JD Events Expands AD:TECH Overseas
By Margo McCall -- Tradeshow Week, 10/4/2004
JD Events' AD:TECH interactive marketing conference is expanding outside the United States, with launches planned next year in the United Kingdom and China.
AD:TECH London will be held Sept. 28–29 at the Earls Court & Olympia convention center in London, produced by IMP Events, a British conference producer that has exclusively licensed the brand in the United Kingdom. AD:TECH Shanghai is set for Nov. 15–17, and will be organized by InfoEX-World Services, a Chinese producer and exclusive licensee of AD:TECH in China and Southeast Asia.
"It's such a hot growth category. If you look at the growth around the world, Europe and Asia are booming and poised to continue to boom," said JD Events CEO Joel Davis. "We felt like we needed to be in those areas and we felt more comfortable in finding operators based in the regions."
Davis said his company invited potential partners to visit AD:TECH events in the United States and selected IMP and InfoEX from among "a number of producers." JD Events will be responsible for making certain that the brand is consistently promoted and marketed by the licensees.
It was only a year ago that the Trumbull, Conn.-based JD Events added its third American version of AD:TECH, a summer conference in Chicago. The inaugural event, held July 12–13, drew 800 more attendees than the 1,500 anticipated. In addition, JD Events also produces a fall conference in New York and a spring conference in San Francisco. The San Francisco event held May 24–26 drew 5,000 people, about 2,000 more than forecasted, according to organizers.
The 8-year-old AD:TECH, originally owned by the now-defunct Imark Communications and bought by JD Events in late 2002, caters to advertising agency and marketing personnel interested in marketing strategy, online advertising and customer relationship management.
According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, during the first six months of this year Internet advertising revenue totaled $2.4 billion, up about 40 percent over the first half of 2003.
Davis said the U.S. AD:TECH events are still held in hotel convention space, but are approaching the size that they could be moved to larger venues. The events include exhibit space, but with conference registration fees of $1,000 per person, Davis said he is focusing more on growing attendance than in expanding square footage.
