No one disagrees with the idea that our industry has challenges.
What we are not on the same page about is what those challenges are. This is not necessarily because we do not agree so much as we all see the industry from our very specific vantage points and human nature is to lobby first and foremost for our own interests. The challenge is that our industry is large enough and complex enough (we can all agree on that) that we will not make progress until we can bring everyone to the table and we can at least agree that while we may not all have the same problems, that does not make any of the problems less important. I would submit that for us to have an effective dialog, four things must happen:
· All parties must be at the table (From exhibitors to labor and everyone in between)
· We must agree that the success of the exhibitor is everyone’s common goal and any changes must benefit the exhibitor
· That we need to look for areas of common agreement (Ex: Making it easier for business people to receive visas to travel to the USA for tradeshows)
· That looking for common ground should not keep us from shying away from tackling the hard issues that we do not agree on (the cost of exhibiting)
I plan on attending an all industry summit on October 6th and I am hopeful we can start a productive conversation.
Tags: All Industry Summit
Hi Justin -
Completely agree that engaging in a dialog for the purpose of addressing common issues is an imperative. One question I would have for you is regarding your statement in bullet point #2. Is the success of the exhibitor the most important result, or the success of the attendee? Let’s say we figure out how to contain costs, make the process easier, make visas a more seamless process . . . does that guarantee that an attendee will want to spend the money and time to go to an event/trade show? In other words, the success of the exhibitor is predicated on much more than the actual process and cost of exhibiting – it’s ensuring that they are creating a compelling reason for attendees to attend – and making it worth their while.
There is a great discussion on the Future of Trade Shows focusing on the attendee experience. Would invite anyone who would like to participate in the Linked In discussion to let me know and we’ll get you included in the group.