What is co-location of conferences?  We know that co-location is defined as:  “to locate together; especially : to place (two or more units) close together so as to share common facilities.”  This is provided by Merriam-Webster, but what does it actually mean to us in the conference world?  To me it has a few messages.

Spreading out costs: I think one of the main points in today’s economy is that it allows a conference to partner with another conference to share in the costs of the facility or other costs.  If you have two companies that might have somewhat differing agendas but might share the same attendees, they can both share in the cost of the rental of the facility or the other costs that might be associated with putting on the event.  This also means of course that you would have to also share in the revenue of the attendees tickets and perhaps some of the sponsors but that is to be expected when dealing with partners.

Markets Join Forces: Many companies join together for a common purpose.  This is not much different from conferences joining together for a common purpose.  It may be that a single conference does not have the amount of content to support a full conference but if they joined with another conference that might also be too small to support a full conference, together they could make a full conference agenda of speakers and exhibitors for a better conference experience.

Management is Distributed: In some cases the companies that are putting on the events are too small but if they joined forces they could spread out the amount of work necessary.  perhaps Company A wil be in charge of the front facing marketing promotion and sales, while company B is responsible to the back end management of registrations, exhibit booth set up, housing and speakers.  With two companies each taking on all of the responsibilities necessary it spreads out the work load making it easier to accomplish all that needs done.

These are just a few of the simple ideas behind why conferences are co-located.  I know that we are beginning to see more and more of this as economic factors make it necessary to join forces and allow for more people to participate in attending conferences as well as managing them.  Are you a co-located conference manager?  Why are you co-locating?  What are some of the downfalls of co-locating conferences?  Would love to hear your thoughts.

I was talking to a friend yesterday about the idea behind a trade show manager that would wait up until the show date to cancel it and take the money and escape out the back way.  That sounds a little dramatic and perhaps it is just the movie of the week that is playing in my head when I imagine that actually happening but it could happen.  In fact in 1995 I remember a man organizing trade shows in Houston, Texas while sitting in his prison cell.  He would set up the event sell exhibit booth space and then cancel at the last minute and not give anyone their money back.  He would tell vendors and others that there was not adequate parking.  As I said, it should be the movie of the week.

Today, 15 years after the fact, the economy is struggling and people are having difficulty getting new businesses to work and flourish.  This is part of the other problem with trade shows, events and conferences that are failing and not getting off the ground.  There are not enough sponsors willing to fork over money for the events that are starting and the organizers have no financing to get a year under their belt and lastly, attendees cannot afford to attend.  It seems to be a vicious cycle and in among this craziness is people wanting to take advantage of others.

How do you protect yourself in a situation with new show organizers that have the opportunity to be a good event but must either cancel the event or have it be a failure when you show up and present your trade show best to very few attendees?  There must be ways for you to protect yourself from this.  I want to explore this more and would ask that anyone that has experience with this leave us a comment.  I would love to talk to some wily veterans that might have this knowledge and might know how to combat the problem.  If you have had this happen either as an organizer or an attendee or an exhibitor I would love to hear from you.  Let us in on what happened and how.  I am going to do some further research on this and run a series of information on Trade Show and Convention Fraud.  I might even throw in some of my own experience.  I think this is something that is very unfortunate and something we should all be aware of in this tight economy.

I was reading through an article by Rachel Wimberly over at TSNN.com about a Denver convention of teachers and their use of Wifi.  The event I am speaking of is at the Colorado Convention Center in my part of the world.  The convention is the International Society for Technology In Education or ISTE.  The article references Smart City a company that we have featured on here before and a company that is well known in the Wifi space for conventions and trade shows. I think that what we see in a convention like ITSE is going to be the wave of the future for conferences.  What TSNN writes is:

Of the 18,000 attendees who showed up for the event, 16,500 of them were online at any given time. Donella Evoniuk, ISTE’s senior director of conference services, said the event has offered free Wi-Fi since 2001, and they have worked with Smart City for several years to ensure the attendees’ demand to be online is met.

