Ruth Carter, the new guest editor of EW's sister publication Exhibition News, talks to 10 renowned exhibition organisers on their thought processes and plans for 2021.
When I started on my guest editor role at EN, the advice given to me by Martin Fullard, Mash Media’s editorial director, was to write about what I thought the exhibition industry wanted to know and for this precise moment in time, that is easy (that, and don't use exclamation marks!). I want to know what is in the heads of the ‘great and the good’ in our industry when it comes to lessons learned from 2020 and plans for 2021 to see if I can use that advice in my own business. Innovation is good, but plagiarism is quicker.
I invited 10 of the biggest movers and shakers in the UK exhibition industry to tell me what they are thinking about and planning for, what they are taking with them from 2020, and how they feel 2021 will play out for our industry.
It will come as no surprise that there was a real consensus of opinion about key learnings from 2020 and the plans going forward. Many talked about how their teams had risen to the challenge and gone above and beyond to keep the lights on and the businesses ticking over.
There was also a general consensus that, as an industry, we are lacking a voice at the Government table. Shopping centres stay open with a cursory nod to Covid safety and yet we, the masters of moving people, are grounded.
Brexit negotiations hang on a fishing line, trying to accommodate an industry which, while important, make a fraction of the contribution to the economy that we do (£0.9bn to our £11bn), but they have a loud voice.
There is no one to blame on this. As an industry, we have been hugely self-sufficient in the past, requiring little Government support and, quite frankly, being more than capable of getting it for ourselves on a show-by-show basis when necessary. This crunch point has shown that we are more vulnerable than we thought and, as an industry, we need to rethink what we want from our associations going forward.
Everyone I spoke to talked about the march of technology in our industry, referring to the fact that the annual show concept is outdated. Blended, hybrid, whatever else you prefer, digital events are here to stay.
So, some real unanimous themes coming through, as you would expect.
It will also come as no surprise that the way the responses were delivered was diverse, from the corporately efficient through to the entrepreneurially flamboyant and everything in between. But that perfect sums up our industry, I think. One voice, many hats.
Read on and enjoy!
Hugh Jones, chief executive, Reed Exhibitions
What will be your abiding memory of 2020?
With our entire organisation working from home earlier in the year, I was blown away by the absolute commitment and resilience of all our people globally to look after each other, keep each other motivated and keep our customers connected. It has been an extraordinary effort.
What good things have come out of 2020 for our industry; what will you want to make sure stays in your business going forward?
The creativity and the speed at which we adapted to create virtual events for our customers. What became clear is that our audience is forgiving as long as they know that we are trying to solve their problems. If a webinar goes flat or a live event has some technical difficulties, at least we tried and that’s played out as our customer feedback scores are still high.
Our customers know we are doing our best and that means we’re still in the game. And because customers have experienced (mostly great) digital connections this year they are likely to be even more open to new digital innovations in the future.
Looking to 2021, do you feel positive or nervous about what the year will bring?
I’m feeling extremely positive. We have created robust plans to hold live events in a safe and secure way, and these have been tested in the countries where we have produced face-to-face events, and it seems there will be several vaccines available. These two factors combined will build confidence globally, particularly in the latter half of the calendar year.
When are you planning on holding your first live exhibition again?
We are already staging safe and secure live events, with successful digital integration in China, Japan, Russia and Turkey.
What do you think the biggest barrier will be to bouncing back in 2021 and what must organisers do to make sure they succeed?
As an industry we need to remind exhibitors that the ROI on trade shows remains higher than almost any other platform for swiftly expanding a sales pipeline. The faster they return to the shows, the greater share of mind they will realise.
Further, digital augmentation is here to stay. We will all need to better analyse our data and use it to create increasingly connected experiences for our customers whether they attend a show in person or virtually throughout the year.
What is the single biggest piece of advice you would give exhibition organisers when moving into 2021 and what is the best advice you have received?
We have all cut costs and streamlined expense ratios, but we can’t achieve lasting value with continual cost reductions. Now the harder work begins: we need to join together to produce safe, exciting and daring events that fulfil our common purpose of enhancing the global economy in an ethical manner.
The best advice I have on that topic is to be courageous and place multiple bets within a show to inject new value propositions and rely on a healthy sense of humour when some of those bets don’t work out. Hey, you will be a better company by learning as much from your failures as your successes.
