ORGANISER INTERVIEW
When EN asks Hyve CEO Mark Shashoua his views on geo-adaption , he is not full of admiration , at least not for how it is traditionally done in the exhibition industry .
“ I ’ m not a big believer in geo-adaption , it ’ s old and passé ,” says Shashoua , dialling in from Hyve ’ s New York office . “ The world has changed , people don ’ t want small things anymore - they want to go to the main event of its kind .
“ Unless it ’ s to scale , like we do with Shoptalk - but the vast majority of geo adapting is small-scale . If you ’ re going to geo-clone or geo-adapt , you have to do it to scale .”
Shashoua has led Hyve through major change and uncertainty , caused by world events such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine , before recently returning to private ownership after delisting in May .
Hyve Group was founded by Mark ’ s father Roger Shashoua as International Trade Exhibitions ( ITE ) in 1991 and was rebranded from ITE Group in 2019 .
Mark , the former CEO of i2i Events Group ( now Ascential Events ), says Hyve is “ fundamentally the opposite business ” that he inherited in 2016 . In seven years , the company has gone from owning 289 shows - which he describes as a “ staggering number ” - to just 33 .
“ Our strategy was to move away from emerging markets and owning hundreds of shows of all different sizes . The vast majority [ of the 289 shows ] were subscale tiny
Mark Shashoua
Embracing change
Hyve CEO Mark Shashoua tells EN ’ s Joe Gallop how the “ oldfashioned ” events industry is on the verge of significant digitalisation . He discusses the journey Hyve has been on , from its origins as a familyfounded company to an industry giant , while navigating immense industry change and world crises
Roger Shashoua
“ The events sector is about to enter what the music industry did 20 years ago ” shows . Our view is that the days of big market share-led events businesses that run hundreds of shows of different quality and sizes are long gone .
“ We only operate the main event of its kind in each sector . Our strategy is to be global and not bound by any geography . It ’ s not that we ’ re exiting emerging markets , we just don ’ t want a business that ’ s solely based on an
Autumn — 21