October 2004
Trade Show 2009

Redefining the delivery of buying, selling, networking and education is paramount to keeping your show relevant in the face of dramatic market change. How PMA and nine other shows have mapped their transformation for the next five years.

By Maxine Golding

Will your exposition be in business in five years?

It’s hard not to scoff at that question. But five years ago, who could have imagined that COMDEX would cancel its 2004 exposition?

No show is invulnerable. Even market leaders, such as Produce Marketing Association’s (PMA) Fresh Summit, feel the heat. They’re choosing, however, to be on the front end, rather than the back, of change.

“Where can we source new buyers and sellers? Who will be our target audiences? How does this change the way we market events and prove return on investment?” asks Patricia Rae Foss, CAE, CMP, Director of Professional Development for PMA.

Member needs assessments, committees and task forces continually help PMA redefine and maximize the event’s core competency. Instead of PMA creating its event in a vacuum, the process is much more inclusive and team-based, even to the point of using gap analysis research to fully understand the importance of issues to attendees.

And since time is attendees’ biggest issue, PMA has shortened Fresh Summit by half a day.

In addition, PMA is rethinking buyers and sellers, target audiences and selling benefits. Companies are sending fewer people, who are not willing to spend as much time as in the past. To grow its 555 exhibitors and 208,000 net square feet, PMA is targeting segments. For example, weekend programming pulled “floral” back to the show, boosting the number of exhibitors in this category 350 percent in three years.

Like other shows, increased competition leaves the association no choice. The show’s value needs to be immediately clear from pre-event materials, and PMA must deliver on promises made to attendees and exhibitors.

That’s not easy when “corporations are taking back the buyer relationship and bypassing the trade show organizer,” says Francis J. Friedman, President, Time & Place Strategies Inc. In a world where value must justify cost, “can show producers maintain their relevancy as quickly as their market is changing?”

The digital revolution compounds the challenge. “We’re right in the middle of digitizing the process of business, and it’s messy,” explains Consultant Corbin Ball. Five years from now, standardization promises to put people on the same page electronically and significantly cut inefficiencies out of the planning process — but only if show producers can overcome their resistance to change, he believes.

Meanwhile, the unknowns of crises and terrorism are daunting. “Just try to predict what things will be in a world so unpredictable,” says Joan L. Eisenstodt, Chief Strategist, Eisenstodt Associates.

For expositions to be meaningful and viable in 2009, “transformation” will be the key word. Too many organizations still operate in silos, with little crossover of strategies and knowledge. “You are no longer in the trade show business, but in the business of marketing,” says Friedman.

Many signs portend new ways to deliver buying, selling, networking and education. In this special report, EXPO examines how shows in 10 industries (two are available online) will remake themselves in coming years.

Food/Hospitality
Prove Your Worth
“In the old days, we made the cereal fit the box. Now, we have to make the box fit the cereal.”

That’s how Foss aptly describes PMA’s Fresh Summit. “Redefine” is the operative word, and that means:

Being more nimble to respond to perceived needs: “Large, live events must rise beyond traditions and be open to change — even at the last minute,” she says. Workshops will not be set in stone a year out; time slots and rooms will be held for hot issues that hit right before the event.
Looking beyond its industry for ideas, partnerships and products: Smaller regional shows may be planned, in light of global competition for the more than one quarter of Fresh Summit’s 16,000 attendees from outside the United States. PMA also may require domestic facilities it uses to provide simultaneous translation.

Countering competition by demonstrating value and ROI: “Time out of the office and away from family is precious these days, so you’d better prove your event is worth it,” says Foss. Improved badges, scanned like a credit card, will hold more attendee data and tie into a lead-retrieval system that will allow exhibitors to receive downloads on site and in a more usable format. And quicker methods to gather attendee response will strengthen post-event analysis.

Restructuring to be more member-centric: “We’re shaking up staff so that people end up in a brand new place,” says Foss. Brainstorming is a constant loop of input, suggestion and critique. And PMA is changing the budget process to allow funding for pop-up opportunities. “The business plan is driving action plans, which in turn drive budgeting,” adds Lynda Fisher, Event Manager.

Being innovative: Revamped complimentary passes now utilize one-time-use numbering to track users and an in-house program for reporting to exhibitors, explains Fisher.

Manufacturing
Window into the Market
One thing has changed: Large companies will no longer spend what they used to on their trade show presence. “They want access to relevant buyers only,” says John Stuttard, Industry Vice President, Reed Exhibitions, which produces National Manufacturing Week (NMW). “So we’ll have to be much more inventive and cost-conscious” in delivering value, he says.

