Big Wireline Trade Shows Seeing Fewer Visitors, Exhibitors

NXTcomm 2008 attendance was less than half that of 2005’s Supercomm, according to numbers from organizers. About 27,000 attended the 2005 show in Chicago, but in 2008 only 13,000 came to Las Vegas. Exhibit space rentals and head count have shriveled, too. The 2004 show had 300,000 square feet and 691 exhibiting companies, but the 2008 edition had just 180,000 square feet and 500 exhibitors. The turning point seems to have been the split of organizers USTelecom and TIA after the 2005 show. TIA and USTelecom reunited to hold 2007’s NXTcomm, but that show drew only 15,000 visitors.

Attendance at CompTel, a far smaller show held twice yearly, also has declined since 2005, though much less dramatically. About 2,715 attended the Spring 2005 show, which sold 220 exhibit booths, according to CompTel numbers. Three years later, CompTel had 2,400 registrants and 170 booths, its lowest numbers since fall 2004. CompTel estimates slightly better numbers for its show next month.

The Supercomm slump should end in 2009, Jim Forlenza, Supercomm managing director, said in an interview. “We're actually anticipating [exhibitor and attendance] numbers to stabilize, if not go up,” he said. The drop was due partly on brand confusion created by “so many different brand names in a short period of time,” he said. The need for brand clarity “was one of the impetuses” to revive the Supercomm name in 2009, he said. The move back to the familiar Chicago venue also should lure exhibitors, Forlenza said. Supercomm plans to have 200,000 square feet of exhibit space at the 2009 show, up 20,000 from 2008, but still 100,000 below the peak.

Supercomm will sustain because it’s not a niche show, Forlenza said: “What happened to VON … is what happens to niche events over a period of time.” Organizers want Supercomm to be a broadband-focused show that’s “agnostic to the platform,” he said. Organizers are working to ensure that a broader focus doesn’t hurt Supercomm’s value for exhibitors with specific interests, he said. “That’s certainly a challenge we have ahead of us … and it’s one that we look forward to taking on,” he said. Part of the effort will involve educating exhibitors on who attends and how best to prepare for them, he said.

CompTel will last because of its strong constituency and focus on education, including panels on regulatory and technological change, said CEO Jerry James in an interview. Another strong suit is compact size, which enables company representatives to meet and greet, he said. Socializing can be tough at bigger shows, which James termed “overwhelming” venues in which “you don’t know where to start.” CompTel organizers don’t intend to scale the show up massively, but are looking instead to draw companies outside the group’s core membership, he said. However, an uncertain economy could affect future shows’ performance, he said.

CompTel trade show space tends to sell out, said Russ Merberth, a CompTel board member and Integra Telecom federal counsel, in an interview. The past four or five years, Integra hasn’t adjusted trade show spending or exhibit space, he said. But other shows might be struggling, Merberth said, noting that the Supercomm show has been “in flux for a number of years.” The CompTel show might fare better given the CLEC industry’s constant evolution, he said. “We always seem to be consolidating on one end and have new entrants coming in on the other end,” he said. “That makes us different than … USTelecom, which has pretty much the same cast of characters year in and year out.”

The VON show’s fate is murky. Organizer Pulvermedia closed its doors earlier this year (CD May 20 p1). VoIP pioneer Jeff Pulver has moved on, said Andy Abramson, a VoIP blogger and friend of Pulver. “Jeff is focused on social media and human networking/relationship selling,” he said. Pulver’s new events will have a “totally different” scale and format, he said. “The [VoIP] trade show as we knew it is dead.” Virgo Publishing, owner of the Channel Partners shows, might buy the VON name, Abramson said. But he thinks that would be “wasting money.” Poor turnout at the last VON show indicates the name has “no brand equity left,” he said.

Big Shows Unsustainable?

The VON show’s recent death illustrates big trade shows’ general decline, said Abramson. These events have become too costly for organizers and participants, he said. Rather than spend significant money displaying products on show floors, many companies are opting to advertise online, he said. But conferences and other networking events on a model divorced from the exhibition concept probably are sustainable, he said.

Some carriers see no financial sense in shows. Vonage is “not involved with any trade shows, and we don’t anticipate that changing any time soon,” a spokesman for the VoIP carrier said: “We don’t see participation as being the best use of resources right now.” Others are attending and exhibiting at fewer shows, as well as sending smaller delegations. TW Telecom doesn’t “do as many of them as [it] used to do back in the mid-nineties,” Bob Meldrum, vice president of corporate communications, said in an interview. He traced the decline to rising travel costs, troubled market conditions and new marketing technologies. TW Telecom attends CompTel, but only exhibits in the spring, he said. TW also attends Supercomm, but varies its participation, he said: “We have exhibited [there] in the past; we do not exhibit all the time.”

