Our company dropped out of the SAE World Congress a couple years ago. It is/was the largest automotive engineering events that was the place to be, ten years ago.
I find this announcement at the close of this year’s event fascinating:
Changes on horizon for SAE 2010 World Congress
“The whole idea is to go to three days on the event and focus only on those exhibitors who have truly new and innovative technology and can qualify by way of writing a several-page white paper submitted to a committee of OEMs,” said Thomas J. Drozda, Group Director, SAE International. “Ford is the host, and they’ll participate, and we’ll recruit other OEMs to sit on a panel and look at these papers and decide, ‘yeah, that’s new technology that’s good to have at Congress.’”
Catch that? The exhibitors will be selected based on having new/innovative technology to display, as well as technical/white papers that back up that technology.
Makes sense … people come to shows to ‘see what’s new’ primarily. If they crank up the quality of the reason people come, I think it could make for a more interesting place to be. Of course, this means the exhibit becomes a side-show to the conferences and sessions going on during the Congress. But maybe that’s how it truly should be.
Like lots of other ‘old-school’ media, the trade show needs to change dramatically. While this is an obvious down-sizing of this event (which used to fill every nook and cranny of Cobo Center), the change of focus actually increases the value of the show.
What do you think? Is this a smart move? Or just an excuse for a dying event?