ShowBiz Expo Ready For Its Next Close-up

The story of ShowBiz Expo may have as many plot twists as the most suspenseful Hollywood thriller, but JD Events CEO Joel Davis still sees some blockbuster potential in the 20-year-old has-been.

The Trumbull, Conn.-based JD Events recently acquired the show from Mindshare Ventures, a New York company that produced a handful of small tradeshows and conferences during the Internet boom, including iStartup Fever, Survivors: Silicon Alley and the L.A. Digital Video Show.

Davis said his company was looking for distressed properties when the show came on the market. Although dates and a venue still need to be worked out, he intends to resurrect the show in Los Angeles next fall. "We feel like there's an opportunity to dust it off," Davis said. But he was quick to add: "It's going to be a challenge."

Once held in Los Angeles, New York and Munich, ShowBiz Expo has been passed around by some of the tradeshow industry's biggest producers. It was founded by husband-and-wife team Bob and Nalini Lasiewicz, who grew the show from 9,200 square feet in 1983 to 347,000 sq. ft. barely a decade later. The couple sold it to Advanstar in 1994, which two years later sold it to Reed Exhibitions. In late 2000, Reed sold it to PBI Media, now called Access Intelligence. And in early 2003, PBI turned around and sold it to Mindshare.

"It was a very frustrating experience," Don Pazour, CEO of Access Intelligence, said of the years his company operated the show. "Everybody loved what ShowBiz Expo was, but nobody agreed on what it was."

The presence of a breakaway show called Cine Gear Expo made the job of managing ShowBiz Expo even more challenging. Held on the Universal Studios backlot on a weekend in early June, the 8-year-old competing show, operated by Juliane Grosso and Karl Kresser, matches 200 or so makers of production equipment with more than 6,000 film industry buyers in a festive atmosphere conducive to families. Pazour and others say exhibitors prefer the open backlot over a closed-in convention center exhibit hall. "They like the outdoor exhibit space," he said. "But if it ever rains ..."

Mindshare, which could not be reached for comment, appeared to have high hopes for ShowBiz Expo. President Richard Friedman rolled it in with the firm's L.A. Digital Video Show and relaunched the event as Entertainment Technology World at the Los Angles Convention Center June 26–29, 2003. Friedman at the time claimed the event drew 15,000 attendees. But plans for Chicago and Miami versions of the show didn't materialize, and the 2004 Los Angeles event was eventually postponed.

"It was just a nightmare show," Patrick Graham, publisher of Below the Line magazine, said of the 2003 show. "The entertainment was embarrassing and they served little glasses of crappy wine."

Graham said his magazine, which describes itself as "the voice of the crew," is launching its own show next June in response to advertisers' requests. Called Below the Line Expo, the invitation-only event will be held indoors at Raleigh Studios in Los Angeles and cater to the industry's location, software, post-production, art department, camera, grip and indoor lighting segments.

Graham said he's holding his expo a week earlier than Cine Gear, in deference to that show. But he hopes to recreate Cine Gear's atmosphere. "We're going to adopt that same sort of European flavor," he said.

Aiming for a targeted audience, Graham said he'd be happy if only 2,000 people show up. "Numbers is the game that ShowBiz played. You end up just counting heads," he said.

Meanwhile, Lasiewicz worries that three separate shows will divide the industry. "Splintering the focus of the exhibitors and speakers and attendees will not be good for the community," he said.

JD Events' Davis plans to re-evaluate the ShowBiz Expo's intended exhibitor and attendee mix. He's also brought in consultant Jerry Brandt, a 25-year veteran of the entertainment industry, to serve as conference chairperson.

Davis said he's hoping that ShowBiz Expo can realize the same potential as AD:TECH, a distressed property that JD Events bought from the now-defunct Imark Communications in late 2002. Since acquiring AD:TECH, a Chicago version of the show has joined San Francisco and New York. In addition, agreements have been reached to expand the brand in the United Kingdom and China.

"We're an incubator. Our goal is to launch new shows and build them and grow them, and also look for distress sales, shows that have struggled a little bit or slipped," Davis said. "If we feel there's still a good market there and a good brand, we'll pursue them."

At the time it was sold to Advanstar, the Los Angeles ShowBiz Expo drew 500 exhibitors and 23,000 attendees, and the New York show 325 exhibitors. When Reed took the show over in early 1996, the company expanded the conference program and brought in Variety and other entertainment industry publications. The new owners were able to add 150 new exhibitors and increase attendance by 20 percent during the next Los Angeles show, according to reports published in Tradeshow Week.

Claudia Brett of the Los Angeles Convention Center remembers Show Biz Expo's evolution well. One of her first clients, the event launched in a 9,200 sq. ft. meeting room. The next year, it was big enough to fill a ballroom, and the year after that moved to a small exhibit hall. Soon it expanded to 147,000 sq. ft. of the West Hall and ultimately filled all 347,000 sq. ft. of the South Hall. "It was the perfect show. It came together and just grew and grew and grew," she said.

Unfortunately, the show reportedly shrank almost as fast. Brett said exhibitors became dissatisfied with ShowBiz and high-tailed it to Cine Gear. "I think it was a big show that was a bit of a cash cow," she said. "There was no reason the show should have been run into the ground."

Despite the string of owners, Brett believes there's still a need for a tradeshow where those in the entertainment industry can turn out to see the latest models of cranes, lighting equipment and high boom lifts. "It's a show that's perfect for Los Angeles. We're the film capital," she said.

Pazour said, "It needs to be reinvented. Frankly, I think the idea that Southern California needs its own show for the entertainment industry is a pretty good one."

Below the Line's Graham, however, believes it's time for the credits to roll for ShowBiz, an event that he says left "a bad taste" when it "died such a horrible death."

But in tradeshows, as in the movies, monsters have a way of coming back to life.