IDG World Expo Licenses Show Brands to Informa
Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 2/6/2006
IDG World Expo has licensed several of its tradeshow brands to Informa Alliance, a division of the U.K.-based media giant, Informa.
Under the agreement, Informa Alliance will produce versions of IDG's Syndicate, Wireless Sensing Solutions and Open Source Business Conference in the United Kingdom. The first will be April's OSBC in London.
Informa acquired IIR Exhibitions for $1.4 billion in last year's largest merger. Informa now produces more than 9,000 exhibitions and conferences each year, in addition to 2,500 different subscription-based journals and newsletters. The alliance division operates to produce events, publications and data in partnership with outside entities.
"We are very pleased to partner with IDG World Expo to produce these three events in the U.K.," Informa Alliance Managing Director Rory Ross Russell said in a statement.
The 2-year-old Wireless Sensing Solutions and year-old Syndicate each are held twice a year and draw about 500 people, in addition to sponsors. OSBC also is held twice a year and attracts about 500 attendees.
IDG World Expo has hired Patty Caron as vice president of conference brands, overseeing the management of Syndicate, Wireless Sensing Solutions and Digital ID World. Caron was most recently vice president of conferences at TechTarget.
IDG World Expo has signed eight agreements to license its LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, which got its start in 1999 in the United States. Among them is a deal allowing E.J. Krause & Associates to manage the brand in Mexico, and Reed Exhibitions to launch LinuxWorld Russia. Besides Mexico and Russia, IDG's open-source event is held in Canada, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Each of the international agreements is different. IDG World Expo typically uses in-country producers to leverage their knowledge of local markets, rather than producing international shows from the company's Framingham, Mass., headquarters.
Company spokesman Mike Sponseller said the most recent arrangement marks the first for a non-LinuxWorld brand.
