Meeting News - September 22, 2008 - (Page 6)

Inside the Meetings Industry Edited by William Ng william.ng@nielsen.com Event-Marketing Trade Show Embraces Holistic Approach to Promotion TS2 show retools programming for executives who now view trade shows as one part of bigger marketing platforms More than 1,750 exhibit and event marketing coordinators encountered substantially overhauled educational programming at the “TS2: Total Solutions Marketing for the Exhibit & Event Professional” show held July 28-31 in Philadelphia. The effort by show organizer National Trade Productions to upgrade the educational component seemed to work: NTP said attendance was the highest since it purchased the show in November 2004—then called “TS2: The Trade Show About Trade Shows”—from the Trade Show Exhibitors Association. But Shauna Peters, marketing manager, attributed the attendance rise not only to content changes but also to the addition of a northeastern location to the show’s rotation. Before this year, Washington, DC, and Chicago were TS2’s only destinations. “Drive-in attendance was definitely up this year,” she said. NTP made its first major change to TS2 in 2005, altering the show’s name to resonate with a wider audience. The reason: “We found many people no longer identified themselves as being a trade-show marketer, but rather as a marketer who uses shows and events as part of their overall mix,” Peters explained. NTP found it needed to make the show’s education more reflective of the increasingly integrated nature of attendees’ jobs. “Marketing programs now encompass online and interactive elements, advertising and promotions, direct mail, as well as the face-to-face element,” Peters noted. “Our attendees must figure out how to use each one in the right proportion and at the right time.” As a result, two new conference tracks with six classes apiece debuted in Philadelphia:“Marketing & Communications” and “Leadership & Personal Development.” Furthermore, existing tracks were updated, which included “Corporate Events: Experiential Marketing Beyond the Exhibit Hall”; “Increasing the ‘Wow’ Factor of Face-to-Face Events”; “Building Traffic, Creating Business, and Meeting Objectives”; and “Strategic Planning, Budgeting, & Measurement.” There were 80 sessions in all. Robert Dallmeyer, past chairman of both the TSEA and the International Association for Exhibition and Events, and a former director of the Center for Exhibition Industry Research, will oversee the show’s educational component for the next two years. 6 MeetingNews September 8, 2008 www.meetingnews.com http://www.meetingnews.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Meeting News - September 22, 2008

Meeting News - September 22, 2008
Contents
What’s Up @ MeetingNews.com
Inside the Meetings Industry
People Making News
Hotels & Resorts
Convention Centers
CVBs
International
Green Beat
Destination Insider
MN Webcast Report
Ad Index
Live from the Forum

Meeting News - September 22, 2008