The city of Albany has unveiled the Albany Capitol Center, a $78.5 million, state-of-the-art meetings and convention facility.

As the newest addition to the city’s downtown Capital Complex, the ACC joins the Empire State Plaza Convention Center, The Egg Performing Arts Center and the Times Union Center to comprise a four-building campus now known as the largest meetings and event space in upstate New York, with 160,000 square feet of combined space.

It goes without saying that trade shows and events are incredibly tough on the environment, producing massive amounts of waste and carbon emissions each year. According to MeetGreen, the typical conference attendee creates more than four pounds of waste and just under 400 pounds of CO₂ emissions per day.

As a show organizer, you know you should do your part to help the planet by taking your events in a more sustainable direction, but you’re concerned that going green will not only be more labor intensive, but also more expensive.

U.K.-based Informa's Global Exhibitionsdivision bought Yachting Promotions, the operator of some of the largest yachting and boat shows in the U.S., for $133 million.

“With this acquisition, Informa Exhibitions becomes the world’s leading yacht show organizer,” said Charlie McCurdy, Informa Exhibitions’ CEO.

In a year when two of its largest biennial shows – Labelexpo Europe and Dubai Airshow - did not run, U.K.-based Tarsus Group scored like-for-like revenue growth of 8 percent and across the portfolio buyers increased by 7 percent on a like for like basis in 2016, well ahead of the company’s target of 5 percent.

“Our 'Quickening the Pace' growth strategy continued to deliver in 2016. Organic growth was strong at 8 percent, and we grew our buyer attendance, a key metric for us, by a very encouraging 7 percent,” said Douglas Emslie, Tarsus Group’s managing director.

The Meetings Mean Business Coalition, a cross-industry communications and advocacy initiative, is introducing a platform for industry professionals in every corner of the globe to better advocate for the power of face-to-face meetings.

A newly created licensing agreement will allow partners in countries and regions outside of the United States to use MMB branding, messaging and research to form one strong, cohesive voice for the industry.

The Center for Industry Research released its latest CEIR Total Index Report that indicated growth of the trade show industry declined during the fourth quarter of 2016.

Driven by a 1.8 percent drop in real revenues, the performance of the industry posted a modest year-on-year decline of 0.4 percent, after 25 consecutive quarters of year-on-year growth.

"The decline was a temporal set back as economic fundamentals still point to moderate growth for the exhibition industry" said CEIR Economist Allen Shaw, Ph.D., chief economist for Global Economic Consulting Associates.

Haymarket Media Group has announced a new joint venture with Comexposium, a leading global event organizer of food and farming events. 

The new partnership with will include Haymarket’s Cereals and Fruit Focus exhibitions, two U.K.-based technical events for the arable farming and fruit industries, respectively. 

One week after Emerald Expositions announced it would not be considering Utah to keep its Outdoor Retailer shows in when the contract runs out, officials from another show – the North American Handmade Bicycle Show – said they would no longer hold their event in the state.

Both shows, along with Emerald’s Interbike show that also took Utah off its list as a possible new home, are leaving in protest of Utah Gov. Gary Herbert’s attempts to undo federal protections of Bears Ears National Monument.

With such a wide variety of trade shows and events moving in and out of the Georgia World Congress Center on a weekly basis, it would make perfect sense for such a busy facility to devise a multi-faceted food and beverage venue able to satisfy all kind of culinary tastes and preferences.

Enter Social Table, a flexible restaurant concept designed to suit the unique dining needs of individual trade shows and their attendees.

HMP, a provider of healthcare content and continuing medical education events, recently completed its acquisition of EMS World from SouthComm.

As part of the agreement, HMP will assume ownership of EMS World Expo, North America's largest EMS, EMT and paramedic event.