Overheard on the Showfloor
Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 7/2/2007
"This convention authority worked very hard to establish its pre-eminence. We wanted to go to the table, but there wasn't any table."
—Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, co-chair of the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors' Authority, commenting on Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons' refusal to discuss with the authority board his proposal to take bed taxes and use them to fund transportation, at an LVCVA monthly meeting (Las Vegas, June 12)
"It takes a long time to break into soccer. Our market is more after-school."
—Grant Scheffer, one of the developers of educational sport Socci, an exhibitor at the SGMA Spring Market (Las Vegas June 11–13)
"We don't have sales goals. It's all about meetings with retailers, plus the media, suppliers, bankers and whoever else is here."
—Brian Anderson, president, Sportline, an exhibitor at SGMA Spring Market
"Hopefully, it will improve next year in Vegas."
—Alison Becker, director of global event marketing for Ciena, on NXTcomm's attendance this year in Chicago during the first day of the show (Chicago, June 18–21)
"It's obviously nicer, if it's the same customer base, to have one place."
—Paul Alfieri, spokesman for Motorola, on TIA and USTelecom again jointly producing a show (NXTcomm)
"They don't know what to do with it, but they still take it."
—Julian Midwinter, business development manager for Photosound Communications, on the fact that physicians collect voluminous literature at health care shows, during the Healthcare Convention & Exhibitors Assn. annual meeting (Philadelphia June 10)
"Then why does so much of it end up in the hotel room?"
—Peggy Furman, convention manager for Novartis Pharmaceuticals, at HCEA
"We haven't done a study on that yet."
—Midwinter's response
"I think it is built throughout the day."
—Wayne Crawford, executive director of NXTcomm, on attendance increasing later in the first day of exhibits (NXTcomm)
"We're quite OK with the mixture of the people that are here."
—Hugh Wood, COO of Vecima Networks, on the differences in attendees (NXTcomm)