Some companies are shifting resources to smaller shows. Level 3 has “reduced [its] participation in very large shows that are across multiple segments,” said Barbara Dondiego, Level 3 marketing senior vice president, in an interview. The backhaul firm is buying smaller booths and fewer premium branding sponsorships, she said. Level 3 sees a valuable trade show as one that lets the company increase dialogue with customers, she said. “Being in a trade show booth doesn’t necessarily do that for us anymore.” Level 3 has “refocused [its] energy on segment-specific shows,” she said. Those shows are “more targeted,” making them “more in tune” with Level 3’s marketing philosophy,” she said.

Dondiego sees an industry-wide trend toward niche shows. Larger shows held more than once yearly “are struggling a little bit with people’s time and energy,” she said. Level 3 attends CompTel. It has gone to NXTcomm, but didn’t in 2008. Level 3 bought large booths and premium sponsorships at VON in 2004 and 2005, when it was “trying to make a huge splash” in the VoIP market, she said. But now the company doesn’t “feel like it needs a big trade show” to reach customers. “We have personal relationships” and would “rather have our own voice summit” or meet people at another smaller venue, she said.

Trade shows die when they lose focus on their roots, said Chris Ward, iBasis marketing communications director, in an interview. “Typically, a show starts out being really focused on a particular niche, and it does well … and starts to attract people,” he said. But then “they want to get bigger,” adding “tangential” industries, he said. “Initially, the guys who originally supported the event” think the show is “really doing well” based on larger attendance, a bigger show floor and higher exhibit space and registration prices, he said. But after a year or two, the niche companies realize they're “getting a lot of people just walking by” their booths, he said. “After a couple events like that, [companies] start bailing out.”

The VON show lost focus that way, and paid the price, Ward said. IBasis got involved significantly at the first VON, but this fall’s show would have been its last, he said. At first “it made sense [to go], because Jeff was building a community around [VoIP],” he said. “But as the technology became proven,” VON “kept moving further and further out in front of the commercial business that people were actually making money on,” he said. That constant evolution drew new, low-revenue companies, but made the show “less cost- effective” for established VoIP companies, he said. “The companies that actually had money -- that would support an event like that -- were no longer getting value for their investment, [and] started to pull out.”

At iBasis, CompTel is seen as growing similarly less useful, Ward said. “CompTel is one of those shows that’s been fluctuating,” he said. “Attendance goes up and down, both in terms of number” and registrants’ relevance to iBasis’s international traffic business, he said. “We're never too sure from one event to the next whether we should be investing more in it.” Meanwhile, iBasis doesn’t go to Supercomm, deeming it “too broad,” Ward said.

Big trade shows still matter, but companies “must look at the proper way to use them,” Meldrum said. Trade shows are “just one part” of a carrier’s marketing plan, he said. TW Telecom participates only in shows “very targeted” to its needs, trying to “maximize all of our marketing dollars.” Web 2.0 and other Internet tools “have definitely changed the game,” reducing companies’ show spending, Meldrum said. “It’s all about becoming as efficient as possible,” he said.

To survive, trade shows must evolve, said Meldrum. “It’s just like Tiger Woods -- he’s the greatest golfer in the world, and yet he’s always changing his swing,” he said. “Marketing is very dynamic. Companies have to be very dynamic in how they reach people.”

Virtual shows could grow more common, Dondiego said. Level 3 recently participated in a virtual health IT show put on by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, she said. “We went in [and] built our little booth in their [digital] tool. We had our sales people participating in the show as avatars.” Level 3 tracked booth visitors and their choices of download. The show drew well, with visitors’ ranks including top executives, perhaps because virtual shows fit easily into one’s schedule, she said. But a move to virtual reality might be a while off for telecom, due to the industry’s nature, she said. Virtual shows are likely to catch more quickly among industries that lack “broad travel budgets,” she said.

Integra’s Merberth doesn’t expect telecom show formats to change near term, he said. “Until somebody comes up with a better format, I'd say that they'll stay the same,” he said. CompTel organizers have looked into updating the show’s format, but haven’t found anything worthwhile, he said. And shows can’t be beat for face time, Meldrum said. Shows provide not only an industry “gathering place,” but valuable settings for regulatory discussion, he said.