Conference Offerings: Off the Floor, Into Seats

It's hard being an event or conference planner these days. Not only has the economy put a damper on both leisure and business travel, but also once you actually get an attendee to an event, it's becoming more and more difficult to get them off the showfloor – where they feel they have the best opportunity to conduct money-making business – and into the conferences and educational sessions.

The keys to getting those session seats filled are the same as keeping the showfloor packed – adding value and giving the attendees what they need, said Donella Evoniuk, senior director of conference services for the Intl. Society for Technology in Education, whose Natl. Educational Computing Conference is scheduled June 28-July 1 at the Walter E. Washington (D.C.) Convention Center.

“It's true for anybody really,” Evoniuk added. “We're persuading people to pay their own money to come and do this thing. So, we have to know who they are, we have to know what they want, we have to understand what we're really good at providing and be really smart about how we work with our customers to ensure that the deliverable that they receive in the end is exactly what they want or it's something that even goes further than exactly what they want.”

Rebecca Mebane, director of conferences and meetings for the Natl. Recycling Coalition, agreed. She said many of the attendees at the NRC's Annual Congress & Exposition, scheduled Oct. 4-7 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, are municipal and county government employees who work for entities experiencing budget cuts, so the NRC is playing a wait-and-see game.

“We are very nervous about whether people are going to be able to attend or not,” Mebane added. “I guess the theory would be to ... find out what it is (attendees) need or want and try to provide them with those sessions.”

The NECC showfloor typically takes up 130,000-plus net square feet, with 550 exhibitors and about 20,000 attendees, and, Evoniuk said, before you can provide visitors with the sessions they need, you have to find out what exactly that need is. This, she added, can be done by paying attention to both what the attendees say they want and what's new in the industry or field.

“How does Jane Goodall find out about her chimps? It's like (if) you're in the wild with them long enough, you know who they are and you know who you're serving,” Evoniuk joked. “So, a lot of it is just really paying attention to what people want; it's about paying attention to what's coming up in the field. It's ... everything that's super, super tactical, like surveys, focus groups, traditional stuff and then also really leveraging our experiences and the experiences of others.”

Once planners learn what their attendees' needs are, the next step is creating value in the sessions. For the Natl. Head Start Assn. and its two largest events, the Annual Training Conference, with its 100,000 net sq. ft. showfloor, 175 exhibitors and 3,500 attendees, and the Annual Parent Conference, which has 45,000 net sq. ft., 50 exhibitors and 1,500 attendees, it is easy to figure out what topics bring the most value to the sessions, said Lori L. Burke, professional development administrator for the association.

Through its programs, Burke added, the association does annual evaluations and needs assessments to find out what is most necessary for its members.

“A lot of ... the staff members are required to have a bachelor's degree, and a lot of the continuing education requirements have changed, and they need more educational sessions, so that's a drive for us,” she said. “We try to put together speakers and topics that will enable them to get their credentials.”

Sometimes, the key is to offer a wide range of topics. The Training Conference, scheduled April 27-May 2 at Orlando's Orange County Convention Center, averages 200 different educational sessions, while the smaller Parent Conference, last held Dec.14-18 at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, conducts approximately 125.

For some shows, such as The Thomas P. Hinman Dental Meeting, scheduled March 19-21 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, the educational sessions, not the showfloor, already are the draw, so keeping the content current, while adding value, is imperative to it remaining at the top of an overly packed field.

“We know that there are more dental specialty meetings than any other health care specialty,” said Sylvia Ratchford, executive director of the Hinman Dental Society, whose 800 members host the meeting with its 90,000 net sq. ft. showfloor, 900 booth spaces and 23,000 nonmember attendees. “So we have a lot of ... opportunities for dentists and other members of the dental team to get their education, and that doesn't even count (our) online offerings. We have to focus on the quality of our education and the fact that we are very economical.”

Being economical in these trying times is very important in getting attendees into conferences and educational sessions. Ratchford said the Hinman Dental Meeting offers half its 200 courses, lectures and hands-on workshops and labs at no extra cost to its conference admission, “by guidelines established (97 years ago) by Dr. Hinman himself. So for $150, a dentist can come and, over the course of three days, receive 18 hours of education with no additional cost.”

The Natl. Head Start Assn. also offers its sessions, as well as hotel and travel to the event, at no charge to its attendees. Instead, Burke said, the programs are federally funded, making it even more important to keep the educational offerings valuable. To keep the conferences running, the association has representatives lobbying on Capitol Hill. And, she added, there even is a Grass Roots Action Room at the conferences, where attendees can write to their state representatives, explaining the importance of the content they receive.

“We try to look at the needs assessment to see what obstacles (the parents) are running up against in the programs,” Burke said. “We're finding out that (one obstacle) is a trend of lack of father involvement, so we try to come up with tracks and topics to attract and get the fathers involved in parenting in the home.”

The NRC, in the process of figuring out what will bring the most value to its attendees, also has a rough government-funded road to hoe. Mebane said many of the expo's attendees' fees are paid for by their employers, who, like most these days, are trying to find ways to cut costs.

“What we're hearing is (companies') budgets are being cut and, in some cases, especially the travel budgets, are almost being frozen,” she added. “For a lot of them, they can't go to anything out of state.”

To help reach out to potential new members, Mebane said the show, which averages 50,000 to 70,000 net sq. ft, 100 to 120 exhibitors and about 1,000 attendees, will offer students a discounted registration rate.

“We'll definitely be reaching out to the local schools, offering them a student rate that is a very discounted rate,” she added, “to get the folks in that are just starting out in the business.”

For shows that have focused mainly on their tradeshow components in years past, it can be hard getting attendees to realize that there are educational offerings at all. Arlene Davis, senior director of tradeshows for the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Assn., said her association's show, the Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo, No. 37 on the most recent TSW 200 and collocated annually with the Specialty Equipment Marketers Assn.'s SEMA Show, No. 7 on the TSW 200, has expanded its educational sessions, an area that until recently largely has been ignored. At the last AAPEX event, held Nov. 4-6 at the Las Vegas Sands MegaCenter, nine new sessions were added to the conference, Davis added, bringing the total to 17.

“It doesn't sound like much this year, but it was a lot for us. ... Our goal is to improve the education that we're offering and listen to the buyers who have been requesting this. ... People want value and they want to get something out of this,” she said. “The reality is we create education (and) people register, but oftentimes, they get caught up on the showfloor talking to someone and they don't quite make it to the session.”

And attendees to AAPEX, scheduled Nov. 3-5, again at the Sands, can't cry economy when it comes to cost, Davis said. The price of all sessions is included in registration – one low price, she added, gets the attendee into all of the sessions, not only at AAPEX, but also at SEMA.

“(Session cost) is included, and you're not going to believe how much it is to get into our show,” Davis said. “It's $15 for a badge.”