While outboarding — renting a hotel suite and wooing customers at a trade show without actually supporting the show itself — is nothing new, the recent Consumer Electronics Show’s problems with it have caught the attention of the New York Times In fact IAEE released a statement condemning the practice four years ago.

What does seem to be new, at least to me, is that hotels at CES seemed to be taking the initiative to give the boot to convention crashers. Is that putting too much of a burden on the hotel? I tend to agree with the hospitality lawyer the article quotes and say it is, especially in this economy, a bit much to ask hotels to be the exhibit police, though I applaud those that are willing and able to do it.

I can’t imagine this problem is going to ever go away entirely, but it is interesting to see a major newspaper covering it.

Update: If you ever have doubts about the importance of fact checking, there’s a doozy in the article that someone just pointed out to me: The article says CES drew 1.4 million attendees, down from 1.7 million. Needless to say, those numbers actually refer to the show’s square footage. Oops.

Just a friendly reminder to get your data in for the 2009 CEIR Index. It should be quick and easy to do, and you’ll get a free copy of the results for participating if you get your data input by this Friday.

The trade show business may have dipped almost 12 percent in early 2009, but here’s CEIR’s Doug Ducate putting those CEIR Index first quarter results in context by comparing them to the newpaper and other business advertising (you have to rub it in, eh?).

It’s nice to hear someone praising trade shows, especially since I haven’t heard much of it these days outside of our industry associations’ spokespeople. Check out this editorial from PC magazine, subtitled, CES and its ilk are critical to the way humans do business.

“When the economy is down, the first thing to go is trade shows,” says Richard Doherty, an independent analyst for the Envisioneering Group (Electronics trade shows change with the times, NYT).

I guess that’s an answer of sorts to my question of last week: What really is the future of trade shows? It sounds like a lot of people at CES anyway are cutting back on the number of people they send to the show, and/or holding hospitality suites instead of buying booths. And it’s not just electronics shows feeling the pinch, of course. This from an NYT article about the book business:

But the economic downturn is forcing publishers to scrutinize some of the industry’s hoariest traditions. One ripe target: the international book fairs in London and Frankfurt at which publishers and agents gather, ostensibly to make deals. But in reality they spend much of their time making the rounds of parties and dinners.

Many houses that previously have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on flights, hotel bills and cocktail hours are planning to prune the size of the contingents they send to the fairs this year. Similarly, companies are revising their budgets for BookExpo America, the annual spring jamboree at which publishers promote their fall lineups to booksellers.

A slightly more upbeat quote, this time from Saturday’s Boston Globe (also about what’s happening with CES): “But Boston-area technology executives are purchasing their plane tickets anyway. They say that recession or no recession, CES is the place to be.

“‘It’s still an important industry event,” said Colin Angle, chief executive of iRobot Corp. of Bedford, maker of the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner. ‘I think that the ones who feel they can afford to show up, be aggressive, and generate a buzz are the ones who are going to be selling product next year.’”

Someone sent me a link to this video from consultant/speaker Steve Miller. He makes some interesting points about what he thinks will continue to draw people to trade shows (hint: It’s not the opportunity for face-to-face interaction that most people point to. More like hand-to-gadget interaction, or the ability to play with stuff in person. Which I buy into, for some types of shows. For others, like our industry shows where the product often is a destination that can’t be experienced on the show floor, what will be the key driver to get attendees to sh ow up?).

I heard a lot of talk at IAEE’s Expo! Expo! about how trade shows are still a vital part of the marketing mix for most companies, how nothing has really changed—and how it really won’t change—when it comes to the necessity for trade shows. But is that true, or just wishful thinking on the part of those whose livelihoods depend on expos staying alive and well for decades to come?

I go back and forth on it. I’m definitely in the “live meetings still and probably always will fulfill a vital human need for connectedness.” I can’t imagine live meetings going away. But trade shows as a viable marketing media? I’m not quite so strong on that, though I regularly try to convince myself that they’ll continue in all their (I have to be honest here) 1950s glory, with aisles of salespeople handing out trinkets and trying to hustle up some interest in their wares from the passers-by. The booths and displays may have gotten glitzier, but the basic premise hasn’t changed much for at least the 30 or so years since I first set foot in an expo hall. Yes, people love to meet in person, and to get their hands on new gadgets, and develop relationships that endure. But is the trade show hall still the most expedient place to do all that? Just asking.