Lisa Hannant, group managing director, Clarion Events
What will be your abiding memory of 2020?
Well, there are the classic lockdown memories such as panic buying of loo roll, face masks, home schooling, and of course who will ever forget being thrown into endless Zoom calls. However, and against the most challenging of backdrops, one of the outstanding memories I have is how the industry came together.
There were numerous collaboration efforts involving multiple stakeholders and organisations all working together for a common cause. Many of these working groups will continue into 2021 which I think demonstrates the passion, expertise and resilience of those involved in our industry.
What good things have come out of 2020 for our industry; what will you want to make sure stays in your business going forward?
We have been forced to take a long hard look at how we can continue to deliver value for our customers which means thinking beyond the sale of space and square meters. Some may say we have been forced to eat some humble pie, but it has meant a real focus on the purpose of each product and a much deeper understanding of our customer groups and one which I believe is going to allow us to thrive in future years. It’s clear that a more curated event, live or digital, which offers a personalised and tailored experience and value for those attending is going to be critical. This obsession with the customer has to stay in our business on every level.
Looking to 2021, do you feel positive or nervous about what the year will bring?
Both. While this year has been challenging in many different ways, what leaves me feeling positive is how important and much missed in-person meetings are. No matter how much we have adapted to our current circumstances, in-person interactions are at the very core of relationship building, both personally and professionally which demonstrates the fundamentals of our industry are sound.
It is undoubtedly going to be different as we go forward which of course makes me a little nervous as it is an untrodden path, but we have got much better at responding to change and I think given everything we have learnt this year and the resilience that we have shown, we are moving towards something better.
When are you planning on holding your first live exhibition again?
We have been able to run some shows in China and small regional shows in the US in recent months. However, it is likely that we won’t restart in-person events in any meaningful way until end of spring or even summer of 2021.
What do you think the biggest barrier will be to bouncing back in 2021 and what must organisers do to make sure they succeed?
Customer confidence will be one of the biggest barriers and not necessarily the aspects that we can directly control. Issues surrounding travel restrictions, quarantining, testing and the roll out of vaccines continue to have a real impact on our ability to reopen live events. However, the concept of a once-a-year event with no other contact points already feels so outdated in some of the sectors we serve.
An integrated event experience including in-person, digital and an on-demand approach, feels much more progressive and one that is likely to provide opportunity to increase customer satisfaction and value.
What is the single biggest piece of advice you would give exhibition organisers when moving into 2021 and what is the best advice you have received?
The path ahead is still far from certain, so it would have to be to continue to adapt and be as agile as possible to suit whatever environment we are operating in at any given time. We are going to have to get used to change on a regular basis and the resilience I mentioned earlier will be critical to withstand such change and recover quickly.
With so much change underway, the best advice I have received is to keep communicating in a transparent and consistent way. Communicate with customers and communicate with your team and industry partners in order drive the best outcomes possible.
Phil Soar, chairman, CloserStill Group and 19 Events
What will be your abiding memory of 2020?
I imagine one is supposed to recall going to ExCeL London and seeing all the beds laid out where our show, Health Plus Care, was supposed to be running. But on a personal level, I was struck more by the coffee shop round the corner closing its doors and the Polish couple who ran it telling me that they were having to give up. It is now shuttered and forlorn.
What good things have come out of 2020 for our industry; what will you want to make sure stays in your business going forward?
Not as much as I would have liked, in honesty. The ability of the venues to work through the crisis with the big organisers has been impressive (I won’t rank the UK venues, but you have our thanks).
What stays in the business? Our good people. It’s always about the people in the end. We have been fortunate. We took a realistic view of how long this would last right from the start, took salary reductions across the board right from the start and have been able to keep job reductions to a minimum.
Our private shareholders, Providence (with CloserStill) and Phoenix (with 19 Events) have been massively supportive.
Looking to 2021, do you feel positive or nervous about what the year will bring?
CloserStill has to be positive. We started from nothing in the teeth of the last recession (2009/2010) and that was utterly central to our success. The time to invest is always when others have doubts and the core sentiment must be to not look back in 2025 and feel one missed great opportunities. We have launched four new events in the last five months, have just made our first acquisition of 2020 and have several more in the pipeline.
Four years ago, we had very little outside the UK, yet at the recent AEO Awards, we won both the Asia-Pacific Event of the Year and the American Event of the Year. What’s not to be positive about?
Trade shows are more about intangibles than tangibles, and the intangibles don’t go away. I am rather more concerned about Brexit.
When are you planning on holding your first live exhibition again?
We will be running shows in Germany in March.
What do you think the biggest barrier will be to bouncing back in 2021 and what must organisers do to make sure they succeed?
To be truthful, I am not sure. There will be events where staff cutbacks have removed core knowledge, that could be a problem which won’t become clear until much later.
What is the single biggest piece of advice you would give exhibition organisers when moving into 2021 and what is the best advice you have received?
The first trade shows were run in Frankfurt and Leipzig in 1240, when those cities received charters from the Holy Roman Emperor to run annual fairs. They have run ever since, and the fundamental principles of trade shows have never changed. They have survived wars, pestilences, showers of frogs, floods, the Black Death, Spanish Flu and even Brexit. They were not replaced by Guttenberg’s printing press, not radio, nor TV, not social media and they will continue as they have for eight centuries.
As for advice, take William Goldman’s ‘No One Knows Anything’, which he wrote about Hollywood Hits. Don’t take prognostication about where trade shows will be (from research reports trying to make a buck) too seriously. Take your own gambles, the next few years are not perfectly predictable so try to be one of the surprises.
Damion Angus, group managing director, Montgomery Group
What will be your abiding memory of 2020?
I think it would have to be us doing everything in our power to deliver our March events. It is always an incredibly busy month for the Group, and I can vividly remember our desperate attempt to hold on to our exhibitors and to keep our shows together as Covid dismantled the world’s confidence.
That and saying goodbye to everyone as we closed the office on 18 March. It felt like the Christmas holidays and I was convinced we would be back in within a few weeks.
What good things have come out of 2020 for our industry; what will you want to make sure stays in your business going forward?
This pandemic has left our industry with little choice but to innovate and to get creative, you only have to look at how we are ‘properly’ trying to embrace digital and to see how far we have come in just a matter of months.
While I am not sure we are getting the virtual or hybrid model right, we are at least experimenting and taking some risks which is what the industry needs. The Montgomery Group will continue to test new ideas and I hope that this will lead to greater value and ROI for our clients in addition to giving them a year-round proposition.
I also believe that this pandemic has bought us all closer together as an industry, not only just as organisers sharing concerns and solutions, but also our relationships with venues and suppliers. I really hope that this goodwill and flexibility will continue into 2021 as we will really need to work together to rebuild the industry and get back on track.
Lastly, as a Group, our teams have been able to connect far more effectively on a global basis. Discussions are happening across divisions and between different territories which is all thanks to Zoom and Microsoft Teams. While I am totally video called ‘out’, I hope we continue to share ideas and problems across the wider Group which enable us to learn from each other.
Looking to 2021, do you feel positive or nervous about what the year will bring?
I am an optimist at heart, and I believe that the advent of a vaccine is a game-changer for our industry. This will undoubtedly take some time to roll out but while I believe the first two quarters of the year (in the UK) will undeniably be difficult, once the Government allow larger scale events to proceed, confidence will come back quickly and there will be lots to celebrate.
There is a huge craving from people wanting to come together in person and I really believe that those companies who complained of trade show fatigue will want nothing more than to get back into a face-to-face environment.
When are you planning on holding your first live exhibition again?
In the UK, we have events scheduled for May, but we are actually planning on running our first live event, GeoConnect Asia, in Singapore in March. We are working very closely with the Singapore Tourist Board, our contractors and venue to ensure its success and have added a hybrid element to reduce our risk as much as we can.
We will be celebrating hard when the doors open and I very much hope that it will pave the way for further larger events to happen not only in Singapore but in the wider South East Asian region.
What do you think the biggest barrier will be to bouncing back in 2021 and what must organisers do to make sure they succeed?
The speed of our return to normality ultimately resides in the confidence of our exhibitors. News of vaccines and rapid on-site testing all helps but I believe many companies are going to be happy to sit back and book later and will want to push their payments terms as close to the show as possible. This will increase our risk, but I think by working closely with clients and building their confidence we can try to mitigate this as much as possible.
