AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — The Society of Independent Show Organizers’ (SISO) annual CEO Summit brought together hundreds of executive level leaders in the trade show industry April 8-11 at The Ritz Carlton Hotel at Amelia Island, Fla., for high-level education and connection building.
With more than 300 registered attendees, this year’s SISO CEO Summit was back to pre-pandemic levels.
“The 2024 SISO CEO Summit exceeded the level it reached in 2019,” Vinnie Polito, SISO CEO, said. “The audience was a great blend with several of the industry leaders you expect to see, along with several new executives from the North America region and several other countries around the world.”
The event featured in-depth and candid discussions about the state of the industry, new trends and expectations, and forward-thinking strategy for independent show organizers. It also provided attendees with networking opportunities during breaks, receptions and fun activities like a golf tournament and boat tour of the island.
Education Curated for Leaders
The educational content at the event was geared toward the high-level executive audience, with conversations diving into the economic factors impacting the industry, as well as how major organizations are approaching technology and investment in the coming year.
“The conference program blended many of the traditional themes along with several areas of new content, including presentations from adjacent industries, like the NBA,” Polito said. “It also included a SISO News Desk for the first time. The content was delivered in a more quick-hitting approach with several shorter sessions. The sponsor community was well represented also.”
The education kicked off with a lively economic presentation from Anirban Basu, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Sage Policy Group, who discussed that while the economic indicators show the economy is improving and outperforming expectations, people are still feeling the financial squeeze of inflation. Daniel Lippman, a Washington reporter at Politico, gave insights into the political landscape of the U.S. in this election year alongside the economic report.
Ken Holsinger, Senior Vice President of Strategy at Freeman, and Kimberly Hardcastle-Geddes, President and Chief Marketing Strategist at mdg, gave a look into the expectations and trends for attendees and exhibitors. Their presentation highlighted where the two groups’ wants overlap, where there are differences.
Then, Hervé Sedky, President and CEO of Emerald; Hugh Jones, CEO of RX; Paul Miller, CEO of Questex; and Michelle Metter, Partner and Co-Founder at Fast Forward Events took to the stage to discuss how they’re taking action in line with the findings from the most recent Freeman trends report. The industry leaders shared how they’re listening to customers with social listening tools, conversations with event directors on value propositions as well as measure what people are engaging with to discover what they want at an event. The panel also discussed recruiting.
“This industry needs folks from outside the industry to attract new views,” Hugh Jones, RX CEO, said. “When you bring in new folks, you get interesting points of view.”
Jones gave an example of a new employee from outside the industry suggesting, after speaking with customers, the booth sizes at a large construction show be limited to 99 meters, which ended up allowing attendees to have hands-on experience with more exhibitors’ products and boosted satisfaction ratings at the show.
Joey Graziano, Senior Vice President and Head of Global Event Strategy and Development at the NBA, shared the five elements of “high heat” moments at events, while Lance Fensterman, CEO at Fanatics Events, Aaron Levant, Founder and CEO at NTWRK and CEO at Complex NTWRK and Deirdre Connolly, Executive Producer of Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen and BravoCon, discussed why their organizations decided to take the leap into the events space, and how they are creating community-centric and fan-focused events.
Richard Harbridge, Chief Technology Officer of 2toLead, gave a presentation on the expected impacts of AI on the events industry and Carlotta Mast, Senior Vice President and Market Leader at Informa Markets’ New Hope Network, discussed the many ways sustainability and business intersect.
Other speakers included Greg Hitchen, CEO of Terrapinn, and Craig Fuller, CEO of Firecrown and Founder and CEO of FreightWaves, along with Jonathon Weiner, Founder, Chairman & CEO at HLTH.
There was also an advocacy update from Tommy Goodwin, Vice President at the Exhibitions and Conferences Alliance; Yancy Weinrich, President, North America at CloserStill Media; Nancy Walsh, President – North America at Informa Markts; and Walter Charnizon, President of TechDay HQ.
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Focusing on M&A
A major topic at this year’s event was M&A activity, with many sessions dedicated to the activity in the industry, dissecting how a deal comes together and organizations’ strategy to growth through M&A.
Lisa Hannant, CEO of Clarion Events, sat down with Alex Roth, Group Director of Strategy and Business Planning at Informa PLC, to discuss his strategy to grow Informa. By focusing on organic growth, moving into adjacency markets after the pandemic and utilizing the data collected through the events division, Informa has been able to successfully grow its business and deliver high quality services.
“We study our mistakes carefully,” Roth said while discussing the major lessons he’s learned while being at Informa. “If there’s one common feature of all our errors, it’s around culture. We thought we could make the culture pieces fit, and we didn’t. In most cases the warning signs were there and for some reason or another we just drove past them.”
Russell Wilcox, Executive Chairman at Clarion Events, talked with Arc Network Group CEO Simon Foster and CloserStill Media Group CEO Gareth Bowhill about what markets they’re looking at, their priorities for the next year and what they’re seeing from sellers in the industry. Bowhill described how he is looking to invest more in North America and Southeast Asia, and Foster explained how the China is looking more interesting as a boom is predicted in its market. All three leaders agreed that there are more sellers coming to market than there are buyers — and thus more thought going into transactions.
Then, Rick McConnell, CEO of Trifecta Collective, Ryan Anderson, Partner at GreyLion and Arnie Didier, Chief Operating Officer at International Mass Timber Conference, talked to John McGovern, CEO and Owner of Grimes, McGovern and Associates, about the acquisition of the conference and how they’ve grown the event with expertise and expanded resources.
A Place to Do Business
The event also served as a convening point for leaders to do business with each other during a variety of networking events and activities.
“SISO is a place where deals are made. The networking seemed particularly busy and overall, the energy level was incredibly high from sunrise until the late hours in the evening each day,” Polito said.
At the annual Report to the Members, the 2024 Krakoff Industry Award of Excellence was presented to Nancy Walsh for her incredible contributions to the trade show industry.
The illustrious award is named in honor of industry legend Robert L. Krakoff, who built and managed some of the most successful businesses in the trade show industry. In a full circle moment, Walsh revealed that Krakoff had hired her at the start of her career and helped launch her into the world of events.
The 2024 SISO Leadership Conference will be held Aug. 13-15 in Philadelphia.
Check out full coverage of the SISO CEO Summit in a future edition of Trade Show Executive. Subscribe to receive your copy here.
Reach Vinnie Polito at vincent@siso.org
