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Feature - Show business. The days of 'monster' IT events are well and truly over, having been replaced by smaller, more specialist gatherings.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Nick Booth.

Everyone hates trade shows. Salesmen hate being cooped up on a stand for hours or days on end, giving out leaflets to people who are only interested in getting a freebie.

Many of the badge-wearers are only using the show as an excuse to get out the office. They whiz once round the hall, hoovering up leaflets to prove they went on this 'fact finding' mission, before disappearing off to the pub for the afternoon.

In the good old days there were only two or three shows that called for your attendance, and there was usually one show that the whole industry went to: Compec was the original monster computer industry extravaganza.

Then, in about 1989, it got killed off by the Which Computer Show. This too eventually petered out, because the Network Show became the de facto IT industry summit, as the whole world annually descended on Birmingham's NEC in June. So unmissable was this show that people would sacrifice the one decent hot day we're guaranteed every summer, just to listen to a load of marketing managers yammering on about how the network was the computer.

Not any more though. We don't do big shows in this country any more. Anyone who loves trudging round endless halls for days on end has to go to Germany to satisfy their craving. Cebit in Hannover continues to cater for every type of IT, for every type of industry. But there are no such generalist shows in the UK. They are smaller and shorter instead. And since many specialist shows barely fill their venues, no one is going to need two days to wander around them.

Shows have become far more specialist. There seems to be an IT show now for every vertical market. Often there's more than one show. The Retail Technology view for business with Retail Solutions, is likely to cannibalise some of the audience for Business Continuity in Retail. For any IT manager or finance director in retail, there are endless excuses to disappear from the office for at least half a day.

For IT salesmen, this new development must be a nightmare. Instead of one big grandstanding show, in which you could meet the entire industry over the course of three...

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