I am in the world of social media so it may be that the events that I mostly attend and the ones I am invited to speak at may be more technically minded and may involve more attendees online, but I do think this is a trend that will continue in all conferences and trade shows.  The article goes on to state:

Smart City has worked with ISTE on several shows, but Evoniuk said when a preshow survey indicated more than 80 percent of attendees intended to bring their laptops to the show, as well as 50 percent planned to bring both a cell phone and a laptop to the event, they knew demand was going to be unusually high. On top of that, ISTE promoted active back channel communications through live Twitter feeds and the ISTE 2010 Blog Roll, she added.

This is only going to be more of the norm.  I am constantly wondering what the “connectivity” is going to be like when I attend events.  With the new social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook having the success that they are and the participation we are seeing in the realm of those social sites, we can assume that everyone wants to be connected.  There are plenty of new technologies that are being developed for conference and convention attendees in mind that are integrating connectivity in the wifi space that we will see become more prevalent at conventions as well.  The article seems to make it sound as if this is a new idea, but in reality, this is slowly becoming the norm.

It seems these days that everyone is trying to help the planet and benefits are being planned all over to help the victims in Haiti, to help save the planet from the BP oil spill in the gulf. Last night was no different as I spent the evening at the Fox Theater in Boulder, Colorado, listening to music at a planned benefit to help the people in the Gulf area at an event called The Gulf Coast Benefit.  The event is to help the those hurt by the oil spill in the gulf.  The organizers tell us their goal:

The organizers have created an ambitious goal: Gather music venues around the country to donate ticket sales on July 1st and create an online giving platform that encourages donations to the relief efforts. The fundraising goal is set to $100,000, which will be directed to our nonprofit partner the Gulf Restoration Network, (http://www.healthygulf.org), which provides assistance to the people, wildlife and wetlands affected as well as advocacy work throughout the Gulf Coast.

This is a drop in the bucket for the amounts needed to help that we will hear about for the area.  Many people are traveling to the gulf coast now to see the problems there and to see how they can help.  I suggest you give to the people at the Gulf Coast Benefit to help those victims of the terrible accident.

If you are planning on your own benefit, here are some quick tips to help your event be a success.

1. Community: Get your community of friends involved.  We all, have a larger community these days with our friends on Facebook and our followers on Twitter.  Get them to help you with your event.
2. Businesses: Many businesses are themselves seeking some help in this economy but they do have ways of helping you with services or products they sale and they can provide you with what they can.  Look to local businesses that might want to ass some “cause marketing” to their efforts.
3. Venues: Many venues are looking for ways to get their message out and to get people to notice them.  Many of them will donate their facility to get the exposure and to make a difference.  Find a facility that might want to partner with your benefit.
4. Advertise: If nobody knows of your event you need to get the word out.  Many businesses will help you with this and in addition leverage your community as I mentioned above.  Get the word out and your event will raise money and be a success.
5. Fun: This is an opportunity for you to have some fun doing what you do well, planning events.  Take this opportunity to have some fun and to show everyone how well you can plan.  This might be out of your normal planning process so try some things you wouldn’t normally try on your own or for a client.

There is a non-profit organization out there that wants and needs help.  Many of them have no way that they can plan events on their own and need the help of meeting planners and event planners.  Help an organization today!

I have been traveling around the state of Colorado for the past week and most of the time has been spent in the high country of places like Vail, Aspen, and Steamboat Springs.  These are normally known here in Colorado as Ski Country USA.  At this time of year however there is no skiing going on when the heat reaches temperatures in the summer of more than 80 degrees.  That may not sound hot but when Denver and Grand Junction on either side of the mountains is in the 100 degree area, the mountains are normally 20 degrees cooler.  This can help you beat the heat when you want to plan an outside event or an event where you can enjoy the out doors.

Vail, Colorado is a relatively new town having only been conceived in 1966 after the ski area opened in 1962.  My grandparents purchased 65 acres f land on the North side of the highway that ran through the valley in the 60′s and I had an opportunity to see the Vail Valley grow into what it has become today, an oasis in the rocky mountains where celebrities come to be seen, where skiers come to learn their craft and where events occur year round for corporate retreats, meetings over every kind and even a trade show or two.

