Building a Better Industry

Over the past five years, Galen Poss has built Dallas-based Hanley Wood Exhibitions into a division with 14 tradeshows in the building, construction and remodeling sectors. Now that J.P. Morgan Partners and Wasserstein & Co. have bought parent Hanley Wood, the exhibitions division is poised for another growth spurt.

During his three decades in the business, Poss has done stints at a convention and visitors bureau, an association, his own management company and Miller Freeman, one of the biggest firms in tradeshows.

It appears that he's even passed on his enthusiasm for events to his college-student daughters Keegan, 21, and Taylor, 19.

One of the industry's steadiest voices of experience, Poss has served on numerous boards, earning him the Intl. Assn. for Exhibition Management's William Hunt Eisenman Career Achievement Award in 1999.

His latest volunteer post, chair of the Society of Independent Show Organizers, placed him in the middle of a vigorous debate last year about whether SISO and IAEM should merge. That's died down, and now Poss is looking ahead to other industry issues. He talked to TSW Associate Editor Margo McCall about many of them.

Question: What was the biggest issue facing SISO when you became chairman last August?

Answer: We were just coming off a series of discussions relative to whether there would be consolidation. We were in a position of deciding what we wanted the organization to be when it grows up and whether we wanted it to grow up.

Q: And has the board now put the merger issue behind it?

A: We have tabled it for the time being. I think everybody on the board agrees that there is a real need for industry cooperation on key issues. That's really what's been the focus, determining the best way for SISO to serve its members and influence the marketplace in which those members operate.

Q: What's one issue where there's cooperation?

A: The visa issue is a good example of where the organizations work together. IAEM and Gary Shapiro (of Intl. CES) did some early work. Mary Beth Rebedeau and other folks at SISO have assisted in that. We issued a white paper that will answer the questions and give people the nuts and bolts.

Q: Has the visa situation improved?

A: I think it has improved because it's received a lot more exposure. When it first began, people were stumbling around in the dark not knowing even where to go to get the best information. The industry organizations have helped a lot. There's been a more concentrated effort put forth to carry the message to Capitol Hill.

Q: How is the industry doing these days?

A: This is very anecdotal, (but) everybody you talk to is having good events. Certainly the index prepared by CEIR (Center for Exhibition Industry Research) for 2003, 2004 and 2005 indicates that the industry is bouncing back, and bouncing back in many cases to or above 2000 levels.

Q: During the recent downturn, a lot of show organizers said they'd change the way they do business. Have they?

A: Certainly hard times make people take a very critical look at their business and say, "What are we doing, and what are some of the things we don't need to be doing?" and, across the board, I think that took place.

Are there lessons learned? What took place in 2001 was not something that anyone had ever dealt with before. We were all moving in uncharted waters. There was a lot of fallout from that, changes in contracts, how far out people work, what type of cancellation insurance is viewed or not viewed.

Q: You've previously talked about the need for disaster planning. Are you still concerned about that?

A: We have that responsibility to our exhibitors and attendees to be prepared in the event something happens while an event is taking place; that there's a well-documented and well-thought-out and well-rehearsed set of guidelines; that everyone knows what needs to be done when something happens.

Q: Does Hanley Wood Exhibitions have all that?

A: We had a staff person who spent the better part of 3 1/2 or four months developing an overall disaster plan for all of our shows, that's close to a 3-inch binder. It tries to anticipate what might and might not happen and how we would respond. On-site, we set up a disaster preparedness room. We have that binder and a lot of other things in there that might be needed.

Q: Did Hurricane Katrina change anything about the way the industry should look at disasters?

A: That was a natural disaster of almost biblical proportions. The relocation of events, from a pure tradeshow standpoint, had everybody scrambling. People pitched in and tried to make that happen, and there was a wonderful spirit.

Q: Will New Orleans bounce back as a convention locale?

A: It's too early to tell. When the facilities and the infrastructure are back in place to be able to support that, I can't imagine that people won't continue to go back to New Orleans.

Q: What segments of the industry seem problematic right now?

A: There are two things that trouble me right now. In the airline industry, you've got many of the leading airlines flying full airplanes and still losing money hand over fist. We still have a significant number of folks who attend our events who fly. If there's not the load capacity or the fares are prohibitive in terms of people wanting to go to our events, that's something that could have a very negative effect on us.

The other is that there's probably nothing on the horizon that could be any more debilitating than a pandemic. Our industry, for all intents and purposes, would be completely shut down until the thing ran its course, which, depending on who you read, is somewhere between 12 and 24 months.

Q: That's a pretty long vacation, isn't it?

A: It is, and when you extend that out and consider all the people it would impact, the organizers, the hotel industry, the airline industry, it gets to be a pretty long list. You can be pretty confident that if there were to be a pandemic, people would not get on an airplane to go to events.

Does that concern me? Yes. I'm not sure you even have to have a true pandemic to damage our industry. I fear the media would create a lot of hysteria.

Q: What can the industry do to combat the fear?

A: It would help if people had a good confidence level that there was a supply of vaccine. If you don't think you're going to get (avian flu), you're not worried about it. Would it still have some impact? Yes.

If the pandemic does go human to human and it becomes very widespread, it won't be just our industry, it will be every industry. If there's a true pandemic, the only thing you can do to protect yourself is have your business structured from a financial standpoint so that you can weather the storm.

Q: How are things with your events?

A: Terrific. Our fall shows were very strong. All of our first-quarter 2006 events will set records in almost every category, whether we're talking about number of exhibitors or attendance or net square feet or conference participation.

Q: Any acquisitions in Hanley Wood Exhibitions' near-term future?

A: We've been a little quiet going through the sale process. Now the new owners are encouraging us once again to be active. The "we're buying" sign is out again in big, bold letters.

Q: Many firms are going after online revenue. Is Hanley Wood?

A: We have a whole division for e-media. We have a publishing, a tradeshow, an e-media, a data and a marketing division that are all serving the B-to-B market in different ways. With our e-media division, we are seeing more and more dollars, be it ad dollars for our sites or whether it be arrangements with other e-outlets. Those types of things we're seeing grow at an astronomical rate.

Q: Is there a place for the tradeshow organizer in that?

A: E-events are not going to replace tradeshows or vice versa. I do think we can use e-events to extend the life of a three- or four-day tradeshow to a much longer period and give our exhibiting customers and our attending customers better products.

Q: What interesting trends have you observed in the way shows are organized?

A: Probably the biggest change we've seen out there is more large exhibitors going to private events, sometimes in addition to the major industry event and sometimes in replacement of it. That will have some impact on us, but it doesn't change the fact that people are getting together face to face.

Q: And your daughters are following in your footsteps?

A: They both have said they want to be in the tradeshow industry, and I can't see a reason for them not to. I was surprised but not disappointed, other than the fact I'll never get to retire.

Q: What's your stance on audits?

A: I feel strongly both ways about audits. When I was at Miller Freeman, we audited 38 shows. At Hanley Wood, we have 14 events and we audit none of them. We have 6,000 exhibitors and I don't think we've had a single request for an audit.

But having a reasonable and accurate audit vehicle in our industry is important. Would it be nice if every event in our industry were audited? Certainly. Over time, we will see it grow, and I think that's a good thing. But it will be driven by the customers more than the organizers.

Q: Are you enjoying being SISO chairman?

A: It's a wonderful industry. It's almost a fraternity in a lot of ways. If we're taking something out, we should be giving something back.