How many shows can the industry support?

[Hell Puppy]

Here's a topic while everyone is still coming off a show high....

In the current climate, how many shows can the industry support?

By my count, we have 11 significant shows in the U.S. There's another 3-4 shows in Mexico or the Carribean that are targeting mostly U.S. webmasters. This does not count what I'll call industry party events that are just one night deals.

Sponsor dollars are tougher to come by as more people are watching ROI and the industry undergoes consolidation. The number of webmasters making anything more than beer money is shrinking. Fuel prices are making the price of an airline ticket more significant.

The Atlanta Forum is going to be an indicator I think. The show should have EVERYTHING going for it. It's on the east coast in the fall which is an underserved region and an underserved time frame. Atlanta offers lots of cheap flights. Sweet T has a sterling reputation as a class act and has absolutely top quality personnel organizing this thing. It's in his backyard, so he has all of the contacts and an intimate knowledge of the town. And he's leveraging what is currently considered by most to be the best show of the year in the Phoenix Forum and following their road map.

If the Atlanta Forum is anything other than absolutely runaway success, I think that's a huge sign that shows are oversaturated.

My gut tells me there needs to be some consolidation at that level and a lot more attention paid to regions and niches served. The Atlanta Forum does exactly this, it's very business nuts and bolts oriented and in the southeast. I really dont think we need any more west coast shows teaching us how to recruit girls, shoot porn and put it on the web.

[TheEnforcer]

Do they have a webiste for the Atlanta Forum?

As to your topic, I think the number of shows will shrink in the future. Which ones? Who knows? Money is becoming tighter and ti has a domino effect.

[Jace]

Originally Posted by TheEnforcer

Do they have a webiste for the Atlanta Forum?

As to your topic, I think the number of shows will shrink in the future. Which ones? Who knows? Money is becoming tighter and ti has a domino effect.

spell it out, add a .com

www.theatlantaforum.com

lol

[RawAlex]

HP, for quite a while there were really 4 shows a year... 2 IA2000 shows, a Cybernet show, and Adultdex, which was really more of a public show that ran at Comdex time. It sort of worked out Adultdex november, ia2000 january, cybernet in june, and then ia again in September. The november and january shows were in vegas, and the cybernet shows wandered around.

That all changed when (If I remember correctly) Ron from CE decided to do a bunch of regional shows. It was actually a pretty good idea, to start with, the concept was more of getting their reps (and thier friends reps) out to different areas to deal with regional webmasters, the shows were suppose to be small and all that.

Then Pheonix came along. Originally a smaller show, it really picked up and set a new standard for shows in many ways: Almost the entire deal was organized around social events, with little or no actual show.

CE's deal sort of faded away, but then GFY had gotten big and started their Webmaster Access shows, and there have been a pile of those things. Everyone and their dog has tried to have a "show", and most of them aren't shows just an excuse for 100 people to end up in the same bar / hotel / city / beach.

With Internext Florida dropping their show floor entirely and moving the whole deal outdoors, and with really no other shows or events in NA having a show floor, it leaves only Vegas in January as the last "really big shoe". The rest are social events, nothing more.

As a side note, the shift from "show" to "social" is a direct result of companies not wanting to spend the money to run booths and have enough staff on hand to run it, ship it, set it up, take it down, and so on. It is also a result of webmasters, who more often than not spend all their "show" time at the bar, by the pool, at lunch, passed out from the night before, or 101 things other than being on the show floor. The decline of the affiliate model, and the shift in the business from being a friendly competition to an often very adversarial system has also spread people out. People are choosing sides, and that never helps.

[Jace]

socials, that is actually a really good term to adopt

webmaster socials

[gonzo]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

HP, for quite a while there were really 4 shows a year... 2 IA2000 shows, a Cybernet show, and Adultdex, which was really more of a public show that ran at Comdex time. It sort of worked out Adultdex november, ia2000 january, cybernet in june, and then ia again in September. The november and january shows were in vegas, and the cybernet shows wandered around.

That all changed when (If I remember correctly) Ron from CE decided to do a bunch of regional shows. It was actually a pretty good idea, to start with, the concept was more of getting their reps (and thier friends reps) out to different areas to deal with regional webmasters, the shows were suppose to be small and all that.

