Panelists, including Kai Hattendorf, foreground, CEO and managing director of UFI, the global association of the exhibition industry, watch a new commercial from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) during a news conference at the Aria convention center Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2023. The news conference highlighted the 90th UFI Global Congress which will open at the convention center on Wednesday.
Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023 | 2 a.m.
Hundreds of executives from the trade show industry will descend on Las Vegas this week for a nearly century-old event taking place for the first time in the United States.
The UFI Global Congress, which brings together exhibition organizers and trade show operators, will run today through Saturday at Aria, where 500 industry leaders across 50 markets are scheduled to discuss trade shows and their destinations. About 20% of participants at the UFI Global Congress, now marking its 90th year, will be from the U.S., said Kai Hattendorf, managing director and CEO of UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry.
“We’re reinventing this event every year for our global community,” Hattendorf said Tuesday, during a panel about the event at the Aria. “And they are eager to come, and also eager to meet the national leaders … and we’re also going to have around 100 of our 500 participants from the U.S., because they’re eager to connect with that international community.”
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority Board of Directors approved a $760,000 investment in June 2022 to host the event, which last year took place in Muscat, Oman.
Las Vegas boasts 15 million square feet of meeting and convention space, and it is on track to return to pre-pandemic levels of trade show occupancy this year, said Steve Hill, president and CEO of the LVCVA. As of September, the city had already hosted 4.5 million convention attendees, tourism officials said.
“And if we didn’t have that, this place wouldn’t look good,” Hill said Tuesday. “If the week’s weekdays were slow and the weekends were busy, we couldn’t afford to build the spectacular properties and venues and opportunities that you see throughout the city. And the meetings and trade show industry during the week is what allows that to happen.”
UFI, which Hill called the “pinnacle” of the trade show industry, will be incredibly beneficial for Las Vegas as it increasingly markets itself as a destination for businesses.
“UFI is where our biggest customers — this city’s biggest customers — gather to take this industry forward,” Hill said. “And we are proud that they are here in 2023 and that we get to be a part of this. There is no better opportunity for Las Vegas than to bring our potential customers here to let them see what the city has to offer.”
The UFI Global Congress making its U.S. debut after almost 100 years can be attributed to both the efforts of people in Las Vegas to bid for it, as well as a mutual “growing interest” between the global and U.S. business communities, Hattendorf said.
Michael Duck, president of UFI, added that it was important the Paris-based organization hosted the event in different places to stimulate businesses in each host city.
Las Vegas is doing a lot to bring in new ideas and new industry, and hosting the congress here was “serendipity,” Duck said during Tuesday’s panel, which also included remarks from Stephanie Glanzer, chief sales officer and senior vice president at MGM Resorts International.
“I think it’s also important for our industry not to be seen to be boring but exciting,” Duck said. “… So people are here to experience Las Vegas.”
Attendees will discuss the state of the global trade show industry, as well as industry issues like sustainability and staffing, and have the opportunity to collaborate with one another, and especially with those in the Las Vegas and U.S. markets, Hattendorf said.
UFI intentionally connects the hosting region with the international industry each year, he said, and hundreds of matchmaking meetings are already on the books for U.S. businesspeople to meet with their global counterparts.
“The informal conversations that we’re able to have, the connections by having these leaders here just elevates the entire industry and elevates Las Vegas,” Hill added. “Us getting the international perspective — just different ways of thinking about doing things — has been helpful for us already and will be really helpful because they’re all here this week.”
The U.S., China and Germany have the most relevant exhibition industry markets in the world, Hattendorf said, and UFI is already in the latter two countries about every 10 years. Similarly, he said he expected the organization to return to the U.S. sometime before 2035.
One of the biggest roles UFI plays in the event industry is bringing people together from around the world, Hattendorf emphasized, so that they can collaborate and ultimately drive progress forward.
“This is the global annual congress for the people who do international trade shows — so it’s very meta,” he told the Las Vegas Sun. “We do events for the people who do events for everyone else. And so, it’s one of the most difficult audiences to work for, because they all know everything — but also one of the best audiences to work for, because they’re all eager to be part of it.”
