Reed: Golf Pros Still Shop the West

By Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 9/25/2006

Las Vegas—A few years ago, some exhibitors and suppliers doubted the PGA Fall Expo would still be around today. But the Reed Exhibitions show has survived and now undergone a transformation that organizers hope will make it healthy for the long run.

The show took place Sept. 13–14 at Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, featuring 350 exhibitors filling 55,000 net square feet, according to Ed Several, PGA Golf Exhibitions vice president and show manager. Last year's show at the Las Vegas Convention Center had 332 exhibitors filling 55,000 net sq. ft. and attracting 4,111 attendees. Several said this year's preliminary registration numbers suggested an increase in attendance, compared with last year.

The last time the show's figures were reported to Tradeshow Week was in 2001, when it was No. 173 on the TSW 200 for its 2000 show with 170,000 net sq. ft., 885 exhibitors and 12,817 attendees. (The company has since said that show actually had 165,210 net sq. ft. and 683 exhibitors.)

The 2001 PGA Fall Expo was canceled. When the show returned in 2002, it filled 62,775 net sq. ft. with 324 exhibitors and 3,851 attendees, according to a Reed spokeswoman.

Speculation among participants about why the show declined includes many of the usual reasons given for other shows' shrinkage during the economic downturn of 2001–2004: high exhibiting costs, low ROI, industry consolidation.

Some believe the fall expo's brief stint outside Las Vegas — in Reno, Nev., in 2002 and San Diego in 2003 — contributed to its decline.

"About two years ago, this show was a heartbeat away from dying," said Scott Osborne of Vision Perfect, an exhibiting company that makes software for golf tournament management. "The reason they're still here today is because they discounted the costs to be here. Based on ROI alone, there's no reason to exhibit in this show."

Not everybody agreed with Osborne. Jay Hubbard, director of marketing and public relations for golf club maker TourEdge, said his company's western-based sales people need PGA Fall Expo. Not only does it attract more buyers from the West Coast, but it also draws large sporting goods chain stores that like to shop in the fall to lock in orders for the following year's merchandise before January sales begin.

Those January sales take place at Reed's much larger golf-industry show, the PGA Merchandise Show, held in Orlando and also sponsored by the Professional Golfers' Assn. of America. It placed No. 39 on the most recent TSW 200, spanning 448,400 net sq. ft. and attracting 1,200 exhibitors and 31,578 professional attendees, not including exhibitors. Although it has remained much stronger than its Las Vegas counterpart, the Orlando show has also seen a drop, losing more than 250,000 sq. ft. in five years.

Hubbard said costs were only a small part of the shows' problems. He blamed top players in the professional golfing business for not supporting their industry. "For an industry to be healthy, it needs a viable tradeshow where ideas can be exchanged," he said.

During the late 1990s (coincidentally around the time Reed acquired PGA's events in 1997), exhibitors got swept up in one-upping each other with huge, elaborate booths at the show, paying little attention to the return they were getting, said Hubbard. When companies like Titleist and TaylorMade withdrew, choosing instead to invest in their own corporate events, it sent the message to smaller players that the shows weren't important.

Of course, the world's largest exhibition organizer hasn't sat idly by while all this was going on.

Reed's Several wouldn't comment on the PGA shows' tough times, choosing instead to focus on what he believes is an exciting present and vibrant future.

Dennis MacDonald, the Reed senior vice president who oversees the group of exhibitions that includes PGA, said that Several himself is part of the improvements to the show. A former exhibitor who spent seven years with Top-Flite Spalding, Several "brings the industry expertise" the shows needed, MacDonald said.

Since Several took over in 2004, Reed has trimmed the length of both the Orlando and Las Vegas exhibitions by one day, and this year it retooled the Fall Expo to make it more useful to participants.

The show moved to Mandalay Bay, taking advantage of the nearby Bali Hai Golf Club for its first golf outing and tournament, giving buyers a chance to try out equipment being exhibited in the show starting the following day.

The Fall Expo also had its first welcome reception, after the golf tournament, at Mandalay Bay's House of Blues. And Reed and the PGA retooled the conference sessions to make them more relevant.

"We've really enhanced the sense of community," said Several. "We're taking advantage of PGA's assets and combining them with Reed's assets in a strong collaborative model."

He said his team would use the model for the Orlando show too, adding a welcome reception there and an equipment forum on the showfloor, where exhibitors would have the chance to educate buyers on marketing concepts such as sell-through.

The changes appear to be having the desired effect. In August, longtime absentee TaylorMade announced it was returning to the Merchandise Show, where it will join Callaway Golf, also back after a one-year hiatus.

PGA Fall Expo is booked again at Mandalay Bay for 2007.