Then Pheonix came along. Originally a smaller show, it really picked up and set a new standard for shows in many ways: Almost the entire deal was organized around social events, with little or no actual show.

CE's deal sort of faded away, but then GFY had gotten big and started their Webmaster Access shows, and there have been a pile of those things. Everyone and their dog has tried to have a "show", and most of them aren't shows just an excuse for 100 people to end up in the same bar / hotel / city / beach.

With Internext Florida dropping their show floor entirely and moving the whole deal outdoors, and with really no other shows or events in NA having a show floor, it leaves only Vegas in January as the last "really big shoe". The rest are social events, nothing more.

As a side note, the shift from "show" to "social" is a direct result of companies not wanting to spend the money to run booths and have enough staff on hand to run it, ship it, set it up, take it down, and so on. It is also a result of webmasters, who more often than not spend all their "show" time at the bar, by the pool, at lunch, passed out from the night before, or 101 things other than being on the show floor. The decline of the affiliate model, and the shift in the business from being a friendly competition to an often very adversarial system has also spread people out. People are choosing sides, and that never helps.

Id imagine its a lot cheaper to send a boat load of staff than to ship and set up a booth on a show floor that is totally unattended.

[tony404]

I think alot will have to do with the economy if gas hits 6 bucks a gallon.It starts to really go down the toilet. Sales take a drive, kiss a bunch of shows goodbye. The atl will be interesting, I had heard the reason they would never do another WA in Atl was they were not happy with the turn out and that show was free. When you look at the date its actually pretty close to internext summer and some European show I saw not to long after the Atl.I hope it does well, it would be nice to have a local show.
.

[softball]

Four. One in Europe. One in Asia (however that might develop into more over the next few years....) One on the east coast of the USA and one on the west coast. All bases are covered. Its just like everything else in this business. its the last man standing that wins the marbles. Jump in and correct me if I am wrong.

[RawAlex]

Originally Posted by gonzo

Id imagine its a lot cheaper to send a boat load of staff than to ship and set up a booth on a show floor that is totally unattended.

Actually, the reality is that the expense of running a both is as much in the staff as anything else.

Example Internext Miami: Considering room cost, airfare, food, drink, yadda, yadda is cost round number about $2500-$3500 per person that a program takes to the show. Show floor ran for 3 days, plus at least 1 extra day to set up, and you need to have at least a couple of people on the floor at all times... so really you are looking at 10k or more of people expense and probably a similar amount of booth expense to do it right. This in a place where the show floor was only semi-attended.

For 20k, you can send the whole office to the Pheonix Forum (or now the Atlanta show), or send a couple of people to pretty much every regional event all year long.

So the numbers are out there. Internext Miami changed because everyone realized they could get as much done wandering around the pool and hanging in the lobby as they could on a show floor. Vegas is changing for the same reason, people figuring out they can do as much at the "circle bar" or hanging around in the passageway going to the show as they can on the floor. Why pay AVN $300 for the honor?

[gonzo]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

So the numbers are out there. Internext Miami changed because everyone realized they could get as much done wandering around the pool and hanging in the lobby as they could on a show floor. Vegas is changing for the same reason, people figuring out they can do as much at the "circle bar" or hanging around in the passageway going to the show as they can on the floor. Why pay AVN $300 for the honor?

Vegas has changed as of last year.
The action isnt at the circle bar as of last year. Its up in the fantasy suites. The challenge AVN is going to have now is getting all the attendees upstairs in a timely manner and keep the normals OUT of the suites.

Too many of the reps trying to score ass and drugs etc had too many tagalongs last year from the auto paint and body show.

[RawAlex]

I didn't go last year, I had a feeling it might turn into a cluster fuck. If AVN wants to keep the event having value, then they need to control access properly - see Miami, which actually has benefitted greatly from the hotel takeover concept.

One thing for sure, AVN (and any show producer for that matter) has to do things in a way that provide value for money. Basically, if you are going to pay $X to get there, $Y for hotel and meals, and $Z for a show badge, then the show has to end up being at least $XYZ worth of value or people won't go.

In the end, "socials" tend to do better for a whole bunch of reasons. The biggest is that many people will accept the social events as a sort of vacation, a not consider the true costs of being there. They also tend to be easier for the various programs and companies to pull off, because they don't have to plan the logistics of getting anything more than people and business cards to a given location.

