Michael Hart

Show Managers Versus Venue Managers
January 30, 2008

In our annual survey of show managers late last year, somewhere around November, a majority of organizers famously told Tradeshow Week their No. 1 concern going into 2008 was industry consolidation. Even by the time we printed the results of that survey in mid-December, it was hard to believe that was the worst thing anybody had to be concerned about.

In the mere month and a half since then, a lot has happened in the global economy to make everybody nervous and, I’m guessing, to make those show managers who thought industry consolidation was all they had to worry about feel kind of naïve.

Judging from a couple of stories in our upcoming Feb. 4 issue, at least space rates at the world’s biggest convention centers won’t be one of the average show manager’s problems in the coming years. According to a recent study by UFI, the Global Assn. of the Exhibition Industry, 37 million-plus square feet of new exhibition space will open throughout the world between now and 2010, and not because the exhibition industry is growing so fast that convention center owners are rushing to keep up with the demand.

The study’s authors said, rather, the problem is that competition has become so fierce for tradeshows, venues are willing to do almost whatever it takes to either keep shows from moving or steal them from rival cities.

In the same Feb. 4 issue, you can read how frustrated the operators of the Anaheim (Calif.) Convention Center and Cobo Center in Detroit are about this issue. They’ve both just wrapped up their biggest shows of the year (in Anaheim, The NAMM Show, and in Detroit, the North American Intl. Auto Show). In both cases, show managers are complaining they don’t have enough space, and convention center managers don’t see where they might easily get financing for expansions in time to satisfy their biggest customers.

The conclusion I think you can draw from these stories is that, yes, however you define this topsy-turvy might-be economic downturn of indeterminate length, it’s helping some people and hurting others. In the case of venue expansion, the winners may ultimately be show managers, who seem to have convinced the venue world that it’s got to give them what they want or else. The losers are the convention center operators, who not only are fighting each other tooth and nail for customers, but must also deal with a new credit market that makes it suddenly very difficult to figure out how to pay for the kinds of expansions or improvements they need to compete.

Posted by Michael Hart on January 30, 2008 | Comments (0)