CHICAGO — Nancy Drapeau, IPC, began her career in politics, but discovered a passion for events while working at a B2B market research firm. Drapeau’s career has included roles at Diversified and her own consulting business.
Now, as Vice President of Research at the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR), Drapeau helps the organization keep its finger on the events industry’s pulse and create cutting-edge resources that help professionals thrive.
Trade Show Executive (TSE) sat down with Drapeau to learn about her impressive career, CEIR’s vital work and how any professional can get involved.
ANDREW: What drew you to the events industry?
NANCY: As an undergraduate, I studied politics and I’ve always been motivated by what helps communities. Commerce tends to drive progress over time and our industry is all about commerce. When industry sectors convene, a lot of business happens and that ultimately benefits the economy.
Seeing communities convene is also a beautiful thing. When I worked at Diversified, my favorite event was the European Seafood Exposition [now known as Seafood Expo Global/Seafood Processing Global]. There, the world gathers to showcase seafood products … [and] each country displays its personality and culture.
ANDREW: What did you learn as an up-and-coming events professional?
NANCY: One of my former bosses once told me, “Nancy, your work situation will offer many challenges and many of them will come on two feet.”
I learned to adjust and have good engagement with folks when communication tactics may be completely different or there are personality challenges. It is important to make sure that you can adjust and be effective.
ANDREW: Why was CEIR created and how has it changed over time?
NANCY: CEIR’s initial motivation when it launched in 1978 was to create the sense that the trade show industry was important to the U.S. economy. There have been different iterations of its Census [which shows when and where B2B exhibitions were held at a certain time] and Index [which is developed in collaboration with Oxford Economics, and evaluates the industry’s performance and provides emerging trends, data visualizations and actionable insights for organizers].
Today, the Indexes are sought by major business media outlets and we’re seen as a voice of the industry.
We’re looking to deepen knowledge to help our stakeholders be successful and help events progress, providing specific insights to show them what’s working well and where there are opportunities to drive the industry’s evolution.
At the crux of that would be the organizers, providing performance benchmarks and more for them, but we give exhibitors insights too.
ANDREW: CEIR recently announced a merger with the IAEE. How do you think that this move will benefit the organization?
Nancy: It could expand the scope of our research. Because CEIR’s focus has been predominantly on North America … inevitably, being affiliated with an international organization could, over time, lead to a more international scope.
Related. A Strong, Unified Voice: Diving into the Exhibitions and Conferences Alliance with Tommy Goodwin
ANDREW: How has CEIR supported the events industry in recent years?
NANCY: In the aftermath of the pandemic, the focus was monitoring the industry’s recovery from the perspective of organizers. We did a full-blown virtual event study and saw the expansion of the virtual event industry and its implosion. It was an intermediary resource for engagement until trade shows opened. Now, we monitor the recovery of live events.
We did an omnichannel study which asked exhibitors and attendees if they were going to come back once trade shows opened. It’s been remarkable how dead-on the insights have been. Ninety-four percent of exhibitors said that they would come back, because they needed trade shows to support their in-person marketing and sales objectives.
We saw that a good chunk of attendees planned on returning, but the data implied some change — 87% of attendees said that they would come back. Our Organizer Performance Benchmarking study [set for 2025] will help us see what the “new normal” is going to be in terms of volume of attendance.
The motivation behind this research was to look at what we can provide to help support the industry’s recovery. First, we did the attendee acquisition report series in 2023 to see what was driving attendance post pandemic, then we did the exhibit and sponsorship sales report series to identify what is generating revenue now. Lastly, we did the attendee and exhibitor engagement on the show floor series to discern what engagement looks like today.
Now, we’re kicking it up a notch with our Organizer Performance Benchmarking Study. It is a fluid situation … Some shows are way beyond 2019, but the majority are still recovering.
We’re focused on providing insights to help organizers have reasonable expectations for planning, make sure that attendee acquisition is where it needs to be, readjust exhibit and sponsorship sales offerings and have engaged trade show floors.
ANDREW: How can an up-and-coming professional get involved with CEIR?
Nancy: If somebody wants to be a rock star and they’re aspiring to be a show manager, I challenge them to use CEIR’s Event Performance Analyzer. This enables someone to see specifically how their event results compare to the Index’s benchmarks. I think that person would become an important resource to the show director or even its C-Suite executives.
Also, this year, we will run a study with Gen Z [titled Wants and Preferences of Next Generation Attendees] that will look to discern their likes and dislikes about the current trade show model, because it needs to evolve with the wants and needs of up-and-coming professionals.
We also have webinars that professionals can look at.
Finally, depending on what organization you belong to, if you want insights, reach out to me.
You can reach Nancy at ndrapeau@ceir.org.
