Over the last two months we’ve heard a lot of talk about competing cons and head to head match ups, and through it all I’ve said repeatedly that we focus on our events, our customers and delivering value. We see it as our job to deliver something back to the industries we serve, not simply take something out of it and the Diamond Retailer Summit (DS2, as they are calling it) is a prime example of that philosophy in action. Since the beginning of NYCC we’ve had a professional component to our shows that we hope facilitates the business of the business (licensing, rights, education, retailer growth, librarian education on collection development, educator curriculum development, etc) in addition to a massive gathering of fans.
I think the DS2 announcement that came out on Friday got a little lost in the buzz over our Star Wars Celebration announcement, but DS2 is mission critical to what we believe it is our job to do with these events. Our goal is to create environments where the right players are in the room to enrich their businesses, grow our industry and leave C2E2 or NYCC or any event we stage feeling like their business was better for being there.
We’ve been talking with our friends at Diamond for 4 years about doing a summit at NYCC and the timing and logistics just never quite worked, so it’s awesome that we’ll have a huge collection of retailers in Chicago for C2E2, it will make the event better for them and for all of the other publishers and exhibitors participating in the show, and that’s what are in the business of doing.
It’s worth noting that we’ve been talking with ComicsPRO for months and while DS2 is not ideally positioned on the calendar in relation to ComicsPRO we are working on some ideas of what we might be able to do with them and what they might be able to do at C2E2 as well.
Details are still be hashed out, but here are a few points from the press release that went out last week about plans for DS2 at C2E2:
Diamond Summit2: Focus On Retailing will kick off with an Opening Night Reception on Wednesday, April 14, with a full day of Better Retailing Workshops and Presentations planned for Thursday, April 15. Marking a different direction for the 2010 Retailer Summit, retailers can expect targeted, supplier focus groups throughout the day and keynote speeches from industry leaders at each meal time event.
Retailers will also enjoy complimentary admission to the Professional Only Preview of the C2E2 Show on Friday, April 16 from 10am to 1pm and will receive a valuable “coupon book” good for limited edition items, raffles, and sales—all redeemable by visiting select suppliers on the show floor.
This is where being the largest trade show organizer in the world comes in handy. As a company, traditionally speaking, the strength of Reed is to bring business people together to do business. It’s cool that we in the pop culture group have been able to turn that model on its head, but continue to add value to our customers at our pop culture shows by delivering the business of the business to them.
-Lance
