Much has been written about the state of the trade show business. I have been in the middle of the discussion (or the outside!). Regardless, nobody would disagree that trade shows in the tech and IT space are hurting. We at Jupitermedia have launched many new shows since 2001. Some have worked and many others have not survived. At least Jupitermedia is in there pitching as many companies continue to run trade shows that are in death spirals. And rather than try something new, these companies are paralyzed in the hope that their old shows will miraculously revive (the best example is Comdex, but Comnet is another of many such examples).

I admit failures and have done so often. Which brings me to the next Search Engine Strategies (SES) show taking place in San Jose August 2-5. This show is astounding by the standards of what I mentioned in the first paragraph. SES is growing every four months (we run three shows in the USA and five overseas, but for this post I am dealing with the USA shows). The August show is now over 10,000 square feet of exhibit space at the nosebleed level of $50 per square feet. The previous show in New York City (March) had 6800 square feet of exhibition space. Paid attendance is marching in lockstep with exhibition space. AND, four companies signed up for exhibition space in the previous 12 hours.

We are fortunate to own SES. But we would not be in this position if we did not try new events. Our Digital Rigths Management Strategies (DRMStrategies) show looks to be another big winner for us too.

The key is originality and being willing to fail. As a public company we are penalized sometimes because Wall Street does not like failures. Quarterly numbers can be effected by a bad show. But one has to keep pushing and not worry about that pressure. I for one like to think of the British Army SAS (Special Ops) motto when I run a company: "Who dares wins."