Trade Show Production: Finding Our Model for 2010

LAJ — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:04:34 +0000

So here we are about eight months out from Cybernet Expo San Francisco and I haven’t slowed down in my pitching for sponsorships, brainstorming for speaker and panel ideas, search for promotional partners, etc. My lists grow daily and in typical fashion my head is swimming with ideas. Yes, I’m excited to get things going for our show next year! Many of the attendees will travel to San Francisco from all over the country and, in a number of cases, from outside the United States. It’s important to us that all attendees feel like that got tremendous value from Cybernet Expo, and that means we have to get started as early as possible on planning the show.

Capri Anderson

At this point I’ve been giving some thought as to how we want to market the show and who will be the “face” of Cybernet Expo. While it is always a good thing to have a beautiful and recognizable face and body of a well known model to represent your show, so to speak, it’s also nice to find someone who has as much universal appeal as possible. Last year we decided on the lovely Shay Laren, who you can see on our 2009 website at cybernetexpo.com. This year we are looking at the adorable Capri Anderson as our face of the show. We feel that she has massive appeal, and given that I’ve met her before and am friends with her webmasters, Capri is a logical choice.

While we haven’t announced the dates yet, I am feeling quite positive that we’ll have less competition with other shows. Several other similar trade shows piled in front of Cybernet Expo last year and split up the audience for everyone, and this problem was compounded by the fact that the recession had really started kicking in, adding to the problems of content piracy. But that perfect storm just made us work harder and smarter, which in turn brought our attendance UP from the previous year. And, we plan to go up again in 2010.

I’m just rambling now but next up I’ll be discussing the next steps which will most likely involve getting our media trades in place.

Insider Look at Trade Show Production: An Introduction LAJ is Director of Operations for Cybernet Expo, a trade...

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Insider Look at Trade Show Production: An Introduction

LAJ — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:15:04 +0000

I’ve been organizing trade shows since 2003, and the first time out I was more or less thrown into the deep end to sink or swim. Fortunately I swam but it was certainly not without a few bumps and bruises along the way. This blog series will detail my weekly adventures with production of the Cybernet Expo 2010 event currently scheduled for July in San Francisco.

I obviously don’t want to give away all my tricks here, since it seems too many people think they have what it takes to put on a competing trade show, and the market is pretty saturated. But I will be sharing in these blog updates some general marketing and production insights that I have learned over the years while working in the show, some of which might be useful in planning a variety of different kinds of live events, not just trade shows.

Even though the 2010 show is nearly nine months away as of this writing, and we wrapped up the 2009 show just a few months ago, it is never too early to start getting it together for next year. Lead time is critical, and it’s much easier (and more beneficial for the show) to plan early as opposed to starting late. This will minimize the damage or frustration that often comes with last minute changes… and trust me, there are always plenty.

Currently I’m looking for possible show sponsors, thinking about what the website will look like and which model or personality would make a good “face” for the 2010 show. I’m also compiling a list of potential speakers, seminar and workshop topics, and planning various other events and logistics. By this time next month we hope to announce the show dates and launch a brand new website.

Next to follow will be putting together online and print creatives to help market the show once we have several more sponsors on board and dates for the event locked in solid.

The closer we get to the show, the more I’ll have to discuss, so stay tuned!

Trade Show Production: Finding Our Model for 2010 In this ongoing series of thoughts on what goes into...

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Trade Show Production: Finding Our Model for 2010

Insider Look at Trade Show Production: An Introduction