By RoBeRt Regis Hyle
Chuck Gunkel has seen the world
from both sides now. At least the
world of the exhibit hall for the IASA
annual conference. For 15 years, as
a member of the team at Swift Print
Communications, Gunkel was on the
floor as an exhibitor, trying to make
connections with the IASA members
in attendance. Two years ago, Gunkel
joined the professional staff at IASA
as vice president of business development and remembers the problems
vendors have faced.
“We had a webinar last month
with the exhibitors. There always is
a bunch of new ones and we wanted
to tell them everything that is going
on and the tools that are offered,” he
said. “We talked about how they can
get something out of this. You have
to make your booth fun, attractive,
and you have to be approachable
rather than hoping people will come
up to you.”
Traffic on the exhibit floor should
be great this week with the exhibit
hall game and the vendor connect
tours. All 216 booth spaces are sold
out as well as the vendor-connect
tours. Attendance could match the
2015 number, adds Gunkel, which
was a record-setting year for IASA.
Some things about the exhibit
floor go in cycles, including the size
of the booth space. “Booths used to
be big and then companies wanted
something a little smaller. Last year
the talk came back that some compa-
nies were looking for something big
again,” says Gunkel
The 2017 conference in Orlando
is already on Gunkel’s mind and the
exhibit floor there will include an
additional 20’x30’ booth.
One of the prime events on the
exhibit floor is the vendor-connect
tours. This year, IASA has scheduled
203 different tours and more than
900 people have signed up for the
tours.
“It looks like our most popular
tours are the emerging technology
tours,” he says. “Financial software
and systems has a lot of people
signed up. Business intelligence is
another strong tour this year. Those
are the three strongest.”
Gunkel explains IASA is careful
about putting together the descrip-
tions of the tours so the members
can see the vendors they are interest-
ed in meeting with and the vendors
get the right audience.
“We’ve been in communications
with a lot of exhibitors that have
hosted these tours before,” he says.
“We made sure the descriptions were
up to date and we ended up changing
some of them. It seems like every-
one wants the policy administration
tours, but not as many people go on
them. It’s not the lowest number, but
Making the vendor-connect tours
work is a matter of logistics and is an
annual issue. IASA volunteer Kim
Morton works hard on the maps.
It is also important to get enough
volunteers to lead the tours through
the crowded exhibit hall.
“We have some volunteers that
have come back year after year and
we hope that each year we make it a
little easier for them,” says Gunkel.
“Volunteers sometimes have things
come up and they can’t make it,
Exhibit Hall, Vendor Tours Grab
Spotlight for IASA Membership
Popular tours draw hundreds of eager shoppers to the show.
though. It’s the same for attendees. It
sometimes seems like we never have
enough tour leaders or attendees, but
if you look at the big picture, there
are hundreds of people ready to walk
the floor. We have some veteran tour
leaders who will lead both times for
the tours.”
Each tour will stop at up to 10
exhibitors and will last 50 minutes
long. IASA works to keep it to 10
people per tour and 10 exhibitors per
tour. “If you get more than 10 people,
depending on the size of the exhibit,
it doesn’t work because it is difficult
to get close to the booth,” says Gun-
kel. “Some tours may have four or
five groups stop by; others will have
six to eight tours stop by.”
This year, IASA is bringing back
one of the more popular games
for the conference: Texas Holdem.
Attendees will go to a booth, have
a conversation with the vendor, the
vendor will give them a playing card,
and they can bring their hand to the
IASA booth where the organization
will hand out 25 prizes that exhibi-
tors donated to the game.
“I know we had some good discussions last year with exhibitors that
the traffic in Vegas was good,” says
Gunkel. “We are hoping for the same
in San Antonio.” (
“it sometimes seems like we never have enough
tour leaders or attendees, but if you look at the big
picture, there are hundreds of people ready to walk
the floor. we have some veteran tour leaders who
will lead both times for the tours.”
chuck gunkel, VP Business Development, iasa
