Incubator Groups: Creative Teams Hatch Ideas

By Margo McCall -- Tradeshow Week, 4/11/2005

At most show management firms, conceiving ideas for new events is sandwiched in among a host of other duties. But increasingly, organizers are trying a new approach: forming incubator groups that focus entirely on conceiving and launching new shows.

Diversified Business Communications early last year became the first to form one of these creative cauldrons. Reed Exhibitions followed with its LaunchPad in late summer. And IDG World Expo ended up with an incubator unit when launch duties were transferred to its business development team.

Megan Forrester, a Miller Freeman and Penton Media veteran with extensive launch experience, was named managing director of the five-member Diversified incubator, whose office is in Connecticut. Forrester said the experience so far has been exhilarating.

"When you're in an existing tradeshow environment, you have all of the contacts for exhibitors and partners in databases. We're really bushwhacking our way into new and different territory. We're building things from the ground up."

The Intl. Complementary and Alternative Healthcare Expo, CAM Expo for short, was the incubator group's first test. Held at New York's Grand Hyatt Hotel Feb. 12–13, the event reportedly drew 1,200 attendees and 100 exhibitors, well beyond expectations.

"My team and I were out in the market for nine months meeting all the relevant thought leaders. In terms of medical conferences, to get 1,200 practitioners was an absolute home run," Forrester said.

The group is launching a West Coast version Oct. 7–9 in Los Angeles. Diversified acquired a U.K. alternative medicine event from Bluewater Events, and an event for health sciences senior executives, policy leaders and inventors is in the development stage.

Forrester said the incubator group, which is focusing on the health science sector, has developed its own culture. Although it's free to draw on support from Diversified personnel elsewhere, the team's size makes it nimble.

But it doesn't launch shows on a lark. Instead, it has adopted a rigorous system of vetting proposals. "We really debate ideas. We have a research team that shakes the idea down. Those with the most merit get pushed up further in the pipeline," she said.

The team is comprised of risk-takers who have "a gleam in the eye and fire in the belly" and "who know the euphoria of creation," Forrester said.

Reed's LaunchPad, established in late summer, works with business developers to discover industries that Reed Exhibitions currently doesn't cover. The LaunchPad team is headed by Industry Vice President Greg Topalian, former manager of Tradeshow Week 200 event BookExpo America. Topalian said he's discovered that launching new shows is far more difficult than operating large, established events.

"With a launch, nothing's really been determined yet. It's not a question of what the conference sessions will be, it's, 'Will we have a conference?' There's so much work that goes into making a launch happen."

The LaunchPad's inaugural event will be Live Well New York, a consumer show slated for April 23–24 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Five launches are on the drawing board for 2006.

Topalian said the five LaunchPad team members aren't your average nine-to-fivers. "We run our group in a very different way. The people selected are very entrepreneurial. They are certainly less risk-averse than the traditional person," he said.

IDG's incubator team is intent on launching new technology shows. Headed by Doug Gold, a veteran of former COMDEX producer Interface, the team has 75 ideas in various stages of evaluation. The first of those ideas will come to fruition with Syndicate, a content syndication conference set for New York's Marriott Marquis May 17–18. A grid-computing event is also in the works.

"We try to keep it as much fun as we can. In essence, the fun stuff is coming up with the ideas. The hard part is figuring out whether those ideas are capable of being turned into dollars," said Gold, vice president of business development.

IDG has implemented a formal process, requiring the completion of a preliminary launch proposal, to determine whether new-show ideas are viable. During that process, team members ask such questions as: Who are the buyers and sellers? How many vendors are in the space? What issues are they wrestling with? What are the profit projections? Can IDG go it alone or are partners advisable?

Previously, Gold's group researched the feasibility of shows, then handed launch duties off to Jennifer LaFond, a former group vice president. But when LaFond left the company, launch duties also fell to the team.

Altogether, IDG launched four shows last year and plans five this year. Not all the shows were entirely new ideas; some represented extension of existing brands, such as LinuxWorld.

For an incubator to work, it must have support from upper management. Topalian said it was Chet Burchett, president of Reed Exhibitions North America, who suggested forming the LaunchPad group. Burchett, said Topalian, "felt strongly that if you're going to be successful in new business development, it can't be a part-time exercise. He pulled together a crack group of people to say, 'Your life is going to be about making these shows happen.'"

Forrester described Diversified's management as "incredibly supportive."

But those involved also agree that launching entirely new shows — often in entirely new markets — is risky business.

"You have to have a tough stomach for this," said Topalian. "A lot of it doesn't work."