When George Jage started the World Tea Expo in 2003, no one could have predicted the mark his brand would make in the specialty tea industry. Even now, as other shows cut back and postpone plans for expansion, Jage is determined to keep moving forward. He’s growing his property, not with lavish schemes but with sensible investments that stem organically out of the needs of exhibitors and attendees. It’s working because it’s genuine. Here’s a look at how the World Tea Expo is expanding its brand by adding products and events that truly speak to the needs of the community it serves.

IN THE BEGINNING
Jage didn’t start out as a tea connoisseur — or even a tea drinker for that matter. He found the tea industry seeping into his blood after a friend’s wife asked him if there were any trade shows specifically for tea right around the time he was finishing a management contract and looking to start a new show. “I did the research and found that the industry was under-serviced,” Jage says. “There wasn’t any venue specifically for the tea industry, but there were a lot of companies that exhibited elsewhere — at coffee shows, natural products and fancy food shows. So there was a community of people that already understood the value proposition of trade shows. There wasn’t anyone else in the space, so I went back to my friend and his wife and we started the show. I put up the financing for it and they were my partners with some sweat equity.” In 2003, the Take Me 2 Tea Expo opened with 65 exhibitors and 1,000 attendees in Las Vegas. By the next year, it had doubled in size both on the exhibitor and attendee sides. In 2005, the show was renamed the World Tea Expo. “If we had branded ourselves in the first year as the World Tea Expo, it would have been laughable, but by the third year we had countries of origin like India and Sri Lanka participating,” Jage says. “It was a much larger event and people understood by then that this was a large event servicing the global tea industry.” But the thing that really captured Jage’s attention was how excited these people were to have a community and a voice of their own separate from coffee. “People who are passionate about tea are extremely passionate about it, the same way people are passionate about fine wine. When we were able to double the size in one year, we knew we were onto something good.”

CONSIDERING EXPANSION
In 2004, hot on the heels of a phenomenal second year, Jage decided to build scale for the business by starting an East Coast show in September of 2004. Although the show was respectable, it was smaller than Jage had hoped. “The exhibitors were telling me they just couldn’t support doing two shows and they wanted us to do a single show in Vegas every year,” he says. “So we respected that and pulled back on the East Coast.” Jage’s dilemma was how to expand without putting an undue burden on his top customers. “We had gotten bite back from the exhibitor community about having more than one event a year, but at the same time, Tea Expo needed to expand its audience beyond those who can justify a trip to Vegas annually,” Jage says. It was just a few months before the 2009 show that Jage found a smart way to expand sensibly. He found himself in conversation with Alan Peterson of New Hope Natural Media, a division of Penton Media. New Hope’s Natural Products Expo runs a large West Coast show and a smaller East Coast show. “They were looking at ways they could increase attendance in a difficult economy. I saw that the best way for us to expand beyond the Vegas show would be to partner with someone with an existing event that would have some crossover.” World Tea Expo put together a small pavilion of some of its top exhibitors and a small conference program at Natural Products Expo East. “It was successful on all levels,” Jage says. “Our exhibitors were all pleased with the leads they generated and our sessions all received very high marks. This trial allowed us to verify the demand for our brand, event, and education on a regionalized basis on the East Coast, and we look forward to continuing this.” Jage saw the co-location as an opportunity to pick up some additional revenue in a tough year, but for him, it’s also a long-term strategy. “We went in there with 12 booths on the floor and we repeated some conference sessions we did at our show in Vegas earlier this year, so we didn’t have to create new content,” he says. “But after this first year, I’m sure we can expand that to 35 booths and have a better program that will be a little more focused toward the needs of the people on the East Coast.” The partnership with New Hope goes beyond Natural Products Expo East. New Hope recently acquired the Natural Marketplace Event, which has been based in Vegas for many years. Next year, World Tea Expo and the Natural Marketplace Event will co-locate. “It’s a great fit. They’re about 300 booths and 4,000 to 5,000 attendees and we’re about the same, so it will create an effective attendance near 10,000 for both of our shows. It will create energy, and both of us will be able to use that to communicate the value proposition of both events.” This will be a true co-location with one show upstairs and another downstairs and attendees free to attend both shows. “It’s tremendously valuable for us because the majority of their attendance is independent natural products retailers that are selling tea extracts, tea products and ready-to-drink tea,” Jage says. “I think they’ll be very interested and engaged in seeing what the tea industry has to offer on our floor. We’ll be able to reciprocate because a lot of our buyers will be interested in seeing what else is available in the natural products area.”

BEYOND THE SHOW FLOOR
Expansion for World Tea Expo isn’t just about trade shows. It’s about increasing the credibility of the brand throughout the industry. That means pinpointing what the industry needs and providing products that address those needs. Enter the World Tea Championship. Jage found that the market didn’t have a way to define what a quality tea really was. Two years ago, the first World Tea Championship was held in conjunction with the expo. Exhibitors and sponsors submit teas to the championship where they’re tasted and evaluated by professional tea tasters flown in to the show from around the world. A rating system similar to the Parker wine rating system was developed, and a top tea award is presented in each category. “It allows these companies to market themselves on their packaging or marketing materials as being a champion in the World Tea Championship or to publicize a high rating,” Jage says. So far, the championship has only taken place in conjunction with the show, but there are plans to expand it, conducting special events around championships that focus on particular types of tea throughout the year based on when those teas are in season. Another brand extension is World Tea News, a Web site of news and original content that Jage launched in 2005. “We were looking for a way we could continue to reach our audience throughout the year,” he says. World Tea News started as an e-newsletter that simply aggregated the news, resending links to top stories related to tea. As that grew, Jage launched a Web site to support it. Soon the site will move to a paid subscription model. It’s a risk, but Jage predicts that much of the Internet news world will be moving to a similar model over the next five years. It’s a necessary change in order to pay for the investment in resources that a vibrant site generating original content requires. “We’re not going to be charging a tremendous amount, but it will let us make a much more significant investment in the content we’re producing for people,” he says. “People are saying in the next five years you’re going to see a dramatic change in people charging for content online, and I feel we can move into that quickly and ahead of the pack because we’re unique in what we’re offering. We have 8,000 subscribers and when we switch over to where people have to pay to access deeper content, if I kept half of them, I’d be happy. And if I keep none of them, then I guess I have to re-evaluate the expense of having people generate original content.”

NEXT STEPS
Jage is far from finished growing his tea universe. He sees potential for consumer events in this burgeoning market. “It’s all about delivering education about tea,” he says. “I really want to build a scale for our business by offering consumer events. This is where I think the larger companies would engage with us as an organizer. If we can get these off the ground in a couple of specific locations, I think they would be very easy to scale. We would be able to partner with people on a local level and help them build awareness for tea in their community.” Jage is also gearing up to expand the show internationally in the next few years and plans to continue building credibility with the industry by starting a foundation that can help make positive changes in countries of origin where tea growers often deal with problems related to poverty. “If we can pool some resources in a country that has tremendous wealth, we can add to the industry,” he says. “It would help us position ourselves as leaders as well as add value to what our brand represents.”

Lee Ann Murphy is a freelance writer. She is the former managing editor of Event Marketer magazine.