Off the Showfloor   

At convention centers across the country, officials almost always are calling for more space.

Yesterday, I read a column Heywood Sanders wrote in Sunday’s The Tennessean questioning the many convention center officials who promise expansions and new convention centers will be an “economic boon.” And then it doesn’t happen.

We’ve all probably heard of Sanders. He’s with the University of Texas at San Antonio and probably the biggest critic of publicly financed convention centers. He’s been speaking out against them for years.

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Even if you’re not in danger of a layoff or a change in your economic status, a downturn leads to penny-pinching.

I’m always looking for a good deal. If I can forego a purchase for a bit while the price drops, I’ll do it. And, because of the economy, I’m finding the deals out there now are bigger and better.

With retailers around the country scrambling to lure customers with the promise of a discount, it’s no surprise that the convention and tradeshow industry also is looking for ways to ease strapped wallets.

I had an e-mail from the Intl. Assn. of Exhibitions and Events waiting for me yesterday morning when I turned on my computer.

Have you been in...Read More

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Necessity's the mother of invention.

It's a phrase people use during tough times – and this recession is one of those. It causes companies to take a hard look at what they're doing and make changes.

I think the tradeshow industry's no different, but I also think it is an invisible industry. By that I mean that I don't think the general public is aware of what the industry contributes to the economy.

This week, I was at the Orange County Tourism Council’s Tourism Conference in Dana Point, Calif., and listened to Bruce Bommarito of the U.S. Travel Assn. speak about the industry. He showed a video clip from a documentary made in 1992 that showed move-in and move-out of tradeshows and discussed the industry as needing more support from policy and decision makers.

Afterward, Bommarito m...Read More

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More than 4,300 people will receive the inaugural issue of Tradeshow Week’s newest e-newsletter, TSW Green Show Report, on Monday.

If you still want to get in on the action, go to the sign-up page on our Web site.

I’m glad we’re offering this new electronic publication to help everyone in the industry keep his or her fingers on the pulse of the sustainability trend. Because I have a personal interest in environmental issues, Editor-in-Chief Michael Hart asked me if I would edit this e-newsletter in addition to my other responsibilities, and I can’t tell you how thrilled I was, and am.

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Before I started writing for Tradeshow Week, I didn’t think much about tradeshows. Now, I sometimes feel that I was ignoring a really large piece of the economic puzzle by not taking a greater interest.

Anytime I want to go to my childhood home, it involves at least one airport connection. This past weekend was no different. I flew Thursday from LAX to Chicago and then onto Toledo, Ohio – about 45 minutes from my parents’ house.

The flight from Chicago to Toledo is a short one, a little more than a half an hour, and I sat by a man who works for an oil refinery and was returning home to northwest Ohio from business on the West Coast.

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How do you measure your show?

If you’re like most show managers, you’re going to say the three standard numbers that are the same ones we at Tradeshow Week use: net square footage, number of exhibiting companies and number of attendees.

They’re the industry standards.

Yesterday, I went to a meeting of the Southwest Chapter of the Intl. Assn. of Exhibitions and Events where one of the topics that came up in the panel discussion, “What’s Keeping You Up at Night?” was how to get away from measuring tradeshows by those metrics.

There was a bit of media blaming about why the numbers should be important in the first place.

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I resent recent comments that going to a meeting or tradeshow is a bid for an unscheduled vacation day.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I struggle to find enough time to accomplish everything I need to do when I’m away from the office.

That time’s coming for me again next week when I’ll be attending Exhibitor in Las Vegas. I’m flying out of LAX Tuesday morning and will fly back late Wednesday afternoon.

I know, I know. Vegas has casinos, clubs and entertainment, so I hardly will be working, right? Wrong. I’ll fly in, check in with the office, spend the day on the showfloor, go to an awards event that night and try to attend some educational sessions and networking events while I’m ...Read More

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When times are tough, show managers are less apt to speak to us when we visit their shows. Or, show managers spin what could be considered bad news (less attendance, for example) into good (exhibitors have more time to spend with their customers).

Today, I received an e-mail that I found interesting. The Natl. Kitchen & Bath Assn. sent out a press release to “set the record straight” about the upcoming Kitchen/Bath Industry Show & Conference May 1-3 at Atlanta’s Georgia World Congress Center. Nielsen Business Media manages the show for the association. For the past few weeks, I’ve been getting press releases from shows that are selling large percentages of their showfloors ahead of time and have pre-registration numbers ahead ...Read More

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I have to tell you: I’m sick of news about the economy.

I’m sick of writing it, and I’m sick of hearing about it. I’m sure in some ways our readers are, too. For my part, I feel like I’m writing the same story over and over – just with different sources.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s a reason that our coverage of shows has been all about whether the showfloors are the same and whether the same number of attendees came: That’s what show managers and others in the industry are dying to know.

Still, I’d like to write something else. I’d like the recession to ...Read More

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Some readers might have noticed that a story of mine that’s on our Web site is different than the one we ran in the print edition.

When we were producing the Jan. 12 issue, it turned out there wasn’t enough space for my story, “Will Obama Open Doors to the U.S.?,”  about how a new presidential administration could impact international travel and, through that, the tradeshow industry. Editing down stories, commonly known as cutting, isn’t a rare occurrence around here, though we do our best to write to the length we have.

This time, it just didn’t happen. I knew as I was writing that I w...Read More

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This past weekend was the second time I’ve attended the annual Tradeshow Week Fastest 50, which is in its sixth year.

Words can’t describe how honored I felt at the event because of the comments I heard from winning show managers. You might think because I work for TSW, I’m privy to all the details before the event, but that’s not true. Most of what I know, everyone knows – it’s published in our schedule of events. Because of that, I’m often just as surprised by the venues for the events and the amazing food as everyone else. This was the first time I’ve been to Baltimore, and I was disappointed I didn’t get to see more of the city.

As a staff, we spend a lot of time preparing for the weekend. This year, we started in August on ...Read More

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Most of the time, sources I interview for stories are people someone at Tradeshow Week has met or knows of in some way.

For an article I’m working on for the TSW issue we’ll distribute at Expo! Expo! IAEE’s Annual Meeting & Exhibition, it’s a different story. I’m looking for members of the millennial generation who have recently graduated from or still are in college. It’s not as easy to find those sources – for the most part, they don’t run their own companies, and they’re not prominent members of industry organizations (yet).

So I did something I never thought I would do for work: I started looking for those people on Facebook. That’s right, I’ve been messaging potential sources through social media to try and connect.

I joined Facebook in 2005 at...Read More

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