Last year, the the Trade Show Exhibitors Association took the management of its TS2 event away from National Trade Productions to manage it in-house. Then this fall, TSEA sold the "trade show about trade shows" to NTP to "get out from under" all the bother and expense of putting the thing on, according to TSEA president Michael Bandy, who, according to Steve Miller, just resigned (though he still was on board as of Dec. 15, when a press release went out about the subject of the next sentence). And now, they're starting up a new program called the Strategic Exhibiting Conference.
Which leaves me with the pithy comment, "huh?" After announcing they were jettisoning TS2, Bandy did say they were looking to focus on educatng and advocating for exhibitors, and this new event holds true to that. But the association's recent moves make it seem like an organization that is unclear on what direction to take or, in election-speak terms, a flip-flopper. And we all know how that turned out.
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