CEMA Summit Moves to Park City, Utah

By Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 5/3/2004

CEMA, the association for computer event marketers, is moving its annual meeting this year to Park City, Utah. The event, usually held in Southern California, took place last year in Palm Springs. Management preferred a location closer to the middle of the country, according to CEMA Vice President Mitch Ahiers, senior manager of global events for Check Point Software.

Registration is now open for the July 11-13 event at the Canyonlands Resort. Corbin Ball, a meetings-industry technology consultant, and James Gilmore, co-author of "The Experience Economy," are scheduled to deliver keynote speeches.

CEMA's annual meeting is intended to provide IT event marketers with a forum to share insights and talk about ways to improve participation in shows and events. Ahiers said he expects a great deal of discussion on whether information technology companies will continue to favor corporate events over tradeshows. During the past few years, when IT companies were in cost-cutting mode due to revenue declines, many cut tradeshow participation in favor of their own corporate events.

"As we are emerging from the recession and now that things are starting to recover, are they going to go back to the way they were? That's going to be the question on everybody's minds," said Ahiers.

Although the subject of audits will also likely come up, it's bound to be a different discussion now that managers of many technology shows have heeded the call for audited results. Ahiers said information on how to interpret audits, though, could prove useful. "Now that we're starting to get audits, what do we do with them?" Ahiers asked.