Convention Insider (Conventions.net)

I was reading Rachel Wimberly over at Trade Show Network News about the latest in the meetings industry.  A study was done by the Professional Conventions Management Association, American Express, and the PMCA Education Foundation where they surveyed 505 professional meeting planners.  The results revealed that their was in an increase of 15% more meetings booked in 2010 from 2009 and 24% more meeting booked for 2011 over 2010.  It seems that we are climbing out of the economic hardships that the meeting industry has see over the last few years.  This seems to be a trend in other industries as well.

Deborah Sexton was quoted in the article as stating:

“While it’s been a difficult 18 months for our industry, I’m encouraged to see both actual business, as well as business sentiment improving,” said Deborah Sexton, PCMA’s president and CEO. “There continues to be caution in budgets and cost controls, which is to be expected, but if we can stay on this positive trend path there are certainly brighter days ahead for meetings.”

It appears that their is still caution going forward with the meeting industry and companies are not booking at places such as resorts and cruise ships like they once did in previous years.  This is not surprising as the industry begins to creep out of its shell.  Hotels saw the most increase of bookings in the meeting industry as they are a safe investment for any companies out there.  They tend to see the benefits first when a change occurs.

I am going to be attending a virtual convention and conference.  I know before you take me out back and beat the stuffing out of me, let me explain why I am attending this virtual conference.  The conference I am attending is called Engage CSR 2010.  The conference is a social responsibility conference and I am covering the event for another client.  I am excited for the experience as I am not sure what to expect.  I have actually attended a virtual conference in another event that took place in the Linden Labs world called Second Life.  This is something different however and I will go into this one with an open mind and open eyes.

The conference itself is being put on by InXpo, Inc., and you can actually go and register for the event yourself at their registration page.  PR Newswire is putting on the event in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility.  The event is offering the following online:

We’ll explore these topics and more at PR Newswire’s first Virtual Conference and Expo. Attend webinars, network with conference attendees, and visit various sponsor booths right from your desktop. And best of all it’s FREE!

I am very interested to see how we can network with other attendees, visit the sponsor booths and all right from the comfort of your office from the desktop or laptop.  This as we all know is what we champion as something that cannot be replaced in the real world.  I have been send a training video and a pdf of what we can expect.  I will report my experience this week, and let everyone know how the event turned out and my review of he system.

I have been wanting to get to Comic-Con out in San Diego for a number of years now and I was thinking that this would be my year, but alas it appears that the show has once again sold out.  A month away from the ever popular event in San Diego, and I was thinking I could perhaps get in as press to cover the event and that is almost tougher to accomplish than to buy a regular ticket. The event is now closed to any press requests as well.

This from their press room:

The 41st Annual Comic-Con International event will be held at the San Diego Convention Center from July 22 – 25 with a preview night on July 21. The event is SOLD OUT. Comic-Con International 2010 Press Registration is NOW CLOSED. There will be NO on-site press registration.

While I would love to go to the event it would probably prove impossible to find a place to stay or a place to hang my hat for the event.  As I have written in the past about Comic-Con and San Diego, it is the toughest ticket in town to get as far as the San Diego Conventions Center is concerned!  I wonder if my friends and clients over at Graphic.ly could get me in?  They would probably just make me work!  Maybe if I found my costume and showed up as my superhero self…

I talked before about how we can save water as trade shows and conventions and there are many conventions out there that are really looking for ways to go green.  The other thing I wanted to mention is that the current marketing plans and ways for companies to align themselves with their customer is to join a cause.  We see it in companies like Pepsi and others that are now crusading causes and aligning themselves in an effort to perform some cause marketing.

Does your convention have a cause it can align itself with or does your industry have a specific cause it wants to crusade?  Many of the companies already have joined causes like The Susan Komen Foundation and Livestrong in the area of Cancer.  I know that there is a great push to provide drinking water or relief efforts to disaster victims like they have in Haiti following the earthquake.  There are companies that are trying to feed the hungry.  The food industry is trying to make this their crusade and that would be a good idea for those trade shows and conventions in the food services industry or restaurant industry.  Your industry can have a common thread there.

