The largest single group of respondents to the study were external event organizers and meeting planners. Clearly, there is much revelance to our industry in these findings.  Among other interesting predictions, Convention 2020 revealed that the majority of organizers and planners believe there will be more smaller and competitive meetings in the next ten years, that venues at schools, universities and colleges will offer the most competition to convention centers, and that ethical and enviornmental factors will continue to influence attendance.     

If the Fast Future Research folks had polled you, how would you have answered these questions about the future of the exhibitions and events industry? Perhaps we can start a discussion of predictions today. 

 Complete survey results are available at www.convention-2020.com.

CEIR’s Power of Exhibitions (POE) study released last year offers organizers and exhibitors a wonderful guide to attracting both groups of current and potential young attendees to our industry’s events. Organizers and exhibitors can find new tips and expert’s advice on delineating Gen Xers and Millennials here and in many new industry publications, including a feature this month from Association Conventions & Facilities magazine and new research out from the Pew Research Center published through the Center for Media Research.

Have you found other great sources this year for generational marketing information and tips? Share them here!

Your participation in the project via completing CEIR’s online survey is essential for the success of this second study. CEIR will send a link to the survey to all CEIR and IAEE members in the upcoming weeks. Please help us in our quest for new information on this significant topic by responding to the survey when you receive it.   

CEIR will again partner with George P. Johnson on this study and release the findings in a webcast this summer.

You can still download CEIR and GPJ’s report featuring findings from the original study, Digital + Exhibiting Marketing Insights 2009 at www.ceir.org.

It was amazing to see how the “unconference” was created and its impact not only on those who were in DC, but the ripple effects in our industry.  We should examine what took place and have conversations in our offices about those implications.

Michelle Bruno on her blog,  Fork in the Road, assessed the situation very nicely.  She provides all the background drama of getting this #untech 10 off the ground.  I would suggest you read her blog post for all those details.  The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: How #Untech10 Was Launched and What it Means to a Changing.

Michelle very clearly outlines her observations below:

Industry Associations must change. So many associations (and event organizations) take conservative approaches, focus on details that turn out to be less important and find the risk of failure too great to try anything new or spontaneous for fear of ruffling some board members’ feathers. ASAE made a bold move when they allowed (although unable to endorse or assist) the members to run with #Untech10 without seeing it as competition but as a way to meet the needs of their community.

Generation X works differently. Grant, Dreyer and others saw the cancellation of the conference as an incredible opportunity to serve their community, shape the future of hybrid meetings and showcase the technology that will one day be the norm rather than the exception. In true Generation X style, the door opened and rather than wait for group consensus, feasibility studies or permission, they ran through it with little more than their smartphones and chutzpah.

Exhibitors will sell differently in the future. The vendor companies that stepped up for #Untech10 with people, platforms and money are the other heroes of the story. In true social media style, they allowed themselves to be exposed, to risk failure, to be transparent and to sell by example.

Now that we’ve learned to live without, we may do without. In the future, it may not be necessary to have large gatherings of people in order to serve and build the community. We all love face-to-face but the success of #Untech10 revealed that meeting stakeholders are just as responsive to virtual meetings as live ones given the right conditions. The focus on “butts in seats” or “heads in beds” is quickly turning to butts and heads.

Spontaneity is the new black. Maddie Grant and I discussed the fact that #Untech10 was sort of like the conference version of a “rave” or the mobile catering trucks that drive around Los Angeles tweeting their locations and daily specials to followers who line up for the goods. Meetings in the future will have more spontaneity brought to them by the audience who will participate more and in greater numbers than before because it adds dimension and excitement to the event FOR THEM.

Meeting, conference and exhibition planners’ skill sets will change. Had Maddie Grant and Lindy Dreyer not known how to utilize Twitter and about the technology platforms for networking, broadcasting and capturing content, they could not have done what they did so quickly. This is a lesson to all planners to learn what’s going on in the new world of event technology and for hell’s sake, get on Twitter.

Being nimble pays dividends. The #Untech10 experience was a thrill ride for Maddie Grant. “I would totally do it again. I think doing things fast, collaboratively and openly takes away the stress of doing things perfectly. We just had to get it done. The reason we could do it with so many players was that we only had 24 hours to get it done. In the future organizations will need to be nimble enough to pull these types of things off,” she says.

There is no such thing as control. If anything, #Untech10 demonstrated that control over the content, the message and the brand is elusive. If the meeting organization does not provide compelling content, establish the message (by listening and acting) and reinforce the brand (by example setting not advertising), the attendees will do it for them.

Live and virtual audiences are part of an event continuum. There was incredible electricity in the room of live bodies gathered at the Renaissance Hotel according to Grant. Likewise, the virtual attendees were lively, active and a major component of the meeting. When done correctly (i.e. allowing the audience to be as much a part of the meeting as the presenters), the live experience and the virtual experience can function in complementary ways.

