Received an email from Hanley Wood last week announcing they had acquired the Greenbuild show from USGBC.
My curious mind wonders what will happen to the Construct Show now that Hanley Wood controls the 3 major National Shows for commercial / institutional construction.
Will we see a combined show to rival the World of Concrete??
When HW acquired the AIA show, I said the logical thing for them to do would be to combine the AIA and CSI shows. At the time, I was assured that wouldn’t happen, but I won’t be surprised when it does. Adding USGBC to the mix is another logical step.
As long as I’ve been a CSI member, local product reps have told me they would prefer to have a single show instead of paying to exhibit twice to many of the same people. The same logic applies to national conventions.
Manufacturers must decide where to spend their money, and when their budgets are cut, as they have been the last several years, they cut out what they see as secondary shows, where they don’t get as much exposure. Their decisions have been evident; many manufacturers continue to exhibit at AIA, and have added GreenBuild, but have dropped out of CSI.
Each year, in the weeks leading up to the annual conventions, I get several invitations to visit a company’s booth. For a few years, I would contact these companies and ask if they would be at the CSI show; too many times, the response was, “We can’t afford both, so we’re going to AIA” (or GreenBuild).
According to Events in America, AIA expects 17,000 attendees at this year’s convention, and GreenBuild had 25,000 last year. PRWeb reports Construct2012 had 2,529. We can argue all we want about quality of leads, but to the people spending the money, it seems a single show serving all three organizations makes sense, even more so because of the crossover attendance.
I don’t know what an average attendee thinks, but for those who can’t afford to attend even two of these shows, wouldn’t a single show be attractive?
In the end, it is Hanley-Wood’s decision, and that decision will be based on profit.
I don’t see the AIA egos allowing their convention to merge with anyone else’s anytime soon, but I think it is inevitable that we will become the “CSI Pavilion” at the USGBC. As long as we retain our superior educational content, the larger show floor will be a good thing. I pay my own way, and only go to one per year.
However, the larger the show, the bigger the required venue; I fear our smaller venues will fall by the wayside and our conventions will be in Las Vegas, Chicago, New York and LA. Year after year after year…Isn’t the World of Concrete always in Las Vegas?
And would that merger change the time of the convention? We’ve already adjusted timing on many related things in CSI (conferences, award submittals, etc.,). Greenbuild is in November this year. That could prove interesting.
I pay my own way, too, using vacation time. I’m not sure about going to the larger venues year after year…
Of course, it’s not only the larger conventions that go to Chicago several years in a row.
Lynn, I agree with you 100%, I like going to new and different cities. But as I have started to become more active at the Chapter and Regional level, I find there is very little time to get out and see the city, without extending the visit a few days before or after the convention. My biggest concern is cost. Bigger conventions seem to have higher registration fees, and bigger cities definitely have more expensive lodging and restaurants.
In my (humble? ignorant? deranged?) opinion, the most effective shows … if reaching design decision makers and detailers … is a local CSI product show. Sure, the displays are at best glorfied table top affairs but, for making contact with those who could most benefit from product information, a local show is where both junior and veteran design professionals can expend time with minimal expense to attend. It is the place where day-to-day working relationships are established and where CSI can establish awareness of the principles and procedures it promotes for producing construction documents.
There are problems with this, not the least of which is the expense being born by local product representatives. Often, unless they can sell headquarters on budgeting and spending for the local show, local representatives bear the expense. Often, the value of doing so is not well-enough understood or appreciated for product manufacturers to make a commitment to participate in local shows. The ultimate killer to the local show idea is that CSI, at the Institute level, relies so much on the income derived from the national show. Why would the Institute support competition from local Chapter activities?
A difficulty I have with the idea of a combined, national show is the approach to marketing taken by exhibitors. I’ve been to both AIA and CSI national shows. The AIA shows have much, much more energy and the emphasis is less technical and more subjective, especially regarding “green” characteristics. There are generational differences too.
I’m with John on the value of the local product shows. Apparently so are our regional reps, because our recently-revived Charlotte show sells out, and the audience grows each year. I can get product information from the internet. What I can’t do is maintain the relationships and friendships using just email and downloads; some face to face time is really desirable, so that the next time there’s a problem, the solution wheels are already greased.
National shows serve a different and worthy purpose, and I’ve benefited greatly over the years from seeing many cities I wouldn’t otherwise visit and forming a wide network of industry friends. But the times are changing. Budgets are not what they were. Other communication channels are open for product and practice education. I love Chicago, but it’s a miserable convention experience. Folks who love Las Vegas are welcome to go there. I’ll wait for Indianapolis or Baltimore or San Antonio.
A national show that calls us to drop everything, pay $2K out of pocket, and sacrifice a week of billings had better be more than just good - no matter who “owns” it. Hanley Wood certainly knows this and gets better at putting these shows together each year. But they’re bucking broader trends; I’ll be interested to see more creative virtual solutions in the coming years.
Well said folks. To me the most important part of going to national conventions is the opportunity to catch up with old friends and to meet people I’ve only chatted with online. I don’t think that’s why manufacturers buy booth space.
I’m thinking that more manufacturers are finding that the Arc-US, CSI MSR, ArchiSpec path is giving them more bang for the buck. They get meaningful face time with the people who will ultimately be their biggest advocates, we get excellent programs, and most of our out-of-pocket expenses are covered.
World-of-Concrete used to split time between Orlando and Vegas, the two biggest convention floors available that I know of. Eventually they decided to just go to Vegas every year, an unfortunate decision for those east-coast patrons who won’t fly or for those who are no longer willing to go to Vegas.
