Michael Hart

Shock and Awe Is So 2008ish

The good news out of the Exhibition and Convention Executives Forum is that most leaders of the tradeshow industry remain optimistic about their future. Some of the shock that many experienced at the end of last year and during the first quarter of this year as customers were canceling contracts and attendees were not registering for events seems to have worn off.

The attitude at the event attended by more than 200 executives in Washington, D.C., Thursday was more along the lines of “We’ll get through this somehow; the only question is how.” That is what led to discussions of discounts on material handling for exhibitors, “decompression zones” at the entry to showfloors and calls to confirm the benefits of business travel.

According to an instant poll taken during the day, more than half the participants believe their businesses will rebound by the beginning of 2011. What those businesses will look like is a matter of debate as many spoke of a potential paradigm shift in the events business.

It remains clear that face-to-face marketing is here to stay and that buyers and sellers are always going to want to get together. How they do it may change – as well as the way show organizers profit from it.

During the first half of this year, Tradeshow Week editors have been to countless shows that had fewer exhibitors and fewer attendees – yet everybody there was happy with the results they were experiencing. And the truth is that, for most people, if you go to an event and find what you want, it doesn’t matter how big the showfloor was or how crowded the aisles were.

Unless, of course, you’re the show organizer who is still in the business of selling space or the service contractor who’s still charging by the pound of drayage delivered.

That’s the part we may see change over the next few years as tradeshow professionals begin to look for new ways to generate revenue. For instance, one veteran show organizer told me yesterday that the days when he could ask an exhibitor to pay 50 percent of his or her space rent six months in advance are long gone.

It trickles down from there as exhibit booths shrink and companies require fewer hotel rooms because they’re not bringing as many people to the show as they once did.

The paradigm is shifting. The only question now is how to adjust.

Posted by Michael Hart on June 12, 2009 | Comments (0)