[Hell Puppy]

Booths are irrelevent especially for our industry with the possible exception of the pure newbie and even they can be better served with alternatives. I mean we all know the companies big enough to have a booth and what they do. Even if it IS something totally new, what I want is simply a business card with an email and URL. I'll go give it a look when I get back. I dont wanna tote a bag full of glossies.

I think all of our events have now recognized that.

Now, what they all do need to accomplish to succeed on a business level is a central gathering point. This is what separates the shows where we get a lot of business done and those where we come back feeling it was a waste of time. You need to organize the show in such a way that there are certain times of day you know everyone will be in one place and receptive. More often than not it's the hotel bar. This is why you hear us gripe when the hotel doesn't open the thing for more than a few hours a day/night.

FFN SOP whether it's a party or the bar is always the same. We'll find a spot somewhere near the middle that everyone has to pass by, group as many chairs as we can scrounge, and we'll sit tight. Everyone comes past, those who want to do business or just say hi will find us, we're hard to miss.

Now I do think some of the "social shows" have become way too party oriented. Everyone still gets scattered with their own cliques doing dinners and after hours events, and you never know they're there. Now the reps will come back bragging how much business they did because they wanna go party at the next show. But I'd love to hear from those who actually work the ledger as to whether these shows actuallly have a return.

Phoenix Forum is currently the big show, but I think a lot of that is the party lure. What keeps me away from that one is the fact they've outgrown the venue. Again, the shows I like best are ones where everyone is in same place and you can stagger to the room.

[LAJ]

Well... in the mainstream there is like literally a show every other day. I think our industry could probably support a few more shows, BUT... they HAVE to be quality shows. Right now what needs to happen is the poor ROI shows just need to go away.

[RawAlex]

I think that for 99% of the shows as they are, booths are irrelevant. But there is a place in this business for a "booth" show, but people have to be mentally ready to support it. Too many of the playah types running the companies are not willing to truly support the concept, so things go to crap. The last Vegas show I attended (couple of years ago) it was pretty much impossible to find anyone of stature on the show floor, it was just nameless (and soon replaced) reps standing around powerless to do anything. The big guys were all out partying all night and into the morning, and has no interest in showing up on the floor.

It's also the nature of business these days. It use to be that companies worked hard to produce things for release at the shows. You would go to the show and there would be new sites, new programs, new whatever. Now things get announced 5 days (sometimes 7 days) a week, and nobody has any sense of promotion. It's part of the industry churn I guess, porn burns through ideas faster than a hobo through a bottle of Thunderbird.

LAJ: You and I both know the deal - too many shows are run as ego boosts, not as business of their own. So companies run them at a loss because they think they get good exposure. Thankfully, most of them do it for a couple of years and realize they are paying out the ass for nothing, and give it up.

[DannyCox]

I came out of the Aerospace & Defense sector, and did a lot of the trade shows. The thing was there was only a maximum of two a year per event in North America. Most were very specific shows such as the SAMPE show (Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering), the SME show (Society of Manufacturing Engineers), etc. There was nowhere near the number of shows for a single industry as we have in Adult. Plus the seminars were actual seminars! Not just a bunch of guys trying to sell themselves or their product.

True Trade Organizations first have a Call For Papers where people interested in giving a seminar or being involved in one, submit their "lecture abstract" to a review board. The board then goes through the papers and selects the ones they feel are relevant for the show, or would make a good fit for a panel discussion. When you are approved, you then have to deliver your "article" which ends up being published in the Periodical from the Trade Show. I've done two papers for the trades and have been published twice in the SAMPE Journal.

I wish that more thought would go into the seminars, as they always seem just thrown together. I tend to walk out as soon as I hear anyone start talking about what "I" can do for you! That belongs in a booth or in a Trade Show hospitality suite, not in a seminar.

[softball]

There is way, way, way more money in defense and it is way more technical and I am sure the seminars need to be pardon the phrase deadly accurate considering the consequences of the sales.

[LAJ]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

LAJ: You and I both know the deal - too many shows are run as ego boosts, not as business of their own. So companies run them at a loss because they think they get good exposure. Thankfully, most of them do it for a couple of years and realize they are paying out the ass for nothing, and give it up.

YUP!!