Volume 3, No. 18. September 26,2003
FUN EXPO Report
Presidential
campaign
Ken Vondriska worked his way down the 100 aisle of the Fun Expo show at the
Las Vegas Convention Center in Nevada. At each booth, he stopped, shook hands
with the proprietor and handed over his IALEI President business card. After
brief conversations, he moved to the next vendor. All the way down the aisle
it was stop, handshake, card, “how’s it going?” and onward.
He
looked like a man running for president, not one already appointed to head the
International Association for the Leisure & Entertainment Industry this
year. He even stopped at a Convention Center food cart where he handed its attendant,
Denise, a business card. “I was trying to get a free hot dog,” Vondriska
said later in defense; except that Denise didn’t sell hot dogs at her cart.
While
Vondriska got a certain amount of gentle ribbing for his campaign-style demeanor,
his purpose was nothing short of profound: simple, logical even, but something
rare for an association president at an annual confab. Over the three-day trade
show Vondriska intended to visit all 153 booths, give vendors a name and face
to the organization and get feedback from those vendors on the show’s traffic
and their problems or concerns.
“I’ve
been in this business 30 years,” said Vondriska, COO of International Theme
Park Services, Inc., “and one thing I know is if you want to keep your
customers happy, you have to go out and shake their hand and talk to them and
ask how they’re doing.” Vondriska “instructed” all the IALEI
board members to do the same. By the time he reached some booths, the vendors
told Vondriska he was the fourth or fifth IALEI officer to stop by. “I
think it’s important to put a face to the association,” he said. Or
many faces, for that matter.
“IALEI
owns half of this show,” he said, referring to the trade show CO-located
with the Amusement and Music Operators Association International Expo. “It’s
important to keep the suppliers happy.” One of the surest roads to happiness
for trade show vendors is heavy traffic, and that comes from increasing membership,
Vondriska said. IALEI just launched a new strategic plan with 12 goals that
he summarized in three primary objectives:
—
To improve the association’s education efforts by recruiting an education
director, by developing manuals and videos, and by “taking the show on
the road” with regional seminars.
—
To increase membership, currently at about 800 members including 200 suppliers,
by at least 25 percent by 2006. Vondriska calls that benchmark “aggressive,”
but the association is aiming to meet that target by attracting more FECs through
its education and member services, by courting small parks with attendance between
100,000 and 400,000—an initiative begun last year that also seems to be
bearing fruit, based on the small parks attending Fun Expo—and by courting
zoos. “They do the same things FECs do: birthday parties, sleep-overs,
souvenirs, food and beverage,” Vondriska said.
—
To improve Fun Expo.
Vondriska took his first big step on that final goal down aisle 100 with business cards in hand. “Every vendor here has had a positive response to that,” he said; even those couple of vendors with gripes. “I hope they remember that when they re-up.”
THE LOOP is written and produced by Eric Minton, Minton Enterprises, LLC. To see more examples of Eric Minton's work and Minton Enterprises services, visit www.ericminton.com.
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