I am leaving New Zealand, and I am very sad, partly because I won’t be able to watch rugby 24/7. But watching rugby got me thinking about how you can use this game (my second favorite sport, the first being baseball) to have a proper trade show. After all they call rugby ‘the game of animals played by gentlemen’. Aptly put.
How do we stay innovative, deliver value to our exhibitors and stay personally motivated about our work when we have less time, money and resources? After almost 13 years with PMA, I feel lucky that I’m still excited about what I do.
Yes, I still have nights of being awake at 3 a.m. because I can’t turn off the ideas in my head, and I still get all “giddy” when I get feedback from exhibitors about something that really worked, no matter how small.
Jamie Hillegas, CEM, CMP, Director of Trade Shows for Produce Marketing Association, runs the Fresh Summit Exposition, which is the largest fresh fruit and vegetable expo in North America.
Even after securing several new exhibitors in the past six months, Market Center Management Company has decided to scrap plans for the Nashville Medical Trade Center, citing not enough long-term leases signed to continue with the project.
“Ending a development venture with such clear benefits for the health care industry has been a difficult decision, but ultimately we were unable to meet our internal leasing targets,” said Bill Winsor, president and CEO of Dallas-based MCMC, in a statement.
SMG has two new feathers in its cap, scoring venue management contracts for Miami’s James L. Knight Center and South Dakota-based Sioux Falls Convention Center.
Both contracts previously were held by Global Spectrum and mark the 6th and 7th straight RFP convention center wins for SMG, according to Gregg Caren, SMG’s senior vice president of strategic development.
Kelso & Company, a private equity firm located in New York, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Swank Audio Visuals and merge it with another AV company Kelso owns, PSAV Presentation Services.
“PSAV and Swank are industry leaders with impressive histories of growth, innovation and best-in-class customer service,” said Steve Dutton, vice president at Kelso.
Two of Las Vegas’ megashows, SEMA Show and MAGIC Marketplace, both will stay in Las Vegas into the near future, with extensions of their leases at the Las Vegas Convention Center for five years and three years, respectively.
“SEMA and MAGIC committed to Las Vegas in the early years, as we were evolving into a meetings and convention destination,” said Rossi Ralenkotter, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority.
Based on hundreds of show that are managed on a2z’s platform, the event technology company has released its latest Quarterly Exposition Industry Analysis.
While overall attendance has started to rebound at several shows, the third quarter wasn’t as kind to net square footage.
The data collected by a2z revealed that NSF in Q3 of 2012 was down by approximately 5 percent, compared with Q3 last year.
