Tradeshow Tribulations

The recent announcement by the Telecommunications Industry Assn. and the USTelecom Assn. that they were reviving the Supercomm brand wasn't all that surprising. In June, I attended the show's predecessor, NXTcomm, in Las Vegas; more than one exhibitor said they weren't happy with the replacement show.

Just a quick recap to bring you up to speed: NXTcomm was the result of the two telecom associations coming back together after they split in 2006, canceled the old Supercomm and held their own shows, Globalcomm and TelecomNEXT, neither of which was a resounding success.

So, in less than three years, a time during which it's been hard enough to get buyers and exhibitors on to a telecom showfloor, the show has changed its name four times. I don't blame Wayne Crawford, the show's executive director until the most recent name change, when he told Tradeshow Week in the past that rebranding NXTcomm wasn't all that easy.

I'm sure the associations are hoping people feel enough nostalgia for the good old days when Supercomm was the mega show in the telecom industry to once again fill the showfloor. In the meantime, the associations also will have to contend with a changing industry that's seen increased consolidation and a shift in focus away from hardware to broadband.

We'll see what happens next year in Chicago.

Supercomm isn't the only show dealing with a turning tide in the industry it serves. The California Gift Show also has been challenged by an industry that's consolidating.

According to Chris Gowe, vice president of George Little Management, a dmg world media business that owns the show, this year's summer edition had 948 exhibitors and about 18,000 attendees, 20 percent and 18 percent, respectively, less than in 2007.

He told Tradeshow Week during the show, “There are a variety of reasons why it's down. This is the whole industry. It's not specific to any one market.”

One of the big challenges, Gowe said, was the disappearance of a lot of mom-and-pop stores and their replacement by big-box giants like Wal-Mart.

As if a rapidly shrinking industry wasn't enough to deal with, the California Gift Show also has Las Vegas' World Market Center hard on its heels with the recent announcement of a plan to start a gift section in one if its massive buildings. What, at the end of the day, will that mean for the gift show?

One thing's for certain: Both shows have challenges ahead of them.

Rachel Wimberly is senior editor of Tradeshow Week and editor of TSW Las Vegas. She can be reached at rachel.wimberly@reedbusiness.com