There was some talk on the industry listservs about Apple pulling out of Macworld, and whether or not that meant the beginning of the end for that show in particular, and trade shows in general. Like the good people at IAEE, consensus seemed to come down on the side of trade show survival, including Macworld’s. Again, reality or wishful thinking? You tell me.

And then I read this post from former Microsoft blogger and all-around tech guru Robert Scoble, about how social networks and bloggers are killing the big shows off. I’m not entirely sure I buy his argument as being relevant for the entire trade show industry (at least, not yet), but for at least some shows, he may well be right. I mean, I have no doubt that expos will continue for quite a while in their current form, just as print magazines will, for the older generations who can’t imagine giving them up. But they may well become loss-leaders for other, more profitable marketing avenues, not the major dollar-generator they historically have been for associations and for-profits. And once the younger generations are calling the shots? I’m not sure what the trade show of the future will look like, but I have a feeling it won’t be your father’s pipe-and-drape affair we all know and have loved for so long. Or even that it will still exist in a form recognizable to us older folks.

Anyone who organizes trade shows should at least be aware that change may well be coming, and thinking hard about how to adapt their business model to the new world of marketing. Do read the comments to Scoble’s post, as well as this interesting post on Confabb, for more.

I feel like this post is a little “the trade show is dead; long live the trade show,” but I really don’t have any answers. It just seems prudent to periodically ask the questions, especially as we usher in what in all likelihood will be a fairly tough year for all of us. I think the big winners will be those who stop trying to reinvent the trade show itself and find some other, as yet undiscovered “blue ocean” opportunity.

One thing I can’t imagine changing: There will always be money in bringing buyers and sellers together. We just have to figure out how best to do it. It may well still be the traditional trade show (or print magazine). Then again, it may not.

Another interesting session I went to last week at IAEE’s Expo! Expo! was on social networking. Now, I’ve been going to these sessions for a few years at this point, and how much more is there to say? But it was packed, as were other related sessions held earlier in the week (or so I heard). Obviously, this is still something people want to know more about; even the basics on blogging still has an audience, much to my surprise.

Anyway, in addition to talking about things like how to use RSS feeds to broadcast show announcements and getting speakers to blog about their sessions, the presenters (Rick Calvert, CEM, CEO and co-founder of BlogWorld and New Media Expo; Jim Turner, chief managing partner of One By One Media; and Chris Brogan, president, New Marketing Labs) got into how trade show organizers can use photo-sharing application Flickr, “micro-blogging” tool Twitter, and social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., etc. They also went into BlogTalkRadio, which allows anyone with a phone to host their own radio show for free (yes, I’ve been meaning to play with this for quite awhile now. Anyone want to volunteer to be my first guest??).

Some tips:
To get people using YouTube for your event, they had this great idea: Offer a sponsor the opportunity to buy up a bunch of cheap flip phones to hand out from their booth or wherever, let people record the show and upload their home movies to YouTube. “Costs less than a lanyard sponsor would. Just saying…” said Chris Brogan.

(Aside: All three of the presenters were really, really good. They kept it very conversational and fun, and the vibe in the room was energized. Not bad for just before lunch!)

As for Twitter, they advised that you stick with it for a little while, because it will seem totally moronic at first (I’m still in that phase, myself, but can sort of see the benefit if you have a lot of time to devote to it). It’s mostly useful for building relationships and listening in on conversations your audience is having. Especially useful is search.twitter.com, which you can use to find out more about what people you care about are talking about.

Another tip was to use ping.fm to update all your various social media sites in one fell swoop, though they added that they’d use it sparingly, because each social media site and group should be addressed as the unique and special folks they are, not just broadcast to.

For those who are starting to get a lot of bloggers asking for press credentials to attend your show (especially those wanting free press passes), some ways to tell who’s legit and who’s not are to look them up on Technorati, do a Google blog search, or check them out on compete.com.

