WASHINGTON DC — Exhibition industry leaders gathered in the U.S. capital this week for the 2024 Lippman Connects Exhibition and Convention Executives Forum (ECEF).
The event saw its highest attendance ever, as professionals from independent trade show organizers and associations came together to network and share information and ideas.
ECEF 2024 brought 269 industry leaders to the Grand Hyatt Washington for a full day of training and product demonstrations. A key theme of the programming was how to ignite and harness disruption to create unprecedented experiences and events.
From using data and research to better understand audience needs to identifying niches to fill to providing relevant ROI information for CFOs, ECEF speakers covered a wide variety of topics focused on designing and producing the event of the future.
ECEF promotes information sharing and high-level relationships
Following Lippman Connects President Sam Lippman’s five key data points, Freeman Senior Vice President of Strategy Ken Holsinger dove into the organization’s data on what attendees and exhibitors want at an event, using Freeman’s XLNC framework.
In a keynote address, Melissa Medina, co-founder, CEO and president of eMerge Americas, shared the story of eMerge, which began as a story of a family taking a risk and coming to America to take advantage of more opportunities. It was in that same spirit of risk-taking and showcasing entrepreneurial roots that she and her father decided to launch a tech conference in Miami – eMerge Americas – and position the city as a global tech hub.
In the 10 years since its inception, eMerge has generated more than $3 billion in economic impact in Florida and helped create more than 10,000 jobs in the region.
“I’m really excited to see how far we’ve come in the last ten years,” Medina said. “Over 22,000 attendees, nearly 80% of whom are C-suite or above, nearly 300 sponsors and exhibitors, nearly 60 countries represented, and nearly 50 states. Two stats that particularly excite me are that we’re 40% women (tech conferences are very male-dominated and we continue to work to change that) and nearly 70% of our attendees identify as multicultural.”
The brand also created Miami Tech Month, which led to the creation of other tech events in the city with eMerge serving as the focal point for it all and positioning itself as the industry leader.
An Inside Look at CFO Decision Making
In a roundtable discussion, CFOs discussed what they consider when developing budgets and why they choose to invest in trade show attendance. When determining what constitutes a successful event, panelists explained that they consider whether they generate new sales, what types of attendees attend (C-suite or other levels), educational content and value, and whether their team is up to date on what’s happening and changing in the industry and market.
“I know from talking to attendees at my events that we host that they really appreciate the technology features, and I love hearing that they come back and say, ‘I was able to do all these meetings in less time,’” said Daniel Isanuk, CFO of Newman & Company.
“It means we’re more likely to attend that event — and maybe even at a higher level — because we’re able to navigate that event more efficiently,” Isanuk said. “What’s happened with technology and how it’s used in the (event) space is remarkable, so I would urge everyone to try to optimize that as much as possible for your attendees. It’s really about efficiency, so while we want everyone to be able to attend events, it’s really about where that time is best spent, what’s most convenient for your business, where your customers are, and for us who are making the decisions, making sure it’s easy for us to make them.”
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Teena Piccione, Global Transformation and Operations Executive at Google, spoke about transformative change within organizations and how leaders can encourage their teams to embrace change. She advised leaders to focus on small, easy wins at first, to build the confidence and momentum needed to make more radical changes to processes and the organization as a whole.
“If I can convince a small group of people to jump in, then I can start tackling the really tough problems that we need to solve,” Piccione said. “But I have to have some wins, because that brings confidence to the team, it brings excitement to the company and then they’re all willing to give you a little bit more money and carte blanche to do a little bit more with the teams that you have.”
Piccione also shared that it is extremely important to get younger generations on board with your mission, otherwise they could become the biggest obstacles to change.
“When you think about organizational change, and you have that North Star and you have the message, you have to have the hook for the industry to follow you and the employees who want to do it,” Piccione said. “Without those two key elements, it’s going to fail every time… It’s about how do you make changes to what you’re doing to make sense of the purpose that everybody wants to align with.”
Looking to the future of events
In a special segment of the event, Sam Lippman paid tribute to Freeman CEO Bob Priest-Heck, who will be retiring in July. Priest-Heck shared what he believes the future of the events industry will be through technology, including a strategy focused on search, simplification, accessibility, personalization, social responsibility and optimization.
“We live in a time of insane division, everything seems polarizing,” Priest-Heck said. “But look at us: here we are, united around what we do, with the idea that what we do matters. We can build bridges that go deeper, that cross the things that divide us. People come to events to experience, to learn, to network, to do business – and if you think about all the individuals who are at all the events we do around the world, that’s pretty huge.”
“We should never underestimate the power of live events to move the world forward, not just our individual businesses. I believe it remains the best tool society has to connect people in meaningful ways, in ways that transcend polarizing forces, by tapping into their desire to be part of something bigger and better. We build trust for solidarity, for progress, for innovation. It’s hard work, and it’s the best we do,” he said.
Greg Topalian, President of Clarion Events North America, then looks back at his predictions from 10 years ago and reflects on where the industry is today and where it will go next. He explains that offering VIP experiences and packages will be a major revenue stream for B2B organizers in the future and points out that the growing distrust of information channels presents a great opportunity for events to become a primary source of information and learning.
“Anytime we have the opportunity to listen and learn from a transformation expert (Teena) who has worked at AT&T, Fidelity and now Google, we have to say ‘yes,’” Lippman said. “And Greg is one of the stars of our industry who has the courage to honestly critique his 2014 predictions and predict our future through 2034.”
Christine Kiesling, VP of Customer Experience at Hargrove at Encore, and Erin Uritus, CEO of Out & Equal, closed the event by sharing how they’re leveraging the trends driving the event of the future to deliver better experiences and strengthen their events and organizations. Both highlighted belonging-driven design, fostering longevity, event value, in-between spaces, emotional impact, and technology-driven connection as trends driving the industry forward. Kiesling emphasized that while collecting data is important, doing something with it is also necessary.
The event was also a networking opportunity for attendees, who were able to mingle and network during the opening reception and various breaks throughout the programming.
The 2025 edition of ECEF will take place on May 28 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC and will be held in conjunction with the Conference and Exhibition Alliance Legislative Action Day on May 29.
Contact Sam Lippman at sam@lippmanconnects.com