Expo! Expo! Preview: IAEM Heads Home to Texas

By Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 10/25/2004

Dallas-based Intl. Assn. for Exhibition Management is bringing Expo! Expo! to the motherland this year. And if preliminary indications hold true, this year's annual meeting and exhibition for meeting and exhibition makers will be a home run.

Scheduled Dec. 1–3 in San Antonio, Expo! Expo! activities will center around the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center and headquarters hotels — the Marriott Riverwalk and Marriott Rivercenter — all located in the heart of downtown near the Alamo, the Riverwalk, the Tower of the Americas and most of the city's other attractions.

The meeting is open to both IAEM members and nonmembers. Unfortunately, if you haven't registered by the time you read this, you've missed the cutoff for early discounts. From Oct. 23 to Nov. 19, registration fees range from $230 (one day only, show organizer member) to $3,540 (full meeting, supplier nonmember). After that, the fee will max out at a whopping $4,130 for nonmember suppliers registering for the full meeting and $275 for show organizer members attending for just one day.

For their money, attendees will have access to three days of classes aimed at teaching them to be better exhibition producers, a one-day expo featuring products and services that promise to make their jobs easier and several social events where they can network with fellow industry members.

According to IAEM, pre-registration has more than doubled over this time last year, with 742 people signed up at press time compared with 305 at the same time in 2003. For the exhibition, the association is expecting 249 companies to occupy 36,200 net square feet of space.

Why the bump in interest? IAEM President Steven Hacker said anecdotal evidence indicates people are looking forward to visiting a destination they don't know as well as other big convention cities. "People are saying, 'I go to Las Vegas (the site of last year's meeting) a lot for my own events, but San Antonio represents a new destination for me, so I'm going to stay a day or two more,'" Hacker said.

Closely following a program tried out last year, this year's meeting will start on Tuesday, Nov. 30, with a full day of classes geared toward the association's educational designation, Certified in Exhibition Management.

IAEM is encouraging attendees to arrive that day so they're ready for the Future Focus seminars, planned to overlap with the continuation of the CEM program on Wednesday, Dec. 1. Now in its third year, Future Focus brings together senior-level executives to discuss trends and issues facing the industry.

Wednesday also kicks off the meeting's social activities with a golf tournament benefiting the Jim Lynn Chapter Education Fund and the Opening Reception at La Villita, an arts and crafts community across Alamo Street from the convention center. The special events calendar will be rounded out with Tuesday's reception for international attendees, Wednesday's luncheon and keynote and Thursday's Chairman's Gala.

As usual, the programming committee made a couple of tweaks to this year's schedule, based on feedback from participants in previous shows. For one thing, the association will hand out its round of yearly awards during the opening reception on the first day instead of at the last day's luncheon.

The one-day format for the expo, begun last year, has been lengthened by a half-hour, stretching from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Lunch will again be served on the showfloor.

On the other hand, the regular educational program has been slashed from nearly three dozen classes over the course of three days to less than two dozen over two days. "People have said give us fewer choices, but more in-depth, meaty topics," explained Hacker. "It's about quality rather than quantity."

Finally, the meeting has moved from a Tuesday-through-Thursday timeframe to a Wednesday-through-Friday one. Hacker said the schedule change originally arose from date availability issues that were later resolved. IAEM decided to keep the dates in the latter part of the week because, he said, "We're always experimenting. The only thing we know from experience is that people don't want to give up their weekends."