I loved this session, which was kind of a speed-dating thing where you pick a topic table, discuss that topic for 20 minutes, then shift to a new topic table. The three I hit during the session were: Extreme makeover, trade show edition; social media and attendance marketing; and incorporating experiential content into your show. Way too much to go into here, but here are a few takeaways:

Extreme makeovers can be risky: some things may go over well, others may flop. Make sure everyone’s ok with that concept.

Social media and marketing are a natural, but your marketing department may be a little scared of it. A great solution probably almost no one can do is to hire a dedicated social media person to track and contribute to conversations your organizations should be involved with.

If you’re trying to market your meeting by starting up a Facebook or LinkedIn group, make sure there’s something in it for the attendees/exhibitors (give them free VIP passes for participating, or something). Getting people to participate is the hardest part for many who are just getting started.

Pay attention to your evaluations, and let people know what you learned, and what you’re changing as a result of their suggestions. No one wants to participate again once your comments have fallen into a black hole once already.

Do a staff post-mortem on everything about the show, where everyone on staff makes comments anonymously. One person said her organization does this and gets about half of its best ideas this way.

Also, talk to temps and get their feedback on the show. Recruit the best temps to be your spies and find out the answers to some key questions for you through casual conversaton with attendees. Attendees will tell them things they’ll never tell you, like what your competition does better.

I felt sort of obligated to go to a session on negotiating convention center contracts, since it is I’m sure something our readers would want to know more about, even though I really wanted to start off the day with the “Making the WOW factor relevant” session, which sounded like a lot more fun. But I’m glad I did drop by to hear the latest on negotiating with centers from Mark Roysner, attorney at law with Roysner & Associates (though I did hear terrific things about the WOW session, too, which was led by Mike McCauley with ProActive and Red7Media’s Jim Alkon).

First off, we did an audience response system survey of the audience, and a full 60 percent were anticipating a decrease in attendance in the next six months (20 percent expected a 6-10 percent decrease; 40 percent anticipated a greater than 10 percent decrease). So, looks like everyone’s bracing for some rough weather ahead.

Anyway, Roysner talked about a bunch of things, but a few stand out to me right now:

*Read your contract, every word, even if you’ve read the same contract from the same center 10 times before. Because even if the contract language hasn’t changed, the situation probably has, and you’ll need to consider what that language means when applied to how things are now (and what you’re anticipating). Plus, they do change the language every now and then, even though it may be hiding under the same old headings. And read it in the beginning of the site selection process, not after you’ve already contracted with your hotels and will basically be stuck with no other options.

*They might be more willing to negotiate certain things nowadays than they were in the past, such as minimums on exhibit space. Check to see if your] minimums are guaranteed per hall or in aggregate. He said that most contracts will make you pay for unused minimums in one hall even if you sold out in other halls. Can you go with an aggregate minimum? Then work with the center to keep it reasonable. “Try to get them to modify to take off minimums that have you don’t think you can sell out so they will just charge for the square footage you actually used,” he said.

*Exclusives also are a little different these days, he said. While centers used to just have exclusive agreements with telecom and utilities, nowadays it can be security, cleaning, all sorts of other services that they will force you to use. This gets you into trouble with any long-term exclusive contractors you have on your own, since they’ll likely raise their rates if they don’t get all your business as contracted.

Put in your contract which exclusives are specifically included as of the date of execution of your contract, and put in a clause that you’ll only accept exclusives in place at a certain date. And on your contractor contracts, include a clause that excludes you if the center forces you to use their exclusive contractor. “You have to do it on both ends,” Roysner said.

Also watch out for new commissionable issues—some centers are adding DMC commissions (if you use our preferred providers, you don’t have to pay commission, but to bring in your own who have worked with you for years and knows all your group’s quirks, you pay us a commission). He said a fair thing to do is not to charge for bringing that DMC or production company in, but if the facility has to supply support for that company, you pay for that service.

A star is born–or is it? Check out CEIR’s Doug Ducate on the economy and exhibitions via a YouTube video. He doesn’t say much I haven’t heard, but he does keep it short and sweet: