NeoCon East 2017

On Wednesday and Thursday last week I joined members of the East Coast design community, 150 exhibitors and various dealers, reps and other industry types in Philadelphia for NeoCon East. While many of the notable industry manufacturers took a pass this year, those I spoke to who chose to exhibit, were pleased with the turnout and the event. Several of them reported strong project leads and business opportunities as a result of being there.

According to Julie Kohl, Vice President of Exhibitor Sales, NeoCon Shows, “Our exhibitors enjoyed a great turnout of decision makers from top A&D firms and major corporations as well as several federal agencies and representatives from GSA. There were high caliber conversations and connections over the last couple of days. This should result directly in competitive advantage for those companies taking part.”

And I can agree with all that, with perhaps one word change – from “great” to “good.” In fact in my view and the view of the majority of manufacturers I spoke to, the only truly busy time was the afternoon of the first day. Had that level of attendance carried through more of the event they would have been ecstatic, but as it was, the general feeling about attendance was “good but not great.”

High quality – yes! Great numbers with a good representation from New York and Washington, D.C. – not so much.

With the afore-mentioned 150 exhibitors, four excellent keynotes and more than 25 CEU seminars, the NeoCon East team put together a terrific package. And exhibiting companies did gain valuable direct contact with some key architects, designers and their corporate and government clients. But as much as it may hurt to admit it, the turnout by both exhibitors and their intended audience was less than most stakeholders had hoped for.

So that brings us to the talking about the elephant in the room: what to do about NeoCon East. If you read my article before the show, you’ll recall that the big furniture companies didn’t deign to participate. No doubt for very fiscally responsible and valid reasons. Perhaps one of the key reasons is a history of lackluster support from the design community. We can only hypothesize why more designers don’t take a morning or afternoon to attend, but again we assume it’s for valid reasons – tight budgets and clients unwilling to “go with,” or pay for or even allow the time for a day of exploration.

Then there’s the general lack of interest in our industry by end users – or even knowledge of it for that matter. The bottom line is that while on paper it might appear that regional shows should be important – in our busy world they don’t create the participation needed to warrant the time and effort to produce them; especially at the level TheMart Team produces a show.

It’s a chicken and egg conundrum: without the promise of huge crowds the industry’s leading companies won’t bother spending the considerable sums required and without the leading companies on display the design community and potential end user clients won’t bother attending.

The two biggest European shows dealing with workplace furnishings, Orgatec in Cologne and the Offices edition of the Milan Furniture Fair (now branded Workplace 3.0) are biennial. Maybe for an industry where innovation is quite often simply a marketing term, checking out new products every other year is often enough for the client audiences.

By tradition and as a matter of good business, during the show the NeoCon team usually announces “mark your calendar” dates for the following year. Despite its best efforts and faced with the reality of its inability to draw a sustainable level of participation, the team announced that it would take a break in 2018 and return with a revamped edition in the fall of 2019. Perhaps moving to an every-other-year format will be the solution.

I sat down with Ms. Kohl and Lisa Simonian, Vice President of Marketing, Consumer Shows to learn more about their thinking. Ms. Simonian said, “We are only interested producing a trade show of the highest quality. So in terms of NeoCon East we’ve decided to take a year off, talk to the various stakeholders and do our best to meet the needs of all concerned. What we’d really like to understand is how we could produce a show that begins to duplicate the excitement and participation of NeoCon itself. A post NeoCon trade show with national significance.”

Amen to that!