One Industry, Under What?

By Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 5/17/2004

Nearly a year ago, I asked in an opinion piece why the convention and exhibition industry needed a separate association for every little group and subgroup it comprises. Wouldn't everybody be better off, I wondered, if there were one powerful voice speaking on their behalf, instead of dozens of little voices all talking at once?

The column solicited a few letters to the editor but, remarkably, none of them came from the leaders of the associations in question. Instead, at annual meetings over the following months, staff members of these associations took me aside to explain earnestly, but privately, why their existence is so vital to the professional well-being of the specific constituencies they serve. Their members have unique educational needs, they told me, and want to get together with their peers free from the interference of outside interests.

At the same time, I heard from industry members who told me they were tired of paying five different membership fees and attending five different, dinky shows. I began to wonder if what these groups were really clinging to were their dues, databases and tradeshow revenue – not the interests of their members.

Some events of the past year have made me think I'm right:

• IAEM continues to develop its Senior Executive Roundtable to lure more high-level businesspeople into its fold and compete with SISO's CEO Forum.
• SISO, meanwhile, has let vendors into the Forum, long touted as a sacred gathering place of show management Yodas, who could swap secrets without getting pitched exclusive provider deals.
• CEIR – after being tossed around like a hot potato behind closed doors – has ended up going to private management firm SmithBucklin, rather than being rescued by IAEM, PCMA, TSEA or one of the other associations that has a vested interest in convention and exhibition research.
• IAEM struck its own deal with the Chinese Council for the Promotion of Intl. Trade, rather than cooperate with SISO and UFI on a global alliance.

In other words, it's business as usual in tradeshow association land. Still, there's another movement afoot that suggests my idea for one industry association may not have been so cockamamie after all.

In December, Dennis Slater cut through the babble. Having just begun his one-year term as chairman of IAEM, Slater announced at the group's annual meeting in Las Vegas that he would spearhead an effort to gather the exhibition industry's scattered factions under one umbrella, forming a true trade association – complete with advocacy, research and all else that implies.

He seemed uniquely qualified for the task. During the late 1990s, Slater shepherded the consolidation of two manufacturing-industry associations into one entity, the Assn. of Equipment Manufacturers, over which he now presides (and which, incidentally, co-owns and -operates North America's largest show, CONEXPO-CON/AGG).

Knowing the change would take time, Slater assembled a strategic plan task force, designed to carry the ball across the goal line long after his departure. Yet by April, the group had already drafted changes to IAEM bylaws that would expand the board of directors to encompass more of the industry and evolve membership and dues to a corporate-based, rather than an individual-based, structure.

Understanding that every association would cling to its unique identity, Slater made it clear that the intention was not to have IAEM devour ESCA, EDPA, TSEA and the rest. Rather, he proposed creating a new entity, with a new name, to which they could all belong as equals. The task force is now charged with meeting these groups, one by one, to see what they think of the idea.

CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro, a member of the strategic plan task force, told me last week that the signoff of IAEM and SISO alone could lead to a sea change. If the "best and the brightest" from the two sides of the show management coin would join, others would follow, he said.

When you see Slater and SISO Chairman Jim Bracken in a lively exchange of ideas like they shared at Tradeshow Week's Fastest 50 in Houston last November, it's hard to believe association and for-profit show managers couldn't benefit from a partnership. Extend that partnership to suppliers and you've got a well-rounded team of venues, CVBs, service contractors, laborers, event planners and other providers to collectively tackle the challenges the industry faces.

Will any of this happen? Or will association leaders respond to Slater and Shapiro the way they did to me a year ago, with silence and patronizing dismissal? Will they continue to guard their individual turf, or look to the long-range interests of the larger industry?