Can Small Shows Save Small Venues?

So far, 2004 has been pretty good to the tradeshow industry. NATPE, the television producers' show that seemed on the verge of extinction just two years ago, made a humble comeback Jan. 18-20. Likewise, the SnowSports Industries Assn.'s annual gathering Jan. 26-29 overcame some internal industry strife to be the best SIA Show in years, by most accounts. And even with longtime executive director Chris Aiken on leave of absence, the World Shoe Assn. managed to pull off a Feb. 10-13 WSA Show with 20,000 more square feet than the one last August.

It's growth like this that drives the demand for more exhibit space. And shows like NATPE, SIA and WSA will soon have more sites to choose from, with major facilities in the works from Boston to Vancouver.

But that's the view from the top. These shows were Tradeshow Week 200 shows to begin with, and it takes a million square feet to host them. The view from the bottom is much different. While the top destinations are set to reap the rewards of an industry comeback, some smaller cities – that hoped to hop the latest wave of convention center expansion – are losing out.

The stories in this week's focus illustrate a Darwinian theory of exhibit space supply and demand. Anyone who's been in the tradeshow business a few years knows that growth in available space leapfrogs growth in overall average tradeshow size, because of the time it takes to get funding for and build a convention center. But what they forget to point out are the plans that fall by the wayside when city officials get spooked by the idea of long-term bond commitments for buildings that will sit empty.

In his Feb. 9 industry analysis, Tradeshow Week Associate Publisher and Director of Research Services Michael Hughes conjectured: "If exhibit supply continues to grow faster than demand, it is not out of the question that a second- or third-tier city may opt out of the national convention and tradeshow market altogether." This appears to be happening already. About one-third of the cities that reported having exhibit hall construction projects under discussion in our last update (September 2003) have put them on hold or have called them off for good this time around.

It's a textbook example of survival of the fittest. Smallish cities don't have the money to keep up with destinations like Chicago and Las Vegas that can give away exhibit space.

But while show managers win, sub-tier destinations – and maybe even the tradeshow industry itself – lose. Countless studies have been generated the last few years to demonstrate the positive impact that tradeshows can have on a community. Even setting aside the obvious economic impact of business travelers, how can a budding community progress with no place for civic groups, consumer shows or large-scale social events to take place?

By the same token, in concentrating itself around a handful of popular, well-known destinations, is the tradeshow industry missing out on the chance to discover and foster new sites?

Chris Myers, director of convention center sales for the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority, told me recently that 75 to 80 percent of the city's convention and meeting business is with groups of 500 people or less. In their push to get even bigger, the big boys suck in not only the Tradeshow Week 200 shows, but the small events that could sustain facilities like those proposed – and now axed – in Buffalo, N.Y. or Irving, Texas.

If these smaller communities want to grow by competing in the expansion game, they'll have to realize that data from research firms and feasibility studies is no longer on their side. They'll have to look to corporate sponsors, hotel companies and other private entities for funding. They'll have to get more creative in demonstrating their return on investment. They'll have to pull together every hotel, restaurant and museum that stands to benefit from convention business and swarm their target markets. If they want to survive, they'll have to use grassroots, guerilla tactics to take back the small meetings from the big boys.