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While NPE had a dedicated Recycling and Sustainability Zone at the Orange County Convention Center, dozens of sessions about innovations in sustainability were delivered at multiple locations throughout the OCCC. (Photo courtesy of MPE2024: The Plastics Show)
Everyone I know who has designed and delivered a successful event truly deserves a gold medal — it’s hard work that often goes largely unseen. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the making of NPE2024: The Plastics Show, that casts a light on the efforts and initiatives that contributed to the event being the organization’s most successful yet.
Working with 360 Live Media, NPE2024 attracted 51,000-plus attendees to Orlando, Florida, May 6-10 — 63 percent of whom were first-timers with three out of 10 under the age of 40. There were 133 countries represented at the event, which included two sold-out exhibit halls at the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC).
Jack Macleod
Align on Success Metrics
It had been six years since the last NPE was held (the event is usually held every three years but was skipped during COVID), so one major goal was to reestablish its international audience, which typically represents a significant portion of registrants. The challenge? Do it on a budget, of course. The solution was collaborative — the content, sales, and marketing teams worked together to develop scores of barter agreements and strategic partnerships that significantly increased the international marketing reach without incurring advertising costs. International registrants represented 30 percent of the total 2024 attendance, up from 27 percent in 2018.
NPE2024 partnered with organizations, including media, tech, and even other events, that had strong followings in strategic markets and industries naturally adjacent to the plastics industry — automotive, packaging, consumer goods, building and construction, and medical — to market the event. This integrated approach helped attract new attendees, engage exhibitors and sponsors, and make NPE2024 the most international show in its 78-year history — all key metrics for the event’s success. (Read a previous The Spark column on 360 Live Media’s KPI framework, the 6 Rs: Relevance, Reach, Retention, Reputation, Revenue, and ROI.)
Understand — and Collaborate to Deliver on — Your Audience’s Needs
Knowing the motivations of your audience enables you to design an event that delivers real value to them. The main value proposition of NPE is the buy/sell experience — evidenced by the fact that the sales team sold out two halls at 1.2 million square feet. Yet data also indicated that attendees, exhibitors, and sponsors wanted more educational content. The challenge became: How do we incorporate new learning sessions into the event without distracting from its already successful trade-show floor? Having our sales, marketing, and design teams share insights in real time for more than a year leading up to the show — a truly multidisciplinary approach — helped to come up with creative solutions, including placing multiple stages throughout the exhibit halls to offer education on targeted topics such as sustainability and innovation.
To identify ways of improving your event, ask provocative questions like: If we were starting from scratch, how would you build this event differently? What can we be the best in the market at? What would it take to double the attendance of our event in the next five years?
Make Sustainability Front and Center
Reducing waste and improving sustainability are major challenges in the plastics industry and NPE2024 became a platform for the conversation around building a more circular economy. More than 100 exhibitors participated in the on-site recycling program, earning them a recycling badge in their exhibitor listing and recognition in the mobile app.
NPE featured on-site recycling demos and dozens of sessions dedicated to innovations in sustainability delivered across multiple locations throughout the OCCC. To reduce the carbon footprint of the event, NPE worked with exhibitors and partners to ensure that any eligible plastic scrap generated before, during, or after the show could be recycled.
In 2018, NPE diverted 535 tons of material from landfills. While the final 2024 data isn’t in yet, that number is expected to be significantly higher since much of the machinery that was built and working on the show floor is more efficient in its use of materials than in the past, resulting in less waste materials when the show concludes.
Jack Macleod is president of 360 Live Media, a full-service events company.
On the Web
Learn more about NPE2024: The Plastics Show at the NPE website.