I have spent a fair chunk of my three decades in the trade show industry trying to persuade opinion formers like The Times, The Economist, the BBC, the New York Times and the Financial Times to take us seriously. These are the media which reach the opinion formers, the City and the serious money.
It has always been a hard slog – so I almost spilled my cappuccino when I read the back page of the Financial Times on 30 July. A day earlier I had written a piece in Exhibition News commenting on this week’s impressive financial results from Informa and RX. I don’t pretend that anyone at the FT had read it, but here was a serious article saying basically the same thing.
The FT piece by Louise Lucas was headed: “Industry conferences are not dull – at least for those who organise them”. It went on to talk about Informa’s revenue projections of 8%+ per annum and a similar number for RX, as well as a 9% EBITDA growth.
As the FT said: “Economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions and tariffs … argue against hosting industry jamborees … [but] defying such scepticism, however, the $1tn-plus live events industry is flexing muscle.”
Is the FT finally catching up?
Some of you may remember my three EN articles at the height of Covid challenging the absurd hype around webinar virtual organiser HOPIN. I was delighted to see the FT at last catching up: “Meantime Hopin, a virtual version hatched during the pandemic and once valued at $7.8bn, is toast.”
The FT goes on: “Live events, be it Informa’s World of Concrete or AEG-promoted Coachella music festival, sit at the sweet spot between man and machine. Technology is harnessed for behind the scenes grunt work – ticketing, logistics, managing hotel and transport capacity – but the show itself is all about being physically there. Industry shindigs promise efficiency, where you meet suppliers, buyers and distributors under one roof. … Since the pandemic … organisers have shown resilience along with growth. Business models have evolved to include subscription-based services and spin-off meetings through the year.”
It sounds like a sales pitch we might have written
I could hardly have written it better myself – it almost sounds like a sales pitch for one of our bigger companies.
And the economic benefits of our business are not ignored: “Visit Britain estimates that near-100mn delegates attending conferences and meetings in the UK last year generated £19.3bn of direct expenditure.”
I don’t want to quote or paraphrase the whole article – you can find it online – but the FT finishes like this, referring to the fact that 7 of the 10 largest non-messen/publicly owned organisers in the world are based in London: “Across the globe there are still a quarter fewer conferences than in pre-Covid days, while the number of venues is rising – not least in Asia and the Middle East. But British companies, punching well above their weight in this field, show that adaptation and evolution are the way to go.”
Check out the piece yourself: Industry conferences are not dull — at least for those who organise them
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