ECEF Aims to Deliver to High-Level Executives

By Gary Tufel -- Tradeshow Week, 5/17/2004

If you haven't already registered for the Exhibition and Convention Executives Forum at Washington, D.C.'s Marriott Wardman Park Hotel May 27, forget about it. All available openings have been filled by the exact people organizers wanted: high-level tradeshow executives who don't normally attend such events.

That's according to Michael Hough, president of MRH Associates, who organized the event with Sam Lippman, president of integrated show management and marketing.

Unlike other tradeshows, ECEF isn't designed to grow. Attendance is capped at 100 CEOs and executive directors and 20 suppliers. Attendees don't register to attend; instead they apply.

The third annual event has been sold out since February. What's more, if you're thinking about attending next year, get in line: Hough and Lippman are already considering mandating that all attendees be at the level of executive vice president or above.

Each sponsor is allowed to send one person, and the show management attendee makeup is about 60 percent association executives and 40 percent for-profit. Hough declined to disclose the cost of sponsorships, saying that ECEF is as selective with them as it is with its attendees.

"It's a high-quality, strategic conference and that extends from the level of attendees to the quality of the speakers and the content," Hough said, attempting to draw a distinction between ECEF and other industry executive conferences. "Sam and I produce the kind of meeting that we would want to attend. That is, we select speakers and content that interest us."

Speakers will include Chuck Yuska of PACK EXPO, and Robert Priest-Heck of MediaLive Intl., who will share the podium for the morning's keynote session on "Changing the Status Quo." Kerry

Gumas of Advanstar and John Mancini of AIIM Intl. together will dissect the "Anatomy of a Successful Acquisition." A CEO panel will comment on the discussions at the end of the day.