How will the trade shows your company produces look different once live events get going again?Īt the beginning of trade shows returning to in-person, there will be a bit of excited trepidation. Being part of a large company with colleagues across the globe, Informa does a beautiful job of keeping everyone updated and creating environments to engage and communicate with one another. With the team all now working remotely and technologies like instant messaging and video calls being adopted, the physical distance barrier is no longer a challenge and I’m very thankful for it. In the past, I’ve felt like a little moon orbiting around a larger planet. I have been 100% remote since my hire at Informa Markets, living in Los Angeles, with the rest of my team in Dallas, Texas. It has strengthened our capability to collaborate and become more connected. I’m learning to take more risks and breaking out of my comfort zone as I build out my fledgling Pilates training side-hustle, which, by the way, is 100% digital (like they are fond of saying in the tech industry, “eat your own dog food”). The pandemic brought out these skills in me, going beyond my job in the trade show industry. Mine is “The Maverick Leader,” noted as pioneering, irreverent and entrepreneurial. Years ago, I did Sally Hogshead’s Fascinate Test that categorizes individuals into 49 personality archetypes, which becomes your personal brand. What have you learned most about yourself during the pandemic? But even this challenge may be solved as augmented and virtual reality technologies improve and are adopted into the mainstream.
Reproducing a full trade show experience, especially for shows that require more tactile human senses to experience products, will continue to be difficult to replicate. Trade show organizers will be focused on sharing their events with all guests who want to participate but may not be able or are unwilling to travel. Those industry discussions over the past few years of “taking our events to 365 days a year,” well, that is here, and that’s a great thing. How do you think the industry will be most changed going forward?
Not just at the initial start of having to go from in-person to nearly all digital, but then crossing back again to in-person taking into account local, state and national restrictions, and maintaining safety for all the event stakeholders.
The biggest change for us was having to navigate our trade shows through completely unchartered waters.
What is the biggest change your organization has had to navigate during this challenging time?įirst, I’d like to say that all opinions expressed in this article are my own and do not represent the opinions of any entity I have been, am now or will be affiliated. TSNN sat down with Treanor to get his thoughts about the current state of the industry as it anxiously readies for a full comeback, the lessons learned from “the great pause” and how Pilates has kept him sane and fit during quarantine.
More than two decades later, this dedicated exhibitions professional has worked with some of the largest and fastest-growing trade and consumer shows in the nation, with a range of roles in trade show and conference planning, marketing, sales and management with Hanley Wood, dmg events USA, Comexposium and finally, at Informa Markets, where he currently serves as senior manager of content and community. When the association sold Surfaces to Hanley Wood Exhibitions, Treanor followed. That temp job soon morphed into a permanent position as the only staff member completely dedicated to the trade show. Right out of college, Paul Treanor landed a temporary gig fulfilling exhibitor promotional material requests at the World Floor Covering Association, the previous owner of Surfaces (now The International Surface Event – TISE).