When there's blood in the street, there's money to be made. Now is the time to re-write the manual.

Conferences and trade shows have some big big challenges in the next few years. We can't just put our heads down, hold our breath and wait for the weather to clear. It's time to kick it up a notch, re-think, re-engineer, disrupt.

1. Air travel sucks, so fix it.

Last summer, a Travel Industry Association study reported that Air Travelers Avoided 41 Million
Trips because of "deep frustration." More than 60% believe the air travel system is deteriorating and almost 50% think it's not likely to improve. People hate going to the airport.

What if we extended the show experience out to the customer's front door? Send limos to pick up everybody in town. Put folks from the same cities on the same flights. Hold a reception at the gate. Comp drinks and branded snacks in the air. Handle the bags to the hotel. Make the flight to the show social, fun, collegial ... useful. (Some Fortune 100 CEO events do this kind of thing now.) Maybe it's only for a select few: top 200 buyers, the people from Chicago and Atlanta, the customers of the anchor exhibitors, the ten-year show veterans. It would cost some money and take a lot of organization, but it'd be worth it.

2. ROI dominates, so prove it.

63 percent of event industry CEOs believe this year will be worse than 2008 as travel and marketing
budgets are slashed. Every nickel has to be justified, so figure out ways to count things better than they've ever been counted before. Get sensors and cameras and watchers to analyze traffic compulsively: by day parts, time-in-booth, eyeball-hours, sales booked by exhibitors, money saved by attendees, leases signed, coupons redeemed, the ratio of new sales to miles traveled. Incent stakeholders to report their numbers -- anonymized if necessary. Generate a million stats in four colors and take-home Excel sheets, and make the flow of commerce the star of the show.

3. Virtual meetings encroach, so out-dazzle.

Meetings are not merely about content. If they were, we'd have gotten rich selling tapes and CDs of past conferences, and everybody could stay home and watch the content on TV. But most webinars are just sales nerds reading out their Powerpoint decks, and a lot of virtual events are buggy, confusing and drab. Nothing beats the dazzle of a live show: intense, entertaining, social, star-studded, aspirational. Pour it on: Turbo-charge every speaker and give the audience clickers to keep them on topic. Stage debates and crossfires and shouting matches. Placeshift the podiums onto video screens in the middle of the bar. Webcast the stars and the key issues. Get people touching and feeling the latest gee-whiz products. Cajole the industry's movers and shakers to rub elbows with the masses, and make sure there's plenty of stuff that's never been seen before.

4. Carbon scolds rule, so ante up.

Whatever your feelings about global warming, there's no percentage in bucking the Zeitgeist. Flying and driving and staying in hotels makes a lot of CO2. But the same people who help you calculate your carbon footprint sell carbon-offset indulgences to expiate your sins -- at a price. Do all the common sense things to reduce, reuses and recycle, and then chart it all to make sure your audience knows how green you've gotten. (God bless 'em, event producers have already launched green media trade shows to capitalize on the trend.)

5. Demagogues bluster, so head 'em off.

Nowadays in fields like finance, government and healthcare, "hospitality" is a dirty word. Politicians and headline writers scan the horizon for corporate spending on events that are “frivolous”, “arrogant” and “irresponsible.” Be sure there's no untoward frivolity touted in the attendance brochure, and keep an eye out for photogenic excess on-site. Showcase your high profile virtuous persons and causes, support your industry associations' codes of ethics, and maybe appoint an ethics ombudsman to monitor compliance. (Here again, event producers offer help.)

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Survive this recession by out-thinking and out-doing the competition, bringing people together face to face. After all, event peeps were social media before social media was cool.

--Jack Powers, IN3.ORG