Show organizers will have to address fun, cutting-edge networking tools that the younger generation will adopt. Already, unique visitors to the NMW Web site jumped from 60,000 prior to the 2003 event to 84,000 for 2004. “They’ll check out the Web site and start to use tools that optimize their time,” he says. “They may find the right person to talk to and not even come to the show. Exhibitors will have to accept that they’re not just buying exhibit space, but a window into the market.”

Teaming: With the development cycle collapsed to six months or less, manufacturers have long ceased timing new products to the show calendar. “We absolutely see the opportunity to team off-show with exhibitors to launch products between cycles,” Stuttard says.

Brand Extension: This year Reed is hosting regional manufacturing events in seven markets; three years ago it produced none. Two big pluses: 1) The events create a greater awareness of the bigger brand; and 2) NMW has unearthed many more customers by going regional.

Education: No major event will run without significant educational content, Stuttard predicts. Little more than vendor pitches in 2002, NMW’s conference has grown to 200 sessions. “Five years from now, people will expect to get all the information given out at a conference in electronic format,” he says. “Only a few do this now.”

Re-creation: Reed sees its future not as a trade show organizer, but as a marketing extension for its customers. It’s growing a research team to deliver market intelligence. An “imagineering” department forecasts what’s next. And Reed is mining customers for their needs in five years’ time. “We probably didn’t do enough of that the past five years,” Stuttard admits.

Retail
Enhance with Technology
Five years ago, the talk at the National Retail Federation (NRF) was about the death of retail (and trade shows) and the rise of Internet retailing (and virtual trade shows). Not quite. Today, multi-channel retailers use the Internet to strengthen their business model, as NRF does for its 12,500-attendee exposition.

Especially with pre-show contacts and research, technology will only enhance the need to see, feel, touch and make comparisons vendor-to-vendor on the show floor — just like at retail, according to  Susan Newman, Vice President, Conferences, and Scott Krugman, Vice President.

NRF’s mandate over the next five years is to expand beyond 100,000 net square feet and 350 companies and incorporate different markets. Already it has diversified into radio frequency identification and the “grocers” segment.

Newman foresees “huge changes” in how exhibitors determine a show’s worth: “Our obligation is to limit their expenses as much as we can,” she says. Another obligation is to develop creative ways to get attendees to listen to what exhibitors have to say. Demos on the show floor are being turned into actual seminars with paid speakers, and more and more exhibitors are purchasing meeting rooms for one-on-one sessions.

Attendee ROI: Newman is considering a new technology, described at a recent meeting industry seminar, that allows conference attendees to enter pre-show speaker chat rooms and determine the potential value of sessions. Such technology may not increase revenue, but it enhances the business done at shows and participants’ ROI. Adds Krugman: “There’s competition for attendees’ and exhibitors’ time, so a new level of education is needed to give your customers something different.”

Branded Education: To secure its future, the organization knows it must deliver a higher level of education in marketing, technology and sales. Forming partnerships with other associations will play into this, Newman suggests. So will leveraging its domestic power into the international realm by adding NRF-branded retail tracks to existing global events and producing NRF shows abroad.

Consumer
Make It Easy
If you build it, will they come? Only if you create a significant experience and make it easy for attendees and exhibitors to achieve what they want at a show, says Karen Chupka, Vice President of Events and Conferences, International Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

“A little bit of paranoia” and a lot of out-of-the-box thinking help CES keep its market’s pulse. Staff now meets once a year with the top 200 customers to better understand their needs. Hired consultants shop other shows. Contractors are surveyed. Detailed reports are discussed.

“We can’t be comfortable where we are today,” she insists. “We have to think beyond the booth about what will make or break people in the future.”

By personalizing the show for specialty segments, CES aims to assure its viability. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that 10 big buyers won’t fill a show floor,” says Chupka.  So facilitating the smaller retailer remains a priority. Better tools — as simple as laying out the show floor clearly and explaining it to customers — will help people connect and do more business. Segregating like products in halls and grouping educational programs alongside keep attendees from feeling “overwhelmed and lost.”

And when she learned that buyers weren’t scheduling appointments off the show floor after 2 p.m. because they would be tied up in taxi lines, CES created a car service for VIP buyers.

New Tools: “We who put trade shows together do things that make total sense to us, but not to the average person,” Chupka notes. Signs are placed above, but most people don’t look up. At teardown, labor peels tape off the floor that will be put down two days later. Nearly unchanged show manuals ship year after year. “The show industry is behind in finding tools that can make the whole process more efficient and less costly,” she claims.

Vision: CES is closely watching new players, business models and markets. It may stake a claim to an emerging technology by grouping a few market players in a new pavilion. The strategy may not pay off for three years until the industry is ready to take over the driving.

Education
Extending Learning
Political issues and “unknown” variables force the National School Boards Association (NSBA) to aim at a moving target.