Whatever the industry is or whatever the cause is that you are looking to align yourself with, cause marketing is the new black it seems.  Many of your sponsors will be a little more generous when it comes time to sign that contract if you are going to offer up some cause you are championing.  It helps them with their own corporate goals and it will help you get a better chance to be a part of something that is proactive.  Try to add some cause marketing to your next event.  It will make a difference to those you are helping and to your own efforts to be a success.

Tradition – Webster’s tells us it is:

1 a : an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom) b : a belief or story or a body of beliefs or stories relating to the past that are commonly accepted as historical though not verifiable 2 : the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another without written instruction 3 : cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions.  It’s something we all look forward to and can count on.

This is exactly how you want people to look at your next trade show or convention.  You want people to count on it year after year so that they make their reservation early and make them every year.  Yours needs to be the first thing they tell their peers that they should attend.  These three tips should make it a convention that is a tradition every year.

• Location – The location of your event is crucial to it being a tradition.  If you have an event every year at a different location it cannot become the go to event everyone looks forward to attending.  I love to hear “I will see you this year in Vegas?” That means they are already thinking of your event and when they give the location where they will see you next it means they are locked in to attending.
• Timing – Having your event every year at the same time makes it a tradition that everyone will remember. I go every year to SXSW in Austin, Texas in the Spring.  I know it is in the Spring because they call it “Spring Break For Geeks”.  I also know that every year they have it in Austin and I can count on making arrangements a year in advance.  I know I will be doing that event in the springtime.
• Program – Having the same type of program year after year allows you to make it a tradition for your speakers and exhibitors and your sponsors.  They love things that they can plan on and love it even more when you make it easy for them to stay in a groove so they can see what works best for them.  Stay with a program of breakout sessions and other typical actions of your event.

These tips will allow your event to become a tradition in your industry.  Becoming a tradition is crucial to making your event a success both financially and in the eyes of attendees, exhibitors and sponsors.  In a sense that makes it cyclical which is also somewhat of a tradition.

[photo via acameronhuff]

I spent most of yesterday out in the beauty of the wild, and some of it was even outdoors and not in the minivan with the kids as we celebrated Father’s Day in Estes Park, Colorado.  I took the shot here as we headed home from a day in the sun and fun.  As we drove along Colorado Highway 7 and at the base of Rocky Mountain National Park and the ever omniscient Long’s Peak I noticed a few conference centers on the route. The highway we were traveling on goes right through the heart of Roosevelt National Park and has breathtaking views.

There are many great locations for corporate retreats and places to get away from the normal grind of convention centers and hotels and regular meeting venues in big cities.  Places like Estes Park, Colorado thrive on summer vacation tourism and the shops and restaurants have their busy season and down time.  They are also finding a way to bring people in to have meetings and corporate retreats.

The Estes Park Conference Center we drove by had a sign out front for a quilting convention and I was not as quick on the draw for getting that picture but you can go to their site and see all they have to offer.  If you have an opportunity to help out a small mountain town like those in and around Estes Park, tell them Jim sent you.  In any case, try to have your next meeting in a place of beauty!

I was out in the garage last night cleaning up some things when I noticed that we are getting to the point of needing to take our aluminum cans in to be recycled.  We are a green family as much as one can be in this day and age, growing some of our own food and having a compost pile and all the other things that we can do to conserve and recycle and reuse some of the stuff we have.  We are really trying to reduce our carbon footprint as well.

I began to think about all the different companies out there that are buying new trade show booths as they gear up for their marketing season in the convention and trade show world.  There are those companies out there that use their trade show booth for a single campaign and then go on to the next big thing.  What happens to the booth they were using?  Do they throw it out or do they let is sit in a warehouse someplace gathering dust and not being used?

