RSNA: King of the Hill
Michael Hart -- Tradeshow Week, 7/8/2008 3:17:00 PM
The Radiological Society of North America Scientific Assembly & Annual Meeting, held each November at Chicago’s McCormick Place, is the largest health care tradeshow and convention, no matter how you’re measuring. It’s No. 33 on the 2008 Tradeshow Week 200 at 535,300 net square feet (15,000 net sq. ft. bigger than the year before). It’s also No. 1 on the Healthcare Convention & Exhibitors Assn.’s list of biggest health care meetings (measured by attendance) with 61,980 attendees at last year’s show.
Tom Shimala, director of technical exhibit services at RSNA, spoke to TSW Editor-in-Chief Michael Hart about why the show is so big, and the steps he’s taking to manage that growth.
Question: I know that you have done a lot of research through the years, using technology, to get an idea of how the RSNA showfloor worked. Can you describe what you’ve done?
Answer: We’ve been at McCormick Place for the past 20 years or so. This year we’ll be occupying three buildings for the exhibition. It’s just a large area to get your arms around.
As much as we’d like to think we have floor managers to monitor activities, there’s nothing like using technology. We’ve used Ethnometrics before; this will be our fourth year where they’re providing us with information and evaluation from their surveillance, if you’d like to call it that.
We’ve utilized it not only to give us insight on traffic flow in and out of a given hall, but also we zeroed in on our registration lines, our taxi lines and even some of the education exhibit areas.
Q: What kinds of changes have you made as a result of Ethnometrics’ research?
A: We had to widen some aisles and create new ones in addition to what we already had. By doing that, maybe we eliminated an attendee saying, “Gee, I can’t even get back there, it’s so crowded.”
It also created opportunities for exhibitors who are far, far back in Hall A, which is three-quarters of a million square feet of space. If you’ve got a little 10’x10’ way in the back, you might cross your fingers and hope that somebody would come back that far.
Q: What kind of changes do you have planned for this year?
A: The past three years, we’ve had 4-, 6- and 7-percent growth of our showfloor. This will be the first year we’re expanding the commercial exhibits into Level 3 of all three buildings. We’re kind of spreading things out, but we’re also making it a little easier to get in and out of the halls. We’re reducing the footprint in each building.
Another change we’re trying to finalize is with McCormick Place’s new food service, Chicago Restaurant Partners. We’re going to work with them on creating a dining experience in all three halls that has the same look and feel and the same menu offerings.
We want to keep them in the hall and in the building, so people aren’t saying, “Gee, I can’t really find a place to eat because there are too many exhibits here and not enough food outlets.” We’re going to make a big splash with this concept. It will be called the RSNA Bistro.
Q: Why is RSNA the biggest health care show in the U.S. and getting bigger?
A: I don’t know if I have the answer to that. If you were to look at the education program and our submission of abstracts over the past five years, it’s just continued to grow worldwide.
This year alone, by tax day (April 15), our deadline, we had over 10,000 submissions. It continues to blow my mind. Physicians and health care professionals want to present their studies and their papers at RSNA.
Q: How many of those 10,000 will you accept?
A: Maybe 40 percent.
Q: So the quality of the education component is the reason for your show’s growth?
A: Well, from the vendor side, RSNA has traditionally been the place to show the newest technology in the imaging field. Some of our larger vendors create displays of their equipment that, in some instances, are only shown at RSNA. In some cases, they’re so large it’s not feasible to take it anywhere else.
Q: Have you seen positive changes during the past few years as far as labor rules in Chicago are concerned?
A: Yes, there have been some real strides from a lot of different standpoints. Some work rules have become more flexible and more understanding of the needs of smaller exhibitors. From the larger exhibitors’ standpoint, work rules have been relaxed a bit.
Q: Recent legislation in some states is attempting to restrict gifts to health care professionals from pharmaceutical and medical device makers. Will that have an impact on your show and your exhibitors?
A: Not to a great degree. Rules and regulations we put in place years ago were pretty strict to begin with. For years, we didn’t even allow raffles and drawings. We’ve opened that up now, but really restricted the dollar amount.
If someone wanted to do a raffle or drawing, the maximum amount they could give away for the whole show would be $1,000. I won’t name the other show, but if you go there, they’re raffling off cars and other big-ticket items like plasma TVs.
Q: What kind of foresight caused you to be a little ahead of the curve on the gifts policy?
A: We’re very concerned about the industry and how we’re perceived by the industry. We don’t want to be viewed as somebody who wants to put our hand in your pocket. Others have to resort to that to pay the bills. Because of the success of our show, fortunately, we haven’t had to go down that path.
Q: How much longer will RSNA stay in Chicago?
A: We aren’t going anywhere.
