How Not to Be of Service

The Entertainment Software Assn. might be able to learn a little something from the producers of DigitalLife, a consumer show whose 2008 edition was canceled.

In the recent Tradeshow Week story about this, Paul O'Reilly, vice president of Ziff Davis Media's event marketing group, was quoted as saying, “I think a lot of customers are sympathetic with the notion that, if it's not busy, then we should cancel.”

I think that's a very mature perspective from a show manager. Basically, DigitalLife is serving its audience – and if it isn't, then there isn't a show.

The ESA, which owns E³/Electronic Entertainment Expo, now E³ Media & Business Summit, could be said to be doing the same thing: Members complained about the old format of the show, and the association changed it.

Gone now are the triple-decker booths. The booth babes disappeared. Companies didn't have to spend millions of dollars competing with each other for the biggest, loudest, busiest booth on the showfloor.

Instead, the environment was made into one where ESA members could get business done, seeing clients and media who didn't have to claw their way through a sea of people to get to them on time.

It should have been roses after that, right? I mean, the ESA's biggest (and most influential) members got what they wanted.

Except that they didn't.

In 2007, many of the companies holding meetings at E³ that TSW spoke to lamented the missing retail base. Those comments were chorused even louder at the most recent show in July.

And now, just as they always do when there are big changes on the horizon for E³, rumors have started in the game blogs that the ESA board is considering taking the show public, something ESA declined to comment on.

One significant difference between DigitalLife and E³ is that Ziff Davis is a for-profit company, and wouldn't necessarily have to listen to its exhibitors as long as it proved profitable to hold the show.

ESA, on the other hand, as an association, has to listen to its members, who also happen to be its exhibitors. Not that ESA doesn't want to make money. It actually needs to in order to keep up the lobbying and advocacy efforts that make it so valuable to its members.

But really, how valuable has listening to its members turned out to be for ESA?

First, they disliked the old format, so ESA changed it to what members were calling for. I think it's obvious to everyone involved with E³ that the current format isn't passing the test, either.

So, will making the show public pacify members? I doubt it. A public show creates the same situation members complained about with the previous format – the need to spend millions of marketing dollars to compete with each other. On top of that, it doesn't bring the missing retailers to the show, the most recent complaint we heard on the showfloor.

What option does that leave for a show that a few short years ago was the premier event in the gaming industry?

I don't have an answer for that, but I do know ESA will only have so many chances to reinvent the show before it dies an inglorious death.

Stephanie Corbin is senior assistant editor of Tradeshow Week. She can be reached at stephanie.corbin@reedbusiness.com