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The EDPA and its members are in full swing with another highly active fall Tradeshow and Event Season. Of course, as if that demand isn’t enough, we continue to engage in activities centered on our Future Workforce initiative.
his month, on April 22nd, we celebrate Earth Day. Proposed by Senator Gaylord Nelson, from my great home state of Wisconsin, the original purpose was to draw the general public’s attention to environmental issues…
Member Blog - Sustainability
Al Mercuro, Member of EDPA Sustainability Committee
Senior Account Director at Apprupo and Genesis Exhibits-Tech Enhanced Experiential Marketing Solutions and Exhibits with Sustainability
My Path to Leadership with EDPA
Katina Zipay - Creative Director, Classic Exhibits Inc.
In December of 2020, EDPA began honoring young professionals who exhibit strong leadership skills with the “Future Leaders Award.” I was thrilled to be in that inaugural class of Future Leaders with nine other remarkable people.
Building our Future Workforce - during RECOVERY!
Michael McMahon - President/CEO, Hill & Partners and EDPA Future Workforce Chair
Just a few short years ago, the EDPA established our Future Workforce initiative, with the intent to gain insights about the growing demand to fill both existing, and entirely new, positions within the experiential space.
How EDPA Has Helped Me Become a Future Leader
While it is a charming idea that strong leaders were destined at birth for their roles, the truth is the path to leadership requires learning, determination, practice, and support.
Sustainability: PVC and Acrylic Recycling
As our industry continues to ramp up, and we settle into new trends and directions the industry and our clients take us, we have an opportunity to make a significant and lasting impact.
After the Covid Fog
The good news is that the convention business is beginning to wake up, with events coming back on the calendar with some regularity. We expect to see a steady increase in show participation by exhibitors in the coming months once the short-term impact of the Covid Delta Variant has subsided. Some events have already restricted attendance to vaccinated persons — this trend is likely to continue.
What I've Learned In The Past Year
By Christopher Dorn, Managing Director, Idea International
I'm not going to repeat what you've been reading everywhere else. But, the fact is this past year, as brutal as it has been for all of us, was also a learning experience—at least it was for me.
THE EDPA AND ADVOCACY
By Rob Cohen, VP Display Supply & Lighting
The Covid 19 pandemic has hit everyone hard and in so many different ways. Too many people became ill, some very seriously ill, and far too many have died. Families have been left suffering, not even being able to grieve properly and mourn the losses of loved ones. All of this is nothing but tragic.
Life Long Learning, with my peers in the EDPA
Sometimes, the sting of failure causes a shift in priorities, while other times we laser in for another attempt. These are the moments that mark transition in the form of interest and pursuit, passion and path or cut and run.
Larry Kulchawik Author- Trade Shows from One Country to the Next
Way back in 1997, I was honored to serve as President of EDPA. The company I worked for at the time was Exhibitgroup, a division of the Greyhound Corporation. They also owned GES (Greyhound Exposition Services). I served a role in management and we were required to present our profitability quarterly.
Stay the Course with EDPA
2021 is here, and we’re all hoping for a much better year for our industry. We look forward to reopening and the sense of health and safety that vaccines and GBAC regulations will provide.
You’ve heard it: “never let a serious crisis go to waste.”
This certainly applies to the COVID19 crisis…its impact on the world, our industry, our business, our families, ourselves.
But unlike other disruptions (9/11, 2008 economic crisis), COVID19 is more difficult. It’s an invisible disease without a cure that shuts down how we live, work, recreate, and engage others. In short, it causes paralysis of “doing what we do every day.”
Disclaimer: I am directing this to the “Ds” in EDPA. Yes, you. “D” as in designers. My tribe. The people who face the same challenges I do. Every. Single. Day.
What challenges, you ask? Well, let’s take the usual ones like budgets. Undisclosed budgets. Insufficient budgets. Unclear budgets. (That budget includes WHAT?) Shifting budgets, usually shifting downward. Or timelines. Impossible deadlines. How about RFPs that come from procurement? Do we respond to procurement—or do we craft our responses for marketers? How can we let procurement people know that our products are not commodities? Then there’s the challenge of the exhibit managers who want to impress their bosses by report how many scanned bodies visited the exhibit as opposed to reporting what type of experience those visitors had?
