Exhibitors share best practices at 5pEXPO 2021

Conference programme of the 11th International Forum of the Exhibition Industry 5pEXPO 2021 continued with a number of events for industry professionals.

A workshop titled “Welcome, or No Trespassing! Event management technology in the new realities" was held for organisers of convention and exhibition events.

The restrictions associated with holding of mass events stroke a violent blow at the market players, practically having put many of them on the brink of survival. Today, everyone, without exception, needs to adapt to the new working conditions, which are unlikely to change in the near future. It is important not only to preserve the established contacts, but also to find new directions, relying on the experience of colleagues, as well as modern technologies that allow for organisation and holding of events, experts say.

The workshop moderator, Deputy Director General of EXPOCENTRE AO Vladimir Gubernatorov noted the changes in the industry's working methods due to the pandemic. “At the same time, these difficulties have given new experience and created new formats for our industry functioning. We need to figure out how we can continue to work, while ensuring the normal operation of the economy in the industries that are developing relying on the convention and exhibition activities”,  Vladimir Gubernatorov said.

Expo industry experts spoke about their practical experience of holding events in new realities, the use of digital technologies at exhibition venues, new services and IT solutions for event organisers.

"Exhibitions, Conventions and Event Tourism as a Tool to Promote Territories" - this was the topic of a session organised at the 5pEXPO 2021 forum by the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It was attended by experts from regional chambers of commerce and industry, exhibition community, travel industry and event industry.

The session moderator, General Director of the R&C Exhibition Research Center, Darya Ostrovskaya, invited her colleagues to focus on how the events help to form the territory brand.

Answering the moderator’s question about how the events contribute to the regions’ promotion, Director of the National Convention Bureau Sagid Zaremukov highlighted the short-term and long-term effects of the successful impact of the events on the territories development. He referred the growing demand for services, including travel and hotel services, to short-term consumer spending. And in the long term, for large, especially international events, the territories receive investments for the development of infrastructure, new jobs, construction of new facilities, an inflow of capital investments in those industries, with which the event was associated.

Specific examples of the impact of the events on the development of regions were given by President of the Union Vyatka CCI Andrey Usenko, Executive Director of the ANO "Project Office for the Development of the Event Organisation Industry" Natalya Evnevich, and other participants.

The discussion participants noted that the tandem of the convention and exhibition activities and tourism favorably affects the growth of the target audience of the industry events in the regions, contributes to an increase in professional sites for certain events. The session participants also discussed current trends in convention and exhibition activities, event tourism, digitalisation and technification of events, increase of the efficiency of successful models of interaction between tourist operators, event agencies, and exhibition companies.

An interested substantive conversation took place at the expert session “It is as easy as pie to build a booth!” organised by EXPOCENTRE AO, the Russian Union of Exhibitions and Fairs and the Union of Exhibition Developers. The event was devoted to the discussion of issues related to the formation of the proper budget for participation in the exhibition, the choice of a developer, the creation of a design project according to the booth budget, management of the project cost, interaction between exhibitor - developer - organiser.

The session moderator – EXPOCENTRE’s First Deputy General Director Sergey Selivanov said the session’s topic arouses great interest among the professional community, since it is impossible to imagine participation in the exhibition without building a booth, with rare exceptions remotely. The success of participation in a particular event directly depends on the quality and reasoning of the exposition.

He also noted that exhibition developers were the first in the exhibition business to be hit economically by the pandemic. “Fortunately, the industry has survived, and we hope that there will be no more such shocks,” said the moderator.

Andrey Ambartsumyan, Executive Director of the Union of Exhibition Developers, made a detailed analysis of the current pricing for the construction of booths, with regard to the period of the pandemic suffered by the companies. Ekaterina Teveleva, General Director of Grata Adv, spoke about the specifics of determining the cost of design projects development. General Director of 4vida LLC Viktor Zarudny devoted his presentation to the methodology of calculation and management of the booths cost. Alexander Mikhnevich, Executive Director of Expoconsta LLC, also took part in the discussion.