Welcome to PR Vibes™, created by Calysto Communications to provide you with key insights into the publications and events in the communications industry. 2012 not only will be a transitional year for the International CTIA Wireless show, but a transformative year as well, according to Robert Mesirow, CTIA vice president and show director. Here he talks about why the dates were moved for one of our top tier industry trade shows and the event going forward. Enjoy!
The International CTIA WIRELESS® 2012 show will take place May 8 – 10 in New Orleans, Louisiana at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
CTIA Wireless will take place during early May in 2012. How did this come about?
Approximately a year and a half ago, CTIA reached out to the McKenzie Company to do background research on the marketplace, what would be most appropriate timing for the event, competitive analysis, things like that. From that report, we then went out and surveyed our constituency in depth. We determined that we have a crowded first quarter and because of the way buying cycles have shifted and shortening time frames for product announcements, an event in mid-second quarter would be more appropriate. Our research basically confirmed what we had been thinking. And this is just the beginning of the process.
Will the show stay with a mid-second quarter time frame?
Yes. We’ve been considering this for a long time and we wouldn’t have changed the show dates unless we were absolutely sure. It’s going to take a little adjustment because companies have been announcing everything in the first quarter and now they can spread it out more. What we’re hearing is people are stretching to get everything out in Q1 and this gives them another opportunity to do something in a unique way, as opposed to just releasing a product. For the large events, the industry tends to gear up and make more significant announcements if they can tie it in to something. Now they can think about back to school and fourth quarter holiday promotions, and May is a good time for these announcements.
Why New Orleans?
It’s very difficult to move the 40th largest trade show in the country in just a couple of months. One of the drivers for going to New Orleans was that they really came up with the best date package; that was a big piece. New Orleans is going to be a great destination and I anticipate a terrific event in New Orleans. We’ve received lots of enthusiasm for the location, as well as the date, so we are very pleased.
Will New Orleans be the home base for the show in the future?
For 2013, we’re looking at all options again. We could certainly end up back in Vegas, which seems to be a perennial favorite amongst our constituency. Or it could be New Orleans. It is all consensus-driven, so if our constituency wants us to keep New Orleans in the rotation, then that is absolutely what we will do. Only certain cities can accommodate the show now (International CTIA Wireless 2011 had 40,000+ attendees and approximately 1,000 exhibitors): Las Vegas, Orlando, New Orleans and Chicago. San Diego is expanding, so that may be an option in 2014 as well.
You mentioned that this is just the beginning of the process. Can you expand?
We continue to reach out. We just had an advisory board meeting with VP and SVP- level folks from the carriers, as well as key suppliers. We received more feedback, got some interesting findings, as well as proposed action items that we will be pushing to make the event an even better place to be. We are putting together an advisory group on the developer side and on the retail side to obtain more data in terms of driving the direction of this marketplace.
We survey our group all the time, but we’ve done a lot more phone work, going deeper than normal, to make sure we are reaching the right people, asking the right questions, and just as important, the right follow-up questions so we receive the right guidance. The surveys have validated our thinking.
CTIA Wireless has really evolved to the point to where it’s a series of verticals that are stacked together to make a horizontal marketplace. One of the things we want to make sure is that we are moving in the right direction and that we are focusing in the right areas. This is a marketplace discussion, a discussion on what is happening inside of wireless, which is so diverse, and being selective about ways that we can take the show.
We’re really just at the very beginning of this journey and changing the dates is really just the start. We’re looking at 2012 as a transitional year, but it’s also going to be a transformative year for CTIA Wireless. Literally lots and lots of things are going to be new and different and there will be more to come.