What is the single biggest piece of advice you would give exhibition organisers when moving into 2021 and what is the best advice you have received?
I am not sure I am in a very good position to give advice as all my predictions on a return to business ‘normal’ have been wrong so far; it must be the optimist in me… However, I think the key to delivering shows next year is to stay as close as you can to your community, with clear messaging and no ambiguity.
As soon as exhibitors feel that you are not in control, they will move very quickly to make the decisions for you, and it is easy for your show to unravel. In terms of advice I have received, it is not to waste a crisis. Therefore, we have been working hard on projects that would usually take a back seat, so that when we emerge from this, we are in the best shape possible to take advantage of the future.
Alison Jackson, managing director, Nineteen Events Group
What will be your abiding memory of 2020?
Apart from the word “furlough” and the phrase “you are on mute”, the resilience and work ethic of the team at Nineteen Group, in particular the senior leadership team. This has to be one of the most committed and determined groups I have ever worked with. They have been absolutely brilliant.
What good things have come out of 2020 for our industry; what will you want to make sure stays in your business going forward?
I think the industry has tried to work together more than ever before and shared stories and experiences. Virtual events and other year-round engagement tools are here to stay, and we will ensure these remain in our business and continually improve our offering to provide even greater value for the communities we serve.
Looking to 2021, do you feel positive or nervous about what the year will bring?
Still more uncertainty to come as we have no idea when substantial multi day events can open. That said, there is increasing evidence in our business of pent-up demand, so we have to stay positive.
When are you planning on holding your first live exhibition again?
September 2021
What do you think the biggest barrier will be to bouncing back in 2021 and what must organisers do to make sure they succeed?
The biggest barrier will be time. We need an open date to give organisers the best chance to bounce back. Organisers must also look to deliver more value throughout the year.
What is the single biggest piece of advice you would give exhibition organisers when moving into 2021 and what is the best advice you have received?
Stay close to the market and be patient. Learn the lessons from other industries in 2020 (retail and hospitality) and get closer to the Government by lobbying hard and educating the authorities on the power of exhibitions. The best advice I have received was from Phil Soar, the week before the first lockdown. He encouraged us to learn about pandemics and plan for no events until the second half of 2021. Once again, it looks like he was probably correct.
Andrew Reed, managing director, events and exhibitions, William Reed Business Media
What will be your abiding memory of 2020?
Leaving the office on 23 March and not relying on the printer every day. It will be interesting to see what Cannon do now. I was also sad to see one contributor in a T-shirt on the AEO Awards video when everybody else had made such an effort.
What good things have come out of 2020 for our industry; what will you want to make sure stays in your business going forward?
Working together to help move the dial as far as Government understanding of what an important element we are to the country’s economic well-being. The AEO, AEV and ESSA have done an amazing job and now we must maintain the momentum. Being an organiser is risky, yes, but with risk comes reward and with reward comes responsibility.
Looking to 2021, do you feel positive or nervous about what the year will bring?
I am very positive about 2021 as the Government have been saying all along it will be sorted by Easter and all the signs are that we will be back in business then.
When are you planning on holding your first live exhibition again?
Twelfth April, and it’s going to be very exciting as it will be the first big show back in at the NEC. The aisles are nice and wide.
What do you think the biggest barrier will be to bouncing back in 2021 and what must organisers do to make sure they succeed?
Obviously from a practical point of view it will be the political landscape around the virus, but I think it is important to make sure that the infrastructure around executing a show survives as without them we cannot put a show on.
What is the single biggest piece of advice you would give exhibition organisers when moving into 2021 and what is the best advice you have received?
“An exhibition is not a standalone activity. It is the face-to-face element of an integrated marketing campaign”. That is our mantra and always has been. Shows are about so much more than the digital chant of “lead gen”, we are about “AAMM” (the advice from Chris Hughes, the exhibition industry’s ‘Greatest Showman’): Anticipation, Arrival, Moments and Memories; shows are about visitors coming to a hall, if you can’t attract visitors you don’t have a show; without them irrespective of the number of exhibitors you have, you will have no business. Visitors are more important now than they have ever been.
Emma Barrett, managing director, Broadway Events
What will be your abiding memory of 2020?
No events running after March. The number of decisions that had to be made and then putting in backup upon backup plans which we had no control of. Although this year has been challenging and tough for everyone in the events industry, it has been nice to spend some additional time at home with my family.
