Eight Is Enough For MD&M West

ANAHEIM, Calif.—Matt Kranyak, a business development director for Plano, Texas-based Creation Technologies, said he was thrilled when he showed up for Canon Communications' Medical Design & Manufacturing (MD&M) West, held Jan. 29-31 at the Anaheim (Calif.) Convention Center, and learned he could visit seven more advanced manufacturing events all for the same price.

Last year, he attended a different show in his field, which, he said, he also enjoyed. There was even another related event next door – that he couldn't visit without paying another registration fee.

“I didn't know there were eight shows (in Anaheim),” Kranyak said. “I think it's great that we can get into all of them at the same time.”

Kranyak is exactly the kind of attendee that Kevin O'Keefe, senior vice president of Canon's events division, had in mind 13 years ago, when he joined the company and started working on the concept of folding as many steps of the manufacturing process as possible into the same time frame all under one roof, five times a year in five different parts of the country.

“One badge gets you into all shows,” O'Keefe said of the protocal at not only MD&M West and its seven collocated shows, but also Canon's four other collocated advanced manufacturing events in Rosemont, New York, Boston and Charlotte, N.C.

According to Dan Cutrone, Canon's director of marketing, having all the shows together benefits the exhibitors as well. “It's one-stop shopping for an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) decision-maker,” he said.

O'Keefe added, “The overall event becomes much more compelling. Instead of 50 or 60 leads, an exhibitor can get 600 leads across all industries.”

Bob Stiles, district manager for Vision Engineering, said his company has exhibited at MD&M West since the show started, and he's personally witnesssed its growth in the last few years he's been in the booth. “(The collocation) works for us,” he added. “There's a lot of crossover, and we transcend various lines – industrial, dental, electronics and medical.”

Canon started out with just two medical shows 24 years ago, one on the East Coast and another on the West, in Anaheim. Through launch and acquisition the company added seven more events to the original MD&M West over the years:

• WestPack
• Pacific Design & Manufacturing Show
• Automation Technology Expo (ATX) West
• Electronics West
• Plastec West
• Process Technology for Industry (PTX) West
• Green Manufacturing Expo

According to Cutrone, this year's show had 2,243 exhibitors and more than 50,000 registered attendees on a 390,000 net square foot showfloor, filling Halls A through E of the Anaheim Convention Center. The numbers, once confirmed, will likely beat the totals supplied to Tradeshow Week for 2007 when there were 2,172 exhibitors and 45,526 attendees on a 370,558 sq. ft. showfloor. MD&M West is the biggest part of the show and, O'Keefe said, it continues to grow by 10 percent each year.

In other words, the strategy of pulling all the shows together also seems to be working out for the organizers – but not without its challenges. As the show has evolved and more and more exhibitors have come on board, it was inevitable Canon would eventually run out of space in Halls A through D on the main exhibit floor.

In 2006, O'Keefe said, part of the MD&M show started using Hall E downstairs, where the ceilings are lower and the crowd tends to be thinner. “The first year wasn't good,” he said. “Upstairs was heaving, and it was quiet down here.”

This year, Electronics West moved from the main showfloor to Hall E, and Canon got creative about luring attendees below:

• Shuttle buses dropped attendees off at the entrance to Hall E, which opened at 9:30 a.m., an hour earlier than the upstairs halls.
• There was an hourly drawing at the back of Hall E for an Apple iPhone, that brought people through the exhibits.
• From 4 to 6 p.m., 20 open bars and free food attracted crowds to the area.

Even with all those efforts, first-time exhibitor Jim Schroeder, president and owner of Arizona Wire & Tool, said he would rather be upstairs next year. “But you get what you get,” he added.

The Green Manufacturing Expo, which Canon launched this year, is another part of the overall event that might need tweaking. O'Keefe said when he started marketing the green show the response was overwhelming, with more than 300 existing exhibitors saying they wanted to be a part of it. However, the only exhibit space left on the main level was the floor of the arena next to Hall A, enough room for only 40 small booths.

“Some of (the exhibitors) got mad, because they wanted to be in the green section,” he added. To appease them, Canon highlighted all of the companies that could prove they were environmentally friendly in bright green on the map of the main showfloor.

Joel Gricar, president and general manager of Commander Packaging West, a manufacturer of sustainable corrugated boxes, didn't mind at all that his booth was off the beaten path in the Green Manufacturing Expo. “I would definitely rather be here,” he said.