The Takeaway: The revolution will not be televised. It will be streamed live and on demand to a computer or smartphone near you.

The question for you as a “trusted” resource for your group, how are you navigating the technology road-map?

What are your predictions?

It may surprise you to know, however, that 18% of young respondents chose which booths to visit by the enthusiasm of the exhibiting staff alone. Which means that choosing which staff you send to an event to represent your organization - and training these folks - is not a task to be taken lightly.

CEIR has released a new Guru report this week in its helpful series of reports on government exhibiting. The Human Element offers clear tips for exhibiting managers when it comes to choosing the right staff and supporting them throughout the exhibiting process.

This report reminds us that exhibiting is face-to-face marketing. The experience of an event or exhibit is just as important as its content.

Click here to download The Human Element today.

Story posted: February 8, 2010 - 6:01 am EDT
Doug Ducate is president-CEO of the Center for Exhibition Industry Research. BtoB talked to him about upcoming trends in the events industry.

BtoB: Are there any hurdles you see for the event industry this year?

Doug Ducate: The two big challenges are time and cost.

Time in many ways-prior to the economic decline-was a bigger factor then cost, particularly among young professionals. The time that we are asking people to take away from the rest of their lives is probably every bit as important as the cost.

The cost factor is a cyclical thing. In August 2001, before 9/11, 77% of American manufacturers had already imposed travel restrictions. What happened with [the aftermath of 9/11 was] everything that happened after tended to mask what was going to happen anyway. Those budgets took a while to come back.

BtoB: What can event marketers do to overcome those challenges?

Ducate: They’ve got to make a compelling case for why people should come, and they’ve got to find the right locations and the right time frames that provide more convenience. We’ve [also] got to attack the cost issues in order to continue to appeal to the less-than-upper-end socioeconomic groups, who need to get approval to go to the event.

Finding some solutions to those issues is a major challenge for the industry. I believe it is going to be a primary challenge during 2010.

We’ll see a variety of things undertaken in the areas that we can control, and [we will need to recognize] that there are areas we can’t control, like airline fees. An organizer’s challenge begins with: “How do I minimize the hassle and cost and maximize the use of that person’s time?”

BtoB: Will there be a different type of event that becomes more common?

I think we’re seeing some trends toward more vertical boutique events then towards mega-shows and horizontal events. Attendees are saying: “I want to go to an event with my peers, and I want to see exhibits in my area of influence.”

Identifying what people are interested in is important-and so is making sure you don’t dilute your event by throwing in a bunch of stuff that [attendees are] not interested in.

The old days of exhibitions 50 years ago was a real estate transaction. If you were having a show and you were going to have 10,000 people there, it didn’t matter who they were. It took some lessons learned to get away from the old mentality and say this is about the attendees. More and more events are attendee-oriented and focused on matching buyers and sellers, so you don’t have these unrelated peripherals that dilute the focus of why you’re there.

BtoB: Is there going to be an upswing in attendance as the economy rebounds?

Ducate: The anecdotal information on the events held in the first three weeks of the year is encouraging as compared to the first three weeks of last year. It’s like the economic recovery of the stock market; at the moment, things are headed in the right direction. Things are looking up.

Probably one of the most positive long-term indicators is our two-year generational study. We wanted to find out what 20- and 30-year-olds are thinking. The results are extremely positive regarding their attitudes toward live events. [The survey, "Power of Exhibitions in the 21st Century: Identify, Discover and Embrace Change From the Viewpoint of Young Professionals," was released in October. CEIR conducted 325 on-site surveys at 10 b-to-b events with attendees ages 20 to 39.]

When I look at the future, creative thinking needs to happen among the organizers, keeping their events fresh, and reacting to what people want and what they demand in order to take their time away from them. M

1. Event Date
2. Event Location
3. Total NSF of Exhibit Space
4. Total Exhibiting Companies
5. Total Professional Attendance
6. Total Revenue

This is data that I’m sure most organizers know by heart.

In order to obtain a FREE electronic copy of this year’s Index publication (emailed to you at the address you provide upon submission), data must be tendered to CEIR by this Friday, 5 February 2010.   

If you have not already done so, please click here and submit your event’s information today!

And remember, as always, all event data submitted (including, of course, revenue!) is kept completely confidential by Veris Consulting, LLC. 

CEIR THANKS YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

How are you using this study to modify your events to attract young professionals?

Exhibitors are mad, and they’re planning to do something about it. That, at least, is the assessment of a group of five exhibitor-related trade associations that have formed an Exhibit Industry Council to address some of what its leaders say are long-endured frustrations.

The coalition of five associations, in conjunction with what its leaders say is a growing list of supporting suppliers, plans to present a set of best practices it believes can provide opportunities to resolve issues - most significantly involving exhibiting costs - that have nagged at the tradeshow industry for decades but became a particularly sore point as the economy began to deteriorate.

In an interview with Doug Ducate earlier this month I asked about this new group.  Here is his response:

As always, we welcome your comments!