What good things have come out of 2020 for our industry; what will you want to make sure stays in your business going forward?
2020 has really challenged the events industry, but everyone rose to the challenge and stepped up. Everyone became digital experts overnight and pivoted their business model. I think we can take some of the learnings from virtual events and incorporate these into physical events when we start running them again.
I feel proud how the industry came together and shared information, learnings and supported each other, no matter what size of business you have.
Looking to 2021, do you feel positive or nervous about what the year will bring?
Positive. We firmly believe events are going to be running and are very much looking forward to seeing our customers in person again.
When are you planning on holding your first live exhibition again?
We are running roadshows and conferences from April and our larger exhibitions from July.
What do you think the biggest barrier will be to bouncing back in 2021 and what must organisers do to make sure they succeed?
Exhibitor and visitor confidence us going to be the biggest barrier to overcome. We need to get the right message out that we can run Covid-safe events. For international events, the biggest barrier is international travel resuming. Hopefully, with the vaccine being on the horizon, this looks likely from Spring 2021.
Organisers need to continue to be agile and flexible to run physical, hybrid or, in the worst, case digital-only events again if things don’t bounce back as quickly as expected.
What is the single biggest piece of advice you would give exhibition organisers when moving into 2021 and what is the best advice you have received?
Make decisions quickly. The biggest advice we received is continuing to plan for the next edition of the physical events: customers are desperate to meet, network and do business with their industry colleagues.
Carsten Holm, managing director, Diversified Communications UK
What will be your abiding memory of 2020?
Covid-19: we won’t forget that one in a hurry. Apart from that, the amazing way our industry has worked together; the hard, often thankless work and total commitment of the AEO team to present our case to Government and how they have brought the industry together through daily updates and various forums. And last but not least, the incredible dedication and resilience from my team, who have worked so hard to get us through the year in the best way possible.
What good things have come out of 2020 for our industry; what will you want to make sure stays in your business going forward?
Despite of the challenges of communication, the way my team has pulled together and been so creative in the face of adversity, has been incredibly humbling. We have learned new ways of doing things and used the time to come up with better ways to service our clients.
From a broader industry perspective, our sector has never really had an effective voice within Government but the efforts of the AEO and the industry during the past year seem to have started to give us the recognition we deserve.
I think it’s essential that we continue that engagement post-Covid and that we continue the work towards getting greater recognition and support for our crucially important sector.
Looking to 2021, do you feel positive or nervous about what the year will bring?
Next year is not going to be easy, that’s for sure. However, if there is one thing I have learned, it is the incredible importance and resilience of the trade show industry, which will be needed more than ever. So, I have no doubt, that the long-term prognosis for our sector is positive and that we will bounce back stronger than ever.
When are you planning on holding your first live exhibition again?
We have three shows in May and can’t wait to get back to do what we do best!
What do you think the biggest barrier will be to bouncing back in 2021 and what must organisers do to make sure they succeed?
Confidence among exhibitors and visitors is going to be key. Whilst I have no doubt that people are ready to get back together, creating Covid-safe events with restricted numbers, is going to be the challenge. International travel is also going to be an ongoing issue and we may have to find new ways to include our international customers in our events. And of course, the threat of further Government lockdowns is a concern, but that is really out of our control.
What is the single biggest piece of advice you would give exhibition organisers when moving into 2021 and what is the best advice you have received?
I think the single most important thing is to be honest with your customers. We need to make sure we manage their expectations and don’t overpromise on delivering alternative platforms for connecting buyers and sellers, as there is still no substitute for face-to-face.
Carina Bauer, chief executive, IMEX Group
What will be your abiding memory of 2020?
Togetherness: the industry (tradeshow and business events industry) truly pulling together. Meeting and learning from peers like never before. Our team throwing themselves into a new way of working and thinking, learning new skills, collaborating and innovating.
What good things have come out of 2020 for our industry; what will you want to make sure stays in your business going forward?
I think this has made people really look at the value that they are providing their clients and the true purpose of their events. In the end, this way of thinking will be great for the industry because it should ensure the events we deliver are more strategic and purposeful and therefore more valuable.
For our business, it’s been about breaking down siloes and collaboration. We have necessarily had to work together differently and overall this has been a good thing and we are striving to ensure that as we go back to live events, we continue that different working culture.
