Volume 1, No. 20. November 20, 2001
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In the October
19 issue of THE LOOP, the original version of the World Waterpark Association
trade show round-up cited WWA officials saying attendance was down 20 percent
over the previous year, and that seemed optimistically fuzzy math. The "fuzzy
math" comment was based on the fact that for much of the show, traffic in the
exhibit aisles and convention halls was notably sparse.
WWA President and CEO Rick Root responded to that line with numbers that, far
from being fuzzy, went four digits past the decimal point. Counting all classes
of attendees, attendance was 86.322 percent of what the association registered
at the 2000 trade show in San Antonio, Root said. Removing vendors and journalists
from the equation, attendance was 81.3838 percent of the 2000 show, he said.
I reposted the story with these figures, and I mention it here as a pointer.
Often associations and trade shows blur their attendance figures, feeling that
the more numbers they can boast, the more important their show appears. They
may have important shows, but the merits of any trade show and convention can
only be measured in results: the amount of potential and actual business a supplier
achieves on the trade show floor, the education and sense of value attendees
get out of seminars and social fellowship. The WWA, mounting a show in the face
of the September 11 attacks, an apparently floundering industry, and the loss
of its own 20-year leadership, didn't flinch from its responsibility to pursue
these kind of results though knowing it would lose the numbers game.
Consequently, the show proved how cosmetic attendance figures can be as vendors
noted their preference for quality over quantity. In that sense, the WWA Trade
Show was a refreshing revelation.
Root pointed out that he's legally obligated to provide accurate figures to
his membership as far as attendance. True, but here's a salute to straightforwardness
and, more importantly, proper perspective.