If you are planning a conference in the summer and want to find a way to beat the heat and everyday look and feel of a conference in the big city, try thinking about having your show in the mountains of Colorado.  Vail has everything the big city has, airport access, restaurants, conference centers, and also something the city might not have in the summer, cooler temperatures!

[photo via Wikimedia Commons]

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 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 had a short trip out to Chicago on Saturday to speak at a social media event.  If you were paying attention with last week’s post you could have followed along with the hashtag #wcchicago.  They event was well attended nearly doubling the size of the attendees year over year.  They moved the event this year to The Chicago Merchandise Mart.

The facility was  very ominous as it sits on on the river in downtown Chicago.  The facility is described on their site.

The Merchandise Mart is the world’s largest commercial building, largest wholesale design center and one of Chicago’s premier international business locations. Encompassing 4.2 million gross square feet, The Mart spans two city blocks and rises 25 stories.

The Merchandise Mart became the world’s largest LEED-EB (Leadership in Energy and Environmental and Design for Existing Buildings) certified building in November 2007. LEED ^® certification is the nationally accepted bench mark for design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings and is awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

Today, The Merchandise Mart welcomes more than three million visitors each year to its retail shops, LuxeHome^® boutiques, 11 floors of permanent showrooms for gift, residential, casual and contract furnishings, 10 floors of office space, dozens of trade shows and a myriad of special educational, community and consumer events.

The epicenter for high design and luxury goods, The Merchandise Mart is located in the heart of a city that is home to prestigious fine art institutions, world-class museums, award-winning architecture, professional entertainment venues and diverse restaurant offerings.  The Merchandise Mart is a short, leisurely walk to the famous Magnificent Mile, where exclusive shops and four-star hotels bustle with activity from the Tribune Tower to North Avenue Beach.  Also nearby is Millennium Park, Chicago’s newest architectural landmark featuring celebrated public art works and breathtaking views of both the lakefront and the skyline.

Interesting to note that the downtown district where the event was held was nearly empty.  many of the shops that are in and around the area were closed on Sunday and not many people frequent the area.  It seems that on Sunday on Chicago at this trade show and convention center they pull in the sidewalks.  I would suggest if you are4 looking to have your event at the Chicago Merchandise Mart it would be a good facility to have an event during the week.  The building is a very nice jewel in the heart of Chicago and is a LEED’s certified building which the display prominently.  I recommend the Great Grey Lady.  After all, how many facilities out there are LEED certified and have their own poem.

I am headed out to Chicago this weekend to speak at a social media industry event.  I was curious what is going on in the Chicago area and their recent news about law changes and the McCormick Place Conventions Center.  I saw a news item flash across Twitter and tracked down a story on the Meetings Industry Megasite about the latest in the law changes in Chicago.  The legislature had passed a law making the convention industry more competitive in Chicago and the Governor let it sit on his desk until he was forced to make a decision.  The bill was vetoed and later last week, the legislature voted to overturn the veto.  The law was passed and now Chicago is more competitive as a result.  I think the economy is making a number of the convention centers and other to take a look at the bottom line and searching ways to be more competitive.

There were many associations that had threatened to move their events from Chicago because the center was not competitive and in response to that they needed to make some changes.  Some of the listed changes that were made include:

• Establishes new labor work rules that reduce crew sizes and require less overtime pay.

• Expands exhibitor rights, allowing customers to do their own work, regardless of booth size.

• Appoints a trustee—Reilly—to oversee McCormick Place operations during an 18-month transition period and choose a private manager for the facility.

• Restructures MPEA’s capital debt, which will allow it to further lower costs for customers.

• Allows shows to select outside electrical and foodservice contractors.

• Calls for auditing contracts to ensure savings are passed on to customers.

I think these are some areas that will be looked at by a number of facilities and certainly other convention and visitor bureaus are going to be watching closely at how the new law changes put into place in Chicago are going to change their own proposals.  This is also going to help the third party vendors and suppliers to compete in a market where they may have been locked out.