ESA and VNU End Their E³ Partnership

Association hires three VNU show veterans to oversee operations

By Rachelle Crum -- Tradeshow Week, 10/17/2005

After five years of co-managing E³/Electronic Entertainment Expo, the Entertainment Software Assn. and VNU Expositions are parting ways.

ESA, now sole producer of the Tradeshow Week 200 show, in August hired three VNU employees who worked on the show: Pat Phillips, Mariella Ley and Alida Roberts. The group has set up an operations office in Fairfax, Va.

Phillips, a 20-year VNU employee and previously the show's director of operations, was named E³ show director. Ley and Roberts, formerly VNU senior exposition managers, are now E³ operations managers.

The Washington, D.C.-based association will also hire a registration manager and a part-time receptionist for the new office, which is located a few miles from the trio's former workplace at VNU Expositions' Chantilly, Va., headquarters.

E³ currently ranks No. 29 on the TSW 200. In May, the Los Angeles Convention Center show drew 70,000 attendees to a 551,000 net square foot showfloor with 421 exhibiting companies.

Phillips said neither finances nor "a lack of performance" on VNU's part was behind the decision. Instead, ESA brought management in-house to make it a "cohesive unit."

Mary Dolaher, ESA vice president of tradeshows and events, called VNU "a wonderful partner."

"They were a great source," she said. "I have nothing but good things to say about them."

Jim Bracken, VNU Expositions chairman emeritus, called E³ "a terrific experience. We were there when (ESA) needed us." He added, "I'm delighted for Pat Phillips and the two ladies who went with her."

Bracken said the change was expected. "We knew for a couple of years that they were going to do that."

VNU initially had a three-year contract to co-manage the show, and received two additional one-year contracts thereafter.

Dolaher currently operates out of E³'s sales, marketing and business development office in Framingham, Mass. It "just made sense for us to bring (operations) in-house," she said.

Phillips said joining ESA would enable her to focus exclusively on the show. At VNU, she said, "Only 50 percent of my job was E³. The other 50 percent of my job was corporate. The fact that we only have one show to work on, as opposed to several shows to work on, gives us the time and the resources to overcome the additional time and staff that would support the work at VNU."

The new staff's first major task has been to produce the May 10–12 show's exhibitor manual, which will be mailed out this month. The team added a section specifying guidelines for the show's sound and video walls, performances and character of exhibits. Phillips said she is also looking forward to producing other ESA events, including its fall D.C. Day.

E³, an offspring of Intl. CES, is scheduled to take place at the L.A. Convention Center through 2012, just as it has for nine years. It previously spent two years in Atlanta.