Supercomm to show its new face next week

Since the March announcement that Supercomm would be delayed from June until October, the new management team behind Supercomm has been busy doing damage control and working to convince attendees and exhibitors alike that this once-mighty telecom event will survive the many recent changes that have threatened to destroy it.

Having worked hard to heal internal wounds, Expocomm Events, the  joint venture of Reed Exhibitions and E.J. Krause & Associates that is now running Supercomm,  will launch a new marketing effort next week to highlight the many changes to the  Oct. 21-23 trade show in Chicago.

In a wide-ranging interview, managing director Ron Matthews tackled some tough questions but remained cautiously optimistic about Supercomm’s future – which is now tied to the October dates and, at least through 2010, the Chicago venue. The key, from Matthews’ perspective, is that Expocomm Events combines Reed’s skills at running trade shows and the E.J. Krause expertise in telecom and technology – and none of the baggage of past Supercomms, TelecomNXTs, Globalcomms or NXTcomms.

“We know the history, but we aren’t carrying that baggage,” Matthews said. “We are seeing this through fresh eyes.”

What Expocomm saw at first was – and these are not Matthews’s words – a potential track wreck of a June show. While the switch to October did cause an outcry among exhibitors and attendees who had invested in hotels, event venues and airplane tickets, Matthews said he is certain the Supercomm that will happen in October is much better than the Supercomm that would have taken place in June.

As for the flood of complaints, Matthews said, Expocomm is addressing those, leveraging its industry experience and contacts.

“Over the past eight-plus weeks, we have spent the majority of each day on the phone, face-to-face with anybody who has any kind of issue,” Matthews said. “We held a Webinar, and we had an exhibitor meeting in Chicago to go over our marketing plan. We showed them exactly who we were going after and what we were doing.” 

Many companies were less concerned about the $50 airline change fees than about hotel deposits and larger financial issues, Matthews said. “What we have done, we have gone out to the convention bureau, to everyone in Chicago that runs conventions, to the people who book all of our hotels across all of our shows, and we have leveraged all these people we know and convinced them to shift the business to October and kill the penalties.

They need that business, and they need our business as a whole for the future. They want our business. We leveraged our contacts to get this done.”
Matthews said Supercomm organizers spent considerable time flying to meet people face-to-face and on the phone to resolve challenges. He believes the majority of this kind of problem is in the past, but added, “If something else pops up, we will get on a plane and make a few phone calls – this is important, these customers are important to us.”

The process of resolving the many problems has given Expocomm Events an opportunity to get to know more people in the industry as it has been helping them, Matthews said.

Some of the strategies that Matthews outlines for Supercomm ’09 sound familiar – reaching out to enterprises, especially those surrounding Chicago, for example, and looking beyond wireline telephony to wireless and more – but Matthews said execution of the strategy is key, and Expocomm can handle that. Perhaps more importantly, the company has been laser-focused on driving up attendance and especially attendance of key technology buyers and influencers.

“I know what we are doing is crafting a very segmented and targeted message to the right buyers,” Matthews said. “Who are the buyers, who are the industry sectors, what do they talk about , how do we get them together, what are solutions they are looking for – we can find the right content, education, exhibits and products so that they can have it.”

With USTelecom’s blessing, Expocomm has been reaching out to its members to stimulate attendance by key buying personnel – beyond just the chief technology officer – and working with independent associations as well to draw more of their members, Matthews said, realizing that independent telcos spend in the millions as well. “We want to have the right aisle density with the right number of buyers,” he said. “We want to make sure we don’t have a quality issue. We are talking to them about their buying process, buying teams. We will also be surveying people to make sure they have buying influence or buying authority. We have those questions on our registration forms and pre- and post-show surveys. We can discuss who we had because exhibitors demand it.”

Supercomm 09 will focus on “Broadband Life” with all its potential to enable broadband networks to address issues surrounding the global economy, healthcare, education, government and environmental issues.

Matthews isn’t predicting attendance and admits that given the current economy, which has affected virtually all trade shows and business-to-business travel, he expects challenges. When Supercomm 09 closes its doors, it will be up to the Supercomm board to evaluate the event’s progress and determine its future, Matthews said.