Convention Data Services held its summer Advisory Group meeting July 28-30, 2008 in Providence, Rhode Island. The Advisory Group is comprised of CDS clients who meet annually to provide insight and discussion on all aspects of the event industry.

Many discussions at this year’s meeting focused on exhibitor ROI. With the current economic downturn, there is an increased focus on delivering solid value to exhibitors in the form of networking opportunities, qualified attendees and tools to evaluate their exhibiting efforts.

Products and requests from the first meeting held in 2007 were rolled out and demonstrated to the Advisory Group at the 2008 meeting. A new list of product and service requests has been compiled and is being evaluated and scheduled for production in 2008-2009.

Convention Data Services’ new Business Unit Teams—called Event Teams—take event services to the next level of flexibility and responsiveness. Teams bring together expertise from registration, IS and quality control and gives them direct ownership of a portfolio of events.

As a show manager, your event team makes the knowledge, decision making ability and production assets available directly to you with the sole intent of servicing your event. This access keeps the lines of communication wide open and greatly reduces turnaround times.

What are the Advantages?
There are many advantages to our clients as well as to the team itself.

• Team Ownership − the team makes their own decisions and schedule
• Direct Communication − clients speak directly with those responsible for performance
• Streamlined Development − increased responsiveness and decreased turnaround times
• Centralize Knowledge − team members are the experts for their assigned events
• Consultation − the team supports the clients with best practices and recommendations
• Metrics − measure team performance and set standards for other teams

The team concept was first launched in July of 2008 and will be rolled out to all our clients before the end of the year.