Consolidation has been the catchword for a decade now, and the implication is that means less of everything: operators, distributors, manufacturers, tradeshows and possibly trade associations to name a few major sectors that are impacted by downsizing.
I have come to believe that it's not that simple or one-dimensional, especially with regard to tradeshows and trade associations. Why? Because the "one show/two show" debate is all about big national events and fails to take into consideration scale and scope. In other words, the solution to our problems doesn't lie in fewer shows but different kinds of shows.
Tradeshows are fun and a good investment in your business. The people who go to them religiously know that, but you can't keep talking to the choir because that group is getting smaller as a result of the same forces of attrition and consolidation.
People who don't go to shows can come up with lots of reasons, many of them valid, too. Many of their companies are down to the bare bones; the owners are busy running their companies and can't delegate or set aside the funds and time to go. That makes it very difficult to get them out of their region. Yet, if you live in a vacuum, you are often defined by that perspective, which leaves you very wary and fearful of your competitors and in many cases unwilling to participate in politically fraught state associations.
At national conventions, you probably only get 10% of the members of any given state association, and that membership is probably 20% to 40% of the operators in a state. So we get a fraction of the potential universe of show attendees at our national expos. Then when you get to the show, less than 10% of the overall attendees actually attend one or more of the seminars. The rest of them just enjoy a tax-free vacation to Las Vegas, which is OK but it means they miss a lot the opportunity to learn more about the industry. Fortunately, the people who go to seminars do keep coming back. Once you start, you don't stop because you see the results fairly quickly.
I saw what I believe is the future of tradeshows a few years ago when I did a seminar at a one-and-a-half-day show held by Betson Syracuse at the Turning Stone Casino in New York. They drew 300 operators out of the woodwork (some driving as much as four hours each way) who hadn't been to an industry show in years. Instead of doing 20 seminars, they focused on only one seminar. There was plenty of fun and food, then an evening at the casino and one day of serious tradeshow. Betson didn't make any money on the show selling booths at $500, but they and all of the exhibitors sold a ton of product.
This seems to be a successful model, a regional event that is held over a day and a half or two with the right mix of business and pleasure. It needs to be somewhere that people want to go to and can drive there, and it needs to be pared down to an agenda that operators are willing to sit through. For this event, Betson was able to leverage their marketing reach both to draw in attendees and to get manufacturers to come to the event with their products. And each manufacturer only had to bring one of their product!
This month, Fun Expo is again presenting a one-day redemption seminar at the AMOA/Fun Expo. Instead of doing a lot of marketing, we have secured non-exclusive sponsors to be a part of the event. Hopefully, they will help me market it and bring in the real buyers. It's going to be a hands-on, daylong seminar. We have opened it up to a lot of sponsors, and we are giving them access to this group of committed attendees, the ones who really want to be a part of this seminar. It's being held two days before the show so the attendees who pay to attend are serious.
Later this fall, Bill Carlson is holding a two-day session before IAAPA but not connected to IAAPA. It's called U Profit '08, and it's all about improving operations and profit and quality of life for the owners and operators of leisure entertainment businesses. My job is to go out and get non-exclusive sponsors, unlike Foundations Entertainment University, which features a group of 30 non-competing exclusive category sponsors. U-Profit is hoping for 200 to 300 attendees and the U-Profit team is going to market and stage the event themselves at the Rosen Centre Hotel (Orlando). They are going to test this time/location format and charge $399/ $499 a head. Again, the people who are serious will come. U-Profit wants to motivate people who want to raise the bar in this industry (www.bill-carlson.net).
Professionals in our industry are pursuing these avenues because there is a need that is not being filled by other entities. So where does this kind of event go in the future? When you get 500 serious attendee-buyers with 50+ sponsors, you have what is known as a mini tradeshow, being run by an entrepreneurial company instead of a big conglomerate or trade association.
All of this may well come to challenge the old model of trade associations that generate their funding from shows and membership dues. Associations across many industries are struggling to make this older paradigm continue to work for them financially.
I see associations needing to adopt strategies that leverage economies of scale possibly by reaching down to work more closely and directly with groups at the regional and state level. Maybe you will see multiple (related or non-related) associations and shows, both national and local, run out of a central operation or virtual operation with significant overlap in staff and resources. To effectively represent the trade, you need to be working at the state and local level because that's where the regulations are killing us, whether it be ride inspection, operator age/training laws, lead content/testing regulations, smoking bans or the many other legal and political problems that leisure and entertainment businesses face.
This kind of management consolidation is already happening in many other industries, and here in this industry many organizations are still trying to reinvent the wheel over and over again by hanging onto the illusion of control, historical traditions, etc.
How do we encourage people to embrace change and break down their resistance to challenging the status quo? We don't need to do anything. Fortunately, in capitalism, free markets drive this kind of change. For instance, smaller, more focused shows or industry events, as opposed to fewer bigger shows, will simply begin to emerge as will consolidated management that scales from the national to the state and local level where it can be more effective and financially viable. The market will simply demand these changes, if they are, in fact, the right tools for today.
The problem is that change occurs when most people aren't looking, which is most of the time. That means change is happening right now. We don't need to wait to find out what is going to happen with the shows; it's happening right now, and it's only a matter of time before your business feels the impact.
If you aren't getting involved in these changing economic shifts by staying abreast of the market (and that means going to shows, attending seminars, improving your operations), then you are going to wind up as road kill on this swerving highway of perpetual change.
Many people are just going through the motions right now. But a lot of companies are starting to redirect their resources to these smaller, more targeted venues. For years, many companies have made marketing and promotions decisions out of habit or fear. But as better, more efficient models arise, the companies that intend to make it in this new dynamic marketplace will be analyzing their investments ever more closely.
We can either sit on the sidelines and accept the fate that change hands us, or more or less we can get in the game with our best bet on where the future is heading and discover that less really is more.
Frank Seninsky is president of Alpha-Omega Group of companies, which includes a consulting agency, Amusement Entertainment Management (AEM), and a nationwide revenue sharing equipment provider, Alpha-BET Entertainment; all are headquartered in East Brunswick, New Jersey. During his 37 years in coin-op, Seninsky has presented nearly 250 seminars and penned more than 1,000 articles. He has served as president of the Amusement and Music Operators Association from 1999-2000, is a past chairman of the International Association for the Leisure & Entertainment Industry and sits on the AMOA and IALEI board of directors. Seninsky can be reached at 732/254-3773 or by email at fseninsky@aol.com and www.AEMLLC.com.
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