Ziff Davis Events Group Rethinks Business 4Site
Targeted event delayed as organizers work on consumer show launch
By Margo McCall -- Tradeshow Week, 8/23/2004
It's back to the drawing board for Ziff Davis' Events Marketing Group, producer of Business 4Site.
Intended to be a new kind of targeted tech conference, the inaugural event at the Westin Century Plaza Hotel & Spa in Los Angeles June 15–17 drew 2,000 attendees, less than half the 5,000 expected. Vice President Jim Hasl said a post-event survey indicated a high degree of satisfaction among those who did show up, but the event needs to be retooled to better satisfy sponsors.
Because of that, the Business 4Site event scheduled for Nov. 16–18 at the New York Hilton is being postponed until early next year. New dates haven't been set.
Rather than being supported primarily by exhibit space sales, Business 4Site used a sponsorship model. It was different from traditional trade-shows in other ways too. Instead of keynotes, there were dialogues in intimate settings, and instead of sales pitches on showfloors, sponsors talked technology with mid-market executives in something called the "solutions circle."
Hasl, a former events manager with Hewlett-Packard and IBM, said the events group decided in late July to put off the East Coast version of Business 4Site to enable them to "work with the format a little more, to work harder on recruiting quality attendees and also make sure that we get sufficient numbers into the venue." The changes are intended to ensure that the event "works better for sponsors," Hasl said.
In the meantime, the Ziff Davis events division, formed last September to develop a new breed of events, is working on a consumer show called DigitalLife. The show, set for Oct. 14–17 at New York's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, is expected to draw 25,000 to 30,000 attendees during its four-day run.
Ziff Davis's PC Magazine is also getting into the events business with Business Tech Summit, a series of one-day seminars intended to offer small and medium-sized businesses information on using technology, and Digital U, a consumer technology conference. The events will be held in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Santa Clara, Calif., over two consecutive days. In New York, they will be collocated with DigitalLife.
Already, DigitalLife has landed a full slate of sponsors. Best Buy has signed on as the official retail partner, Microsoft's Xbox division as the official gaming partner and MSN as the official music download partner. Best Buy plans to use DigitalLife to debut a 45-foot trailer full of consumer electronics goods that will later make a tour of company stores.
America Online, Fuji Photo Film, Microsoft, Motorola and Toshiba are presenting sponsors, while BenQ, Intel, Lexmark, Konica Minolta and Research in Motion have confirmed as sponsors.
Hasl added that he's expecting to bring in a lot of live entertainment too, using the proximity of hundreds of local un- signed bands, as well as tech companies' relationships with big-name artists.
"It's a different beast to how tradeshows get marketed," Hasl said. "We're treating DigitalLife as a real brand. We're trying to build brand awareness and help people understand what we're trying to do."
The DigitalLife showfloor — projected at 90,000 to 100,000 net square feet — will look different from the average tradeshow. Instead of numbered aisles ending in "00," the Ziff Davis events group plans to replicate New York's street grid, with exhibits radiating out from a central area called Times Square.
That, said Hasl, should help families find convenient meeting places, presuming that mom might be interested in digital camera displays, dad in wireless networking and the kids in gaming or downloadable music.
Hasl said he tried to be conservative with floor space estimates. "It's a first-year show. I like this size because it's very walkable," he said.
