Roundtable
Carlo Zoccali, head of
sales at Farnborough
International.
“This was an important
event which helped
to quantify the value
of relationships and
understand the transition
to partnerships. Through
this Roundtable, we
focused on how host
venues can do so
much more than simply
accommodate events;
it’s about collaborating
and sharing values in a
way that goes beyond
the transactional.
There was tremendous
honestly around the
table which contributed
to a meaningful
discussion. Everyone felt
comfortable discussing
what can be tough and
shared experiences led
to reassurance as well
as some new ideas and
solutions, particularly
around potential
advertising models.
“What’s great about
the Roundtable is that it
is already impacting how
we do business. .
60 — November
and get exhibitors in months before the event
so they could understand what was going to
happen onsite to help them with their planning
and how they could maximise their operation.
These events, which were pioneering at that
time but now fairly common practice, were
primarily organised by the operations team
but everyone was encouraged to attend. That’s
when the exhibitors became highly creative and
that comes from being more transparent and
sharing knowledge.”
Murray Ellis, show director on Commercial
Vehicle Show adds: “Venues should be holding
these days, and explain how their venue
operates. Exhibitors are anxious about going to
a venue, and it makes perfect sense to explain
how they get the best out of it. Why is it only up
to the organiser? Surely the venue has a major
part to play in all of this?”
Sam North, founder of Infection Point,
who advises individuals on leadership and
marketing adds: “Collaboration on customer
service needs to drastically improve. Bouncing
exhibitors from supplier to supplier, with new
data entry and price discovery at every point
is a terrible experience. Amazon would laugh
us out of the door if we told them how we treat
our customers.”
Technology
Everyone at the table agrees that technology,
or the lack of one common platform, is
creating headaches between exhibitor, venue
and organiser. Sigler explains: “We tried to
integrate the manual to create one point of
contract, but them we realised that there were
six different systems we had to integrate this
into and each of them needed passwords, we
were lost as we wrote the thing.”
Seaman believes there is a way to use
technology, he adds: “The technology is there
but we need some technological solution
because our exhibitors are contacted 25 times
in the lead up to the show by different people
and it would be so much easier if this was
done in one communication. They should be
able to replicate what they do in London or
Birmingham and apart from forms they have
to complete like health and safety, it is up to
organiser and venue to make this simpler.
Zoccali adds: “The big challenge is that
organisers use different suppliers. And then
you’ve got to change that system year on
year. We’re just rolling out a new system for
Farnborough Air Show this year, we have a
project management company helping us to do
that with an exhibitor portal, but we haven’t
found a way to talk to different suppliers like
power because it’s so specific. You’d think in
this day and age, where you can go onto sites
to buy a holiday and it’ll connect to suppliers
and give 15 different holiday companies, but we
can’t get it to connect to ours because everyone
uses a different front and back end.”
O’Connor explains that a tougher approach
is what the industry needs: “What really
needs to happen, and I have spoken to the
AEO about it, is to create a set of standards
that the industry and suppliers all adhere to
make integration seamless. It’s a very complex
model, they’re not up and running but the
theory is there, and we couldn’t get it across to
organisers or backers because it will cost a lot
of money. It has to come from someone like the
AEO or UFI globally.” EN