Behind The Story

April 2, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

The most recent issue of Tradeshow Week has a story that is news because it describes a first: the first acquisition of a virtual tradeshow (at least the first we know of).

As with most every transaction we write about, there is the standard “terms were not disclosed” statement. Because of the nature of the parties involved in tradeshow transactions, that isn’t unusual.

Of course, the vagueness of those undisclosed terms typically allows everybody with a show they’d like to peddle to let their imaginations take over. In this case, however, I wouldn’t imagine a lot of money changed hands.

We considered it newsworthy enough to put on our front pag...Read More

February 11, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

One thing this job I’ve got has over jobs I’ve had in the past, at daily and weekly newspapers, is that I don’t have to talk to politicians. That is not to say that the tradeshow industry is unaffected by politics, but the points where government policy and face-to-face marketing coincide are few and far between.

Most readers I talk to wish it was easier for their international exhibitors and attendees to get visas to come to their shows in the United States. They also wish the current administration didn’t keep doing things that make it so easy for people in other countries to decide they don’t like Americans. And most TSW readers probably wish the Federal Aviation Administration would ...Read More

January 30, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

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 center...Read More

January 14, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

If you’ve ever been to an industry meeting in Asia, you know that they tend toward the staid. While last month’s IAEE Expo! Expo! included scantily-clad girls dancing on tables at the opening night reception, the average CEFCO meeting has its share of solemn, long-winded speeches by dignitaries in flowery Mandarin that must lose something in translation into English.

However, the fourth annual China Expo Forum for Intl. Cooperation (CEFCO 2008) going on right now in Chengdu, China, has something that comes as a surprise: On the first day of the conference, Jan. 15, it was the Western speakers who gushed over the success of the Chinese exhibition industry.

Manfred Wu...Read More

September 26, 2007 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Once in a while a reporter at a local newspaper will call me or one of my colleagues at Tradeshow Week for comment on a story they perceive as purely home-grown but is really just another rendition of one we hear all the time: Some government/company/entrepreneur spends tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for a convention center or hotel (in this case, also a casino) to attract visitors to their wonderful town … and somehow it just doesn’t work out.

Of course, for each one of these reporters calling me, there are probably a dozen who don’t. Nor do they call somebody who might know much better what they’re talking about: A leader of one of the industry associations we have who could...Read More