I hate editorializing about trade shows. I feel like I’m robbing the readers, most of whom are far more interested in what was on the show floor than in the behind-the-scenes politics and other machinations. So it’s with more than a little trepidation that I venture into the deep to try to explain the ongoing trade show drama, and perhaps more importantly, lay out a proposal for the future.

Time was, Nepcon West dominated the show landscape, buffered by a small crew of solid ancillary geographical events like Surface Mount International and Nepcon East. Starting in 1994, however, with Printed Circuits Expo and later in 2000 when Apex came into being, IPC eclipsed and then eviscerated Nepcon. Exhibitors cheered as their costs were cut through a series of strict limits placed on booth size and hospitality suites. Life was good.

But life, as we know, has a wry sense of humor. Post 2002-03, overworked engineers stopped bookmarking a week in February for Apex, and IPC, which just once generated well over $1 million in net revenues from each of its two major trade shows, saw its purse shrink, which led to the merger of the events. In the Midwest, Assembly Technology Expo, owned by Reed Exhibitions and later, Canon Communications, became Robin to Apex’s Batman, a solid performer if not a star in its own right. A balance, it seemed, had been struck.

Again, the gains were fleeting. As has been well documented, Canon last year cut the $250,000 cash stipend granted to SMTA in return for colocating its technical conference at ATE. Threatened with the loss of about 20% of its operating revenue, SMTA, already a bare bones (seven staffers) organization, announced its own show. IPC, ever the opportunists, jumped in as well. Hence, one became three. Commence the cannibalization!

But where’s the ROI? Most equipment exhibitors I spoke with are not happy with either organization right now (I single out that group because their exhibition costs are several times those of materials suppliers). They feel forced into doing more shows than they’d like. Why not just skip one or more? Despite – or perhaps because of – unmistakable evidence that show attendance has dropped across the board, the trade (show) organizations seem intent on trying to recapture the good old days by piling on more events. And they effectively play on the fears of the exhibitors by suggesting that the absence of any individual company would be negatively interpreted by the market.

Several of the larger equipment OEMs – faced with an unexpected and margin-wrecking hike in marketing costs – tried in vain to play peacemaker between the organizations. Some in-the-know exhibitors have shared their sense that SMTA and IPC will not see eye to eye as long as their respective administrations remain in place. Others, myself included, see a distinct cultural difference in the makeups of the organizations and their memberships. IPC’s focus is the big equipment OEMs; SMTA’s main course is the process engineers at assembly companies. It would be very difficult to retain each group’s respective focus should the trade shows be merged and jointly run.

So we’re left with fragmented events like the three-day IPC Midwest in late September, at which one could hear crickets chirping, and the two-day SMTAI two weeks later, which was more raucous but (I don’t have the numbers yet) likely no more populous. Moving to August in 2008 won’t help.

IPC’s stated mission is to further the financial competitiveness of its members. In this case, that means backing down and killing IPC Midwest. Recoup any lost revenue by making permanent the $4 increase per sq. ft. in 2008 space costs at Apex. Exhibitors would likely prefer that to planning (and underwriting) an additional show. (One OEM told me they spent $25,000 in drayage to move a single machine inside an exhibition hall. That’s unsustainable, and one reason Circuits Assembly is launching Virtual PCB, an online, interactive trade show, next February. See virtual-pcb.com for details.) In return, SMTA should move back to Chicago, and let IPC hold its standards meetings at SMTAI. That would boost the marketability of SMTAI, not to mention add meat to IPC’s undernourished technical programs.

Further, IPC should take a page from its members and outsource its trade show management. It’s a big beast to feed, and as long as it’s on the direct payroll, the temptation will be too great to keep rationalizing it by doing more and more shows, which serves only to further cannibalize the existing ones.

And I would happily go back to writing about something – anything – else.

• Prev
• Next