Looking to 2021, do you feel positive or nervous about what the year will bring?
A bit of both if I’m honest. Overall, I’m positive though. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and we know that our live events will come back. In the meantime, though, there is still plenty of transformation to take place and change is always challenging, even when you know the outcome will be positive.
When are you planning on holding your first live exhibition again?
At present both our live shows are still scheduled: May in Frankfurt and November in Las Vegas.
What do you think the biggest barrier will be to bouncing back in 2021 and what must organisers do to make sure they succeed?
For organisers like myself who run extremely international events, our biggest barrier is the opening of international travel. For us that’s essential for our exhibition to work. For other organisers who are less dependent on international travel, I think it will be about the Government both rolling out the vaccine successfully, as well as giving confidence in standards around rapid testing.
What is the single biggest piece of advice you would give exhibition organisers when moving into 2021 and what is the best advice you have received?
My single piece of advice would be to really pay attention to the value you are creating for both buyers and exhibitors and ensure that, if you are going ‘in-person/ live’, you can deliver this value.
Don’t expect your clients to put up with a second-rate show; they will expect the same ROI as usual. The best advice I’ve received this year was to re-think your event for the digital world and not try to replicate what you do ‘in-person’ online.
Lee Newton, chief executive, Media 10
What will be your abiding memory of 2020?
The first lockdown with my grown-up family was an eye opener. My daughter somehow got great grades and graduated from University with flying colours by lying in bed all day, only getting up in the late afternoon to meet her boyfriend at the end of our drive, where they both sat either side of the metal gates, over which he was not allowed to pass. Not because of Covid or the lockdown, but as part of a test that he was unknowingly involved in: keeping me and my daughter’s big brother entertained during the sunny first lockdown.
My son got a new job working for the marketing team of Jaguar. He spent one day in the London office before being locked down and is still working from home nearly 10 months later.
He took over the games room and I took the study (posh room names, eh?). Lesson number one: the study has poor Wi-Fi and as it faces north gets no natural sunlight. As each day passed, I learnt many things like “the dishwasher doesn’t load itself”, someone would shout each day; exploding things in the microwave isn’t good, and after 25 years I learnt my wonderful wife doesn’t do all my washing and ironing. It’s a girl called Janet who comes on a Thursday afternoon, when I would normally be in the office. I told her she had the wrong house and should try next door, but she said something about if you don’t let me in, you’ll have nothing to wear and my wife grabbed the intercom.
Some of the team also launched a new independent digital company called CaboodleAI, which we all invested in and creates a separate digital newsletter business to support our live events next year.
If you want a sensible answer, 2020 in business was the year that removed the whole concept of planning from any agenda. It got to a point where it seemed that every plan that we made and agreed was rendered invalid within 24 hours of agreeing it.
What good things have come out of 2020 for our industry; what will you want to make sure stays in your business going forward?
I’m sure we have all looked deep into our businesses and in particularly the live events that we run and now all have a better understanding of how to improve old and new revenue streams and how to improve traditional profit margins. Hopefully we have all found new profit streams that will make our companies more rounded and stronger in our approach to the future.
Looking to 2021, do you feel positive or nervous about what the year will bring?
2020 is the year that never happened and 2021 is the year that is still yet to play out. Of course, we are nervous but give us a firm date and we will happily take on the challenge.
When are you planning on holding your first live exhibition again?
We would hope to run the Ideal Home Show, UK Construction Week London, Grand Designs Live and 100% Optical all in late spring,
What do you think the biggest barrier will be to bouncing back in 2021 and what must organisers do to make sure they succeed?
The exhibitors and the visitors need to be confident. They need to re-engage with the concept of attending live events. I believe this will take some time and therefore we will need to all work harder in delivering a better product with more reasons to help us drive visitors to our events.
What is the single biggest piece of advice you would give exhibition organisers when moving into 2021 and what is the best advice you have received?
Be prepared for your markets to be smaller for the foreseeable future and adjust your budgets accordingly. However, opportunity in this new world is staring us in the face: grab it with both hands. As an aside, you asked if I can I make the answer funny: for f**k’s sake, Ruth, it’s not even a funny question. But try this: if Ruth Carter ever asks you to write a piece for EN, don’t.