Take the 2003 exposition. The 300 exhibitors couldn’t know that California would suddenly freeze travel budgets for state-funded programs, while the Iraq war would cause registration to drop by 1,000. Fewer school districts sent attendees to the 2004 event due to slashed budgets. 

That’s why the post-show staff retreat is so critical to addressing weaknesses and opportunities. The important question emerging from the last retreat echoes other shows: How can NSBA extend the learning cycle before and after the conference to gain attendee and member commitment?

“Do we run a teleconferences before the annual to discuss key issues, continue discussion at the show and follow it up in a listserv community and another teleconference?” asks Robin R. Preston, CEM, Director, Conferences & Meetings. That way, for a minimal fee, online sessions can reach the entire school board universe of 95,000, and, by the way, market the value of NSBA.

ROI: Attendees want to walk away with lessons learned and ideas to implement, but talking heads won’t do it. Instead, an extensive review process will make sessions more interactive and inclusive of more perspectives. Attendee ROI is particularly important since, as volunteers, many school board members pay their own way to the annual event.

Technology: NSBA relies on entrepreneurial ventures for its show revenues, so the exhibit floor cannot be left to stagnate. But exhibitors won’t commit to space as early as they used to or pay as much of a deposit. That’s where technology connecting attendees and exhibitors pre- and at-show solidifies the show’s value. An online guide to exhibitors downloads to an attendee’s PDA, while a future component will allow attendees to e-mail exhibitors and set up appointments.

Such value-added services aim to strengthen NSBA’s relationship with vendors that are more strategic about their show presence. “They’ll willingly put out the money for sponsorships if we drill down and find the 50 they want to see,” notes Preston.

Engineering/Scientific
Broaden Its Reach
Consolidation, global outsourcing and a jobless recovery have hit chemists hard in recent years, slashing the number, quality and salaries of jobs and changing the face of the profession. To turn threat into opportunity, the American Chemical Society (ACS) must redefine “chemists” and broaden its reach into less traditional multidisciplinary fields.

To bring in new exhibitors, ACS needs new attendees. To attract them, it needs programming in their areas of discipline. Getting 35 divisions that are responsible for separate technical programs at the twice-yearly events to widen their focus — that’s a huge challenge.

“After delivering the same formula of two expositions a year for 70 years, it’s risky to get people to think outside of the box. But it has to be done,” says Laurie Bentz-Cable, Manager of National Expositions.

Attendees come to ACS events primarily as researchers to hear 8,000 papers, not as buyers. That raises concerns at ACS about the long-term viability of an equipment and instrumentation trade show, even as it attempts to attract software and database service vendors and reach out to lifestyle and pharmaceutical segments.

Rethinking a show is not a fast process, especially for a scientific community that relies on volunteers. But the results-driven approach of a new executive director is starting to filter into every level of the society. The exposition team is playing more of a partnership role with volunteers and becoming more involved in technical programming.

Matchmaking: Exhibitors find it difficult to effectively segment the 13,000-attendee pool. So ACS plans to serve as “matchmaker” for 300 exhibiting companies, publishing suggested activities, training how to penetrate the show and facilitating face-to-face interactions with specific attendees.

Exhibition: To give exhibitors more ways to talk to attendees outside of booths, ACS will place technology theaters on the show floor, a significant departure. It also plans to beef up exhibitor-sponsored workshops, a growing program since its debut last year. “These are a great way for exhibitors to find people who have pre-qualified themselves,” she says. 

High-Tech
Segment and Target
The tech bubble had to burst before IT exhibitors and event producers learned a simple but painful lesson: All purchasing decisions must be based on sound business needs and ROI.

“Ten years ago, in COMDEX’s heyday, people spent a lot of money on branding, awareness and visibility, but not accountability,” says Robert Priest-Heck, CEO, MediaLive International. Today, his research shows almost half of vendors are under direct mandate from their CEOs for marketing responsiveness and productivity.

A year ago Priest-Heck took the company out of bankruptcy and reorganized operations around research into buyer and seller dynamics and finding, targeting and segmenting prospects.

Segmentation: Show organizers are as guilty as exhibitors of failing to segment buyers. “We traditionally spoke to all buyers in the same way, and even if customers came every year, we acted as if we never talked to them before,” he says. Not any more. For one of Networld+Interop’s major exhibitors, the attendee list was sliced and diced with customer and prospect lists, and further segmented into large and small- to medium-sized customers.

Research: MediaLive is putting its money on third-party audits as evidence of face-to-face value. “Previous management wouldn’t share this information,” he says. “But if we can prove buyers are coming, don’t we owe it to marketers to show the quality?”

Technology: To deliver higher ROI, MediaLive tested personal URLs assigned to each attendee at JavaOne. They link to information about the show and provide attendees with a customized view of the program based on their past behavior. The test convinced MediaLive to purchase the technology’s developer, Wingate Web.

Construction
Tasking Its Members