lee attributes that to the print and electronic campaigns that drove traffic to the site. “Having a full Web site makes for down-and-dirty marketing. You can do an e-mail blast about a new keynote speaker and link directly to that page.”

The database-driven site features searchable educational content and a marketplace, which tie into the itinerary planner for seminars and appointments. Based on feedback from informal focus groups, this content is what makes the site most useful. “We’ve done five show Web sites at this point, so we’ve found a model that works for us,” Lee says. “How we segregate the information, how it’s labeled, and how people can navigate through it — we use that formula for every show.”

COMMERCE

Whereoware, Inc.
Includes 25 gift-related events 
www.whereoware.com

When George Little Management (GLM) joined dmg world media and the Dallas Market Center in an alliance to infuse gift industry marketplace Whereowhere.com with $21 million in January, it was not with the expectation of instant results. “We won’t evaluate success in relation to attendance at our trade shows,” says Alan Steel, Executive Vice President, GLM, White Plains, NY. “It will be the degree of integration that we achieve with customers who use Whereoware as a portal to our show Web sites.”

As a tool to maximize communication with buyers and sellers, Whereoware is a strategic marketing initiative for the alliance shows, which include 25 events. As a business-to-business e-commerce Web site, it extends their customer relationships to 365 days a year. “There’s a lot of synergy to be gained by pulling together the key players who already function as facilitators,” says Ben Johns, CEO of Whereoware, McLean, VA. “We’re trying to leverage traditional business and do it in increments that the audience can absorb.” 

Whereoware’s intuitive interface is designed to emulate the way retailers look for and buy products. For this traditionally low-tech audience, simple navigation, “Go Buy” and “Reorder” forms make purchasing online easy. Whereoware will measure its success by specific financial milestones, but customer satisfaction will be key. Working toward integration with the alliance shows, Johns says, “We just want to figure out ways to make it the best experience for the customer.”


Cathy Chatfield-Taylor covers technology solutions for business and industry as a freelance writer, editor and consultant. Contact:cathy@cc-tunlimited.com .