Although Exhibit Designers can come from many backgrounds; Industrial design, Architecture, Fine Art and other majors, we are fortunate within the EDPA, that the University Affiliations Committee (UAC) has been building strong relationships with Bemidji State University (BSU) and the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), for well over ten years. Although some other colleges may offer a few exhibit design classes, BSU and FIT are currently the only two colleges within the US that offer degrees specific to exhibition design…
by Jamie Zavoral Brown and Jim Obermeyer
We all know more and more of our US-based clients are venturing into international waters in the trade show world, and we all talk about it at our industry conferences and events. But when your client asks you to actually do it, it’s time to step up and make it happen. And that requires trusted partners around the globe. This is the story of one such adventure…
The highlight of the Exhibitions Day trip for me was the day before our day on Capitol Hill. Some of you may not be aware of a growing concern facing our industry --- the state of readiness of our future workforce…
No question about it: whether business to business or business to consumer, we’re faced with a plethora of choices. Decision making has become a difficult process—and when it comes to managing a significant budget item, there is pressure to make not only the “right” decision but one your company can live with…
Sustainability is often achieved through modifying our behavior and natural resource usage in a way that maintains ecological balance. I say behavior, because without adopting consistent action that favors the environment, we risk a future that is simply unsustainable. As members of an estimated $44.8 billion dollar exhibition industry, our contribution to production and program activity plays a huge role in both revenue and impact. So, some might say that we have an obligation to deliberately support sustainable practices that can make a difference…
It’s Spring here in the Northeast, and members of the EDPA in this area of the country are emerging from winter darkness to gain a peek at business results from the first quarter of 2019. We are all better off if collective results are favorable, and I know I speak for all of us when I say that we would like our industry to continue to prosper. Which is reason enough to make a commitment, finalize those plans and head to the windy city to connect with each other again…
In the morning, shuttle buses delivered us to Capitol Hill armed with our message. We were instructed numerous times that comfortable shoes were essential, and that was great advice. The halls of Congress occupy multiple buildings sprawled over a massive campus. Appointment times were preset with our respective state representatives, and many of us were surprised at the warm receptions we received from our elected officials.
There are less than five events per year that I consider “must attend events” if you are a trade show and event professional. And a new one just made my list: EXHIBITIONS DAY --- the one day a year that leaders in our industry travel to Washington D.C. and kibitz with our elected officials and leaders to talk about the important issues facing the meetings and convention industry. ..
This past December at ACCESS in Naples, our EDPA membership was invited to embrace information consumption as a way to acquire the raw materials needed to innovate and move our organizations forward.
My experience within the EDPA over the years has been filled with interactions with owners and industry partners that are dealing with the same issues that we have. I found that there are ways to look critically at what we are doing and evaluating whether we indeed are heading in the right direction…
In 2014, I gave a presentation at EDPA ACCESS for the first time. The subject? Millennials in the Workplace. As a Millennial myself, I was curious to understand how my generation was perceived. But even more than that, I wanted to know how generations could not only work together but also learn from one another. I believed then—and still do—that we all have our strengths and that our industry gives us many amazing opportunities to share what we know with others. For me, intergenerational learning is one of the unique advantages associated with being an active participant in EDPA…
Last December, I had the opportunity to go to EDPA ACCESS, an industry conference held annually in Carlsbad, CA, where I collided with some of our industry’s leading financial professionals. As Controller at Hill & Partners, I followed the Management track at ACCESS and attended sessions with CFOs, controllers, directors of finance, presidents and owners alike, meeting people from around the world and discussing the challenges and concerns we face within our organizations…
I have been attending EDPA’s ACCESS Conference since 2006. While I have been in the industry much longer, I could never quite justify the cost to go. When I started a new company in 2001, justification was even tougher. But by 2006, I was feeling like I needed to be more connected with the whole industry, not just the few local suppliers and competitors I talked with on a regular basis…