View Tim Porter's profile
Friday, October 10, 2008
The Event Industry & The Cold War
I recently visited the Victoria & Albert Museum's exhibition "Cold War Modern", which covers the role played by art and design during the Cold War.
One of the central claims of the exhibition is that both the Russian/Communist governments and the Western/US governments overtly and deliberately promoted their own culture's excellence in design innovation as part of the ideological clash of empires taking place during the 50's-70's.
As well as this being interesting in itself, the topic of exhibitions kept cropping up throughout. Exhibitions were the key cultural battlegrounds where East & West showcased their brightest talents in a bid to show the world that their political system was delivering the brightest future to their citizens.
Admittedly some of these events were events staged purely for political reasons, and some were "World Fairs" where national pride is always at stake. However there were also events who's names are familiar to us today, such as Germany's building fair "Bau" where showcase constructions from some of the giants of the architectural world set the tone for a generation's buildings.
With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of Communism the need for ideologies to do battle for hearts and minds has of course receded, and with it the funding to make it happen - and the exhibition industry has also evolved over this period as well, driven to deliver more value for its paying customers at every edition.
But a part of me couldn't help feeling that today's "sales & marketing"-driven exhibitions, where "ROI" is - quite rightly - the mantra of exhibitor and organiser alike, have also lost something in the process of evolution.
Events still deliver as a marketing medium, but the battle for hearts and minds is now being fought in other forms of media - and it's hard to see many of today's shows ever being seen a battleground for ideologies, whether Communism vs Capitalism ..or even Coke vs Pepsi.
But, is that because the paying customer has found better media in which to wage their ideological wars - or because the trade show community has lost the imagination and lacks the aspiration to deliver a product that is anything more than 3-D cost-effective lead generation?
And if an organisers had the vision - and budget - to turn their event into somewhere where the critical ideas of their industry were debated, what would that do for attendance and ROI ....?
One of the central claims of the exhibition is that both the Russian/Communist governments and the Western/US governments overtly and deliberately promoted their own culture's excellence in design innovation as part of the ideological clash of empires taking place during the 50's-70's.
As well as this being interesting in itself, the topic of exhibitions kept cropping up throughout. Exhibitions were the key cultural battlegrounds where East & West showcased their brightest talents in a bid to show the world that their political system was delivering the brightest future to their citizens.
Admittedly some of these events were events staged purely for political reasons, and some were "World Fairs" where national pride is always at stake. However there were also events who's names are familiar to us today, such as Germany's building fair "Bau" where showcase constructions from some of the giants of the architectural world set the tone for a generation's buildings.
With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of Communism the need for ideologies to do battle for hearts and minds has of course receded, and with it the funding to make it happen - and the exhibition industry has also evolved over this period as well, driven to deliver more value for its paying customers at every edition.
But a part of me couldn't help feeling that today's "sales & marketing"-driven exhibitions, where "ROI" is - quite rightly - the mantra of exhibitor and organiser alike, have also lost something in the process of evolution.
Events still deliver as a marketing medium, but the battle for hearts and minds is now being fought in other forms of media - and it's hard to see many of today's shows ever being seen a battleground for ideologies, whether Communism vs Capitalism ..or even Coke vs Pepsi.
But, is that because the paying customer has found better media in which to wage their ideological wars - or because the trade show community has lost the imagination and lacks the aspiration to deliver a product that is anything more than 3-D cost-effective lead generation?
And if an organisers had the vision - and budget - to turn their event into somewhere where the critical ideas of their industry were debated, what would that do for attendance and ROI ....?
Labels: exhibition culture Bau Ideology event industry
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]