The Intertraffic NA/PIE Conference and exhibition is over. A total of 1505 attendees went through the doors over the three days of the event. That’s about 50% more than any parking event held in the US.
I would have preferred more. However the parking industry held up its end, with more than 65% of the attendees coming from parking. And there were some pretty big guns in attendance, too., Monroe Carell of Central Parking was there and buying — he was looking for equipment for their stadium and event operations — He spent an entire day visiting exhibitors.
There were delegations from parking operations from the Cities of Baltimore, Washington DC, Wilmington, DE, New York and Philadelphia, Denver, Portland, Los Angeles, Phoenix, plus numerous from smaller towns and cities throughout the country. Operators the likes of Central, Standard, PMI, Colonial, Denison, and a myriad of smaller firms plus major developers from LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC, Houston, and other cities.
Colleges and universities were well represented too, with groups from Texas, Maryland, Pa, NY, Mass, Del, NM, AZ, CA, IL, OH, the list is almost endless.
Exhibitors always want more, and I agree, that a show of this size should produce more, however, the quality was there, and the numbers were there, too. I was disappointed by the response from the transportation side of the business, since its bigger than parking and we expected more. We will be analyzing what happened in that arena, and will report back later.
All in all, a good show, with some hiccups. We learn and fix them. Next year we are back by ourselves with PIE in Chicago — see you there.
I’m off for a week’s vacation. See you in October
JVH
One Response
John: I am surprised to see that no other exhibitors have posted comments regarding this entry. Citation Management was an exhibitor and I was on the floor Tuesday and Wednesday. Overall the show was valuable to us because of our base of customers in the Northern Vriginia and Maryland areas. The Baltimore location made is easier for them to attend and we had a very succesful event at Camden Yards on Weds night. Overall I was disappointed by the lack of traffic on the exhibit floor and I was surprised to see the attendance numbers, I would have guessed at far smaller number.
I have been thinking about the discrepencey between the attendance totals and the lack of traffic on the exhibit floor and I suspect that part of the problem is that there were no food and/or beverage events on the exhibit floor during the entire show. Our experience at other shows is that when free food and drinks are available during scheduled events or receptions on the floor the attendees tend to circulate and visit the vendor’s booths. Perhaps you might consider this when planning the next show.
Gary Smith
President
Citation Management