As noted by others in this post, one-size-does-NOT-fit all. I have no taste for ‘green’ KoolAid from GreenBuild any more. The last AIA Convention I went to, in DC a year ago, was a terrible disappointment. I don’t like large crowds, especially where everyone is dressed in black. It’s as if they’re mourning the loss of our industry without actually realizing it. Depressing.
Smaller venues with higher quality content and real interaction instead of the shotgun approach seems like the way to go.
I always cruise the exhibits and will find somethhing new almost every year. The national exhibits used to provide a way to meet really knowlegable people who really knew the ins and outs of their product, the applications that were a great fit, and the applications that were problematic. Although most reps at the local level are pretty good, this provided an opportunity where local representation was inadequate (or non-existent). This is still true in many cases, some manufacturers will staff the booth with local reps instead of sending in the big guns.
I don’t mind a big show (although CSI’s exhibit hall did get to the point of almost being too big). I like the personal contact and the opportunity to explore something personally in greater depth than I might if I were surfing the web.
I do feel that Hanley-Woods has not done a particularly good job with the CSI Show and wonder about a possible conflict of interest. I had heard that they promised AIA that they would bury CSI when they took over that show.
I do, however, also wonder if the “product show” model of contact, lead, and education that seemed to be successful until the early 2000s is dying or at least changing significantly.
If partnering is the solution for a national product show involving CSI, then teaming up with another trade association or a builder’s group might be a more logical fit than AIA or the USGBC.
From the point of view of an idealistic specifications writer, I see others on the project design team who write construction specifications … and actually contribute to the content of the Project Manual … whom we “CSI-ers” could/should have collegial relationships, to foster production of better specifications. I’m thinking of consultants and industry associations for roofing and waterproofing, doors and door hardware, paints and coatings, lath and plastering, curtainwalls, all of the engineering disciplines, and our good friends, the landscape architects. Facilities and construction managers and cost guess-timators should be included too. And maybe “sustainable design” consultants and even building code authorities and fire & life safety consultants should be included.
Getting together with these at local, regional and national venues, and grappling with matters of common concerns (including spec writing) could result in better bidding and construction documents.
The product show component would be an adjunct to such get-together. How much would it be worth to building product manufacturers to be let in on (exhibit at) such a gathering? It would certainly have different dynamics than an AIA or USGBC convention and its mega-show.
GreenBuild has a very different attitude from CSI’s toward exhibitors: it’s very hard to be both a first-class citizen at GreenBuild and an exhibitor. There’s a big cultural difference in the organizations. Also, savvy exhibitors send different people to GreenBuild than to CONSTRUCT: send your best green marketers to GreenBuild, but send your strongest technical leaders to CONSTRUCT. I would hate to see CSI relegated to small fish in the big GreenBuild pond. I doubt AIA would co-convene with CSI, but if it did I suspect we’d have the same problems with culture clash and being relegated to a “pavilion”.
I agree with Peggy: if CSI is to partner, we’re better off partnering with a better fit for us. I liked being part of the facilities manager show. An owner’s group or a contractor show could also work. Does DBIA have a show?
As for Peter’s and Ken’s comments that the “product show” model is changing, I quite agree that exhibitors stuck in their booths seem less effective at making contact at the larger shows. I don’t want to give my name to fifty companies only to hear from them three weeks later with a two-inch thick catalog I didn’t request… at smaller shows and more one-on-one interactions, I get immediate and personal connections with people who can help me do my job.
What I get from the big shows is mostly a chance to see far-away colleagues and learn from national experts. But if I were bearing the full cost of those shows, without the subsidies exhibitors provide, I am not sure I could go every year as I do now. I make sure to work the show floor, but lately doing so has felt like fulfilling my obligation to the exhibitors, not a business need for me. Luckily, I always stumble upon one or two things I need next week back at the office, and to my mind that justifies the time spent on the show floor.
Re “send your best green marketers to GreenBuild”: Actually, it would be much smarter to send your best green technical experts to GreenBuild, as marketers often come across as greenwashers when they don’t know the answers to simple technical questions about why their product is sustainable. Attendees at G-Build want much more than spin.
History has a way of kicking you in the rear. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s the AIA approached CSI about combining shows. The AIA had fledgling product show and they were looking to jump onto our ship. The person in charge told the AIA to go away. CSI had the largest show then displaying nearly 1000 booths. In the mid 1990’s the AIA hired a company to help make their show the best. The company vowed to put CSI show out of business. By 2002, the booth count at Dallas was 650, Phoenix last year was 250 plus or minus.
That company did what it said it would do. In twenty years the CSI show is one quarter of what is was 1993. All this because CSI said “no”. CSI practiced exclusion as opposed to inclusion.
The AIA got experts to run their show and CSI stood “pat”. I cannot help but wonder if CSI had invited AIA in if today we would have the largest show.
The bottom line is that Hanley Wood will do what it needs to do to be successful. The AIA, Geenbuild, and CSI will have little to say about it. I have worked closely with a company that produced a product show for the lighting industry and experience tells me that profit will drive decisions.
Personally, I believe Greenbuild will, for the short term, be its own show because their forum differs from CSI and AIA. AIA and CSI could easily be combined into one show. The platforms are similar and could be meshed one forum.
Good point, Peggy. Spin isn’t enough for any show, but GreenBuild attendees are especially adept at spotting it.
Lets take a positive look at this. Maybe CSI can make a positive impact with AIA. Think about how CSI can introduce technical training seminars for the architects since that has been diminishing through the years. One of the best conventions I went to had a bunch of seminars that was sponsored by CSI.
Great idea Alan even if the two conventions aren’t combined.
Who at CSI serves as liaison to AIA?