It is rare these days to hear of trade show successes in the IT Enterprise space. I know first hand having been dealt a blow with our launch and crash of cdXpo back in 2003.

Little did I know that while we at Jupitermedia were spending a ton of money on trying to create the next Comdex, that we had our hands on a gem of a trade show called ITSMF USA -- IT Service Management Forum.

The history: ITSM is geared to CIOs and CTOs of large organizations that utilize ITSM theories to run their operations more efficiently and economically. The movement started in England many years ago and has spread around the world. The American chapter decided to start a trade show and seminar on the topic in 2001. Jupitermedia ended up getting the contract to run the event never thinking that the effort would develop into a AAA event. We run the ITSMF every September. The show was slow to percolate. But starting in 2003, progress was apparent. The 2004 show in Long Beach attracted almost 700 paid attendees and 61 exhibiting companies. The 2005 event at McCormick Place in Chicago already has 81 companies under contract and we have five months of sales in front of us!

Take a look at the exhibitor list. These are the very companies that would have been on a "Comdex" floor in days of yore. But now such companies are flocking to this vertically focused show. And along with these companies and their increasing numbers we can most likely count on increasing paid seminar growth.

The point of this post is a theme I have been pushing for several years --- that the days of horizontal trade shows are over. Nothing typifies this fact more than the success of the annual ITSMF event. I will keep you informed about the growth of this show as we approach September.