Associations Do Their Own Thing: Association, Company Mould Partnership

Stephanie Corbin -- Tradeshow Week, 6/11/2007

Sometimes a large tradeshow needs an equally large managing partner.

For the triennial NPE — The Intl. Plastic Showcase, ranked No. 12 on the 2007 TSW 200, that partner is SmithBucklin, an association management company whose clients include mega-show-wielding groups like the owner of NPE, the Society of the Plastics Industry.

And with resources like those available to a company the size of SmithBucklin, which manages 235 trade organizations from four regional offices in the United States, a show can get just about anything done in a hurry.

"In 2006, we decided — kind of in the 11th hour — that we wanted to identify emerging technology in the plastics industry," said Walt Bishop, vice president of tradeshows for SPI.

Eleventh hour or not, SmithBucklin did what it was supposed to do: set up a new technology exhibits pavilion.

"That kind of skill set that they bring is really the strength that they have," Bishop added.

SmithBucklin's first year managing NPE was 2006. SPI re-signed the company for 2009 but has worked with SmithBucklin for nine years: The company used to manage SPI's Plastics USA — North America's Marketplace, a triennial sold to Canon Communications in February.

The relationship between SPI and SmithBucklin isn't unique, but it isn't commonplace either.

Pat Dwyer, senior manager in SmithBucklin's convention and tradeshow services division, said SPI is one of about a dozen project-specific clients — those that involve SmithBucklin with shows, but not managing the association.

"We basically have a minimal amount of clients that we take as project-specific," she added.

While some might say SmithBucklin handles the revenue part of the show and SPI deals with the content, it's actually a little more complicated than that.

It's more of a partnership, Dwyer said. SPI thinks of ways to enhance the show, such as the emerging technology pavilion, and SmithBucklin makes them reality.

Even the show director position is a partnership. Phyllis Hortie is director of tradeshows at SPI, but Dwyer handles most show director duties during NPE.

"It's mostly because I have the contact with the members who help produce the show," Hortie said. "I just coordinate and manage the show director services."

Five SPI-member committees help produce the show, and members from each form the sixth, an executive committee. Hortie is their contact to SmithBucklin.

"It's a real team effort," she said. SmithBucklin attends some of the meetings and has "some involvement in every aspect of the show," Hortie added.

Hortie handles housing for the show. SmithBucklin sells the exhibit space. "They're the experts of that," said NPE spokesman Bob Martino, president of Martino Communications.

SmithBucklin also handles sponsorships and exhibitor services, but other things, like conference programming and international exhibitor development, have been done hand-in-hand.

"Up until the last show, we had an educational program that was a single conference with multiple sessions and multiple papers delivered in each session," Martino said.

SmithBucklin helped with a last-minute change in 2006: "We dramatically increased the size of the education program," adding a conference, keynote speakers and business strategy sessions, he added.

The SPI education committee needed help and contacted SmithBucklin's speaker coordination department, Dwyer said.

"We're so impressed with the success of the conference program in 2006 ... that I'm sure there will be at least a similar investment" in 2009, Martino said.

SPI and SmithBucklin also share the responsibility of growing the show internationally.

SmithBucklin got help from SPI's global consultant Cherif Moujabber, principal of Creative Expos and Conferences, to develop a network of international sales agents that sell exhibit space to foreign companies.

"This was new with the 2006 show, and it proved to be successful, so they're redoubling their efforts for the 2009 show," Martino said.

NPE had 942,524 net square feet of exhibits, 1,838 exhibitors and 47,717 professional attendees at the most recent show.

The show was managed for years by Barbara Voss, who worked with SmithBucklin as an independent contractor.