Many companies now are recycling their old trade show booths and reusing some of the booths to be in their next show.  I love to read about trade show companies that make it easy to go green.  I am really wanting to hear from some of the trade show booth exhibit companies out there that are using recycled materials or are designing booths that can be reused and recycled.  I also want to know if there are companies that are making it possible to return booths to be recycled or reused by others.  We can reduce our footprint in the world of trade shows and conventions too.  Let me know how your companies are doing just that.  Are you recycling your trade show booth?

In early 2007, I remember sitting in a bar in Austin, Texas and finding all of my friends on Twitter.  I had less than 100 people I was following then and I could remember seeing in real time what they were doing and what they were reading or watching on television or what bar they were buying drinks at in town.  It was very easy to follow along and it was a real cocktail party at that time.  Fast forward now a few years and my personal Twitter account has more than 11,000 followers and I am trying to follow along myself with more than 8,000 people.  Obviously, I cannot follow along with that many people in the real world of Twitter now but I have a good chance to talking with a few of them during the day.

We here at Conventions.net have been on Twitter for a while now and we are integrating other areas of social media here with our blog too.  I think Facebook is soon to be in the offering of places you can have conversations with us.  I will let you know when we get that up and running.  For now, you can follow along with our tweets at the Conventions.net Twitter page.  We will be updating with you what we are doing, will be sending updates about blog postings, and what new and interesting things we find on the Internet.  We are also working on making sure you know the latest news, and of course, we love chatting with you.  Feel free to follow along with us there and we will talk to you soon…or is it Tweet with you soon?

With the recent crisis occurring in the Gulf of Mexico with the BP oil spill disaster, it is tough to make it through an entire conversation without that becoming a topic of interest to most anyone that is up on the news.  This made me think of what trade shows and conventions think of the spill and what they are doing when someone asks them about their water conservation.  It made me think back to the Tools of the TRADEshow newsletter and a tips and tricks article on how to conserve water.  I tend to keep everything and the newsletter is a great source of info.

The newsletter article mentioned a tip that resonated with me being from Colorado and how we sometimes get into conditions of drought.  We often go into a plan B way of dealing with water conservation here, like lawn watering conservation and landscaping tactics to conserve water.  Businesses also get into the swing with conserving water by doing things a little different.  Is your trade show conserving water?  Here is a tip that I saw in the newsletter that I thought was a simple way to contribute to water conservation.

Serve water at meals only by request, rather than pre-filling hundreds of glasses. Meeting Strategies Worldwide estimates that if you avoid pre-filling water glasses at banquet lunches for 2,200 people for three days, you can save 520 gallons of water!

That sounds like not a lot of water but it can mean a small contribution to the water supply, and if we all did a little something to help conserve water, we would be doing our part for the environment and the event industry!  If you want to get more tips like this from the Conventions.net newsletter, I suggest you go to the Conventions.net site and enter your info in the eNewsletter signup to receive it via email.  It takes only a short time and you can get many tips and articles about how your can make your event or trade show and convention a better experience for all.

Yesterday was a travel day for me of sorts.  I traveled back in time to when I was a kid in school but out on Summer break.  I talk about my kids frequently, and they are an inspiration to me.  They allow me to see things when I get caught up in the world of being an responsible adult.  Yesterday was no different.  It is summer time in my household, which means all four of my children are home from school and in the mode of complete “boredom”. If children are not being constantly entertained by the latest video game or being challenged by the television to watch yet another episode of SpongeBob Sqaurepants, they seem to have nothing to do! This lead me to wonder what the convention world is doing during the summer and how we are entertaining the masses.

The perfect example as I used before is video games and entertainment which is happening right now and began yesterday in Los Angeles at the E3Expo!  The E3Expo is succinctly described as :

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is the U.S. association exclusively dedicated to serving the business and public affairs needs of companies that publish computer and video games for video game consoles, personal computers, and the Internet.

This is a mecca for all of the super geeks out there that want to get the latest info about video games, new game releases and everything video.  My kids I know would be a little like visiting the Willy Wonka Chocolate factory at an event such as this.  The event runs through Thursday, June 17, 2010 and is located at the Los Angeles Convention Center.  Get over there to give your inner child some entertainment.