SNE Collaborates With Rival Show

2007 MEETING (JULY 28- AUG. 1): Meeting in Chicago during the same time period as another food science convention could have been a negative for the Society for Nutrition Education (SNE), but it decided to take advantage of the overlap with the Institute of Food Technologists (ITF). Attendance dropped from the prior year due to the competing conferences, but SNE reaped other benefits.

CHALLENGE: With budget cuts across the food science industry, SNE members have felt pressure to trim expenses. Mary Ann Passi, CAE, SNE's executive director, sees a trend of attendees coming to the conference every other year, as well as being forced to choose between budgeting for membership or for conference attendance. So the association needed to present the two conferences together as a way to get more value out of attendance.

INITIATIVES: This year SNE collaborated with ITF instead of having its own exhibit hall to get inexpensive passes for SNE attendees to ITF's large trade show. SNE opted for an informational tabletop display format. "The overlap allowed us to save money on not having our own decorator, etc.," Passi said, "but it also cut into a revenue source for the meeting." Overall, 200 SNE attendees visited ITF; 49 IFT attendees visited SNE.

Special Report: Clevland, Ohio

Small and mid-sized meetings account for 75 percent of the Cleveland CVB's bookings, but bigger meetings are in store: Cleveland has a funding stream in place for a new center. Negotiations are also under way to create a state-of-the-art medical showroom, or Medical Mart, in town. The center would complement that effort, creating facilities for an anticipated 50 medical meetings a year, in addition to other conferences and trade shows. "Since the convention center initiative we've been getting quite a few calls," said VP of Sales Kelly Brewer, "mostly from our colleagues saying we've now officially become a competitive threat." Home to renowned health care institutions, Cleveland is a perfect fit for Medical Mart.

Holiday Causes Scheduling Conflict

EVENT: American Academy of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery/Foundation (AAO-HNSF) Annual Meeting and OTO Expo 2007

MEETING (SEPT. 16 -19): Eight to 10 related societies typically meet in the days preceding the AAO-HNSF annual meeting. Overlapping memberships mean the arrangement works well for members who want to attend both conferences, and association leadership can interact as well.

CHALLENGE: Since Rosh Hashanah fell on the day that the related organizations normally meet, they adjusted their patterns. The revised meeting schedules caused an overlap with AAO-HNSF. So AAO-HNSF needed to help mitigate the impact of the holiday on the other group's attendance … while not hurting its own showing.

INITIATIVES: "We had unavoidable overlap in programming on a few days which did change our demographics slightly," said Mary Pat Cornett, CMP, senior director of meetings and exhibits for AAO-HNSF. "However, the groups worked well together to minimize the negative impact on our mutual attendees." Three societies co-sponsored a day of programming open to registrants of each of the societies. AAO-HNSF will revise future bookings to avoid the Jewish holiday conflict.