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When the Health Industry Distributors Association, Alexandria, VA, held its annual trade show last month in Chicago, it marked the second consecutive year that Physician Sales and Service, Jacksonville, FL, held its national sales meeting in conjunction with HIDA's event. By colocating its meeting, PSS, one of HIDA's largest members, saves money and time for its vendors, most of whom would have attended both shows in two different cities. Whether they take the colocating route and hold meetings concurrently or actually divide responsibilities for programming and share financial risks and costs equally, associations are exploring the benefits of joint meetings. The impetus for conducting joint meetings is often simply convenience - for members and for the organizations themselves. For associations that have similar missions and serve members with similar needs, combining resources to appeal to a wider audience can save time - and sometimes money - for everyone involved.

Like-minded associations are partnering to host joint meetings and seeing promising results.

WHEN THE HEALTH INDUSTRY DISTRIBUTORS Association, Alexandria, Virginia, held its annual trade show last month in Chicago, it marked the second consecutive year that Physician Sales and Service, Jacksonville, Florida, held its national sales meeting in conjunction with HIDA's event. By colocating its meeting, PSS, one of HIDA's largest members, saves money and time for its vendors, most of whom would have attended both shows in two different cities. Although each organization develops educational programming separately, the meeting schedules coincide to ensure that PSS can participate on HIDA's trade show floor.

"PBS's group is exactly what a lot of our exhibitors want to see: sales reps, management, and active companies that are interested in our exhibitors' products," explains Lesley Walsh; HIDAs vice president of industry relations and trade show. "What PSS brings is a very large audience. That is a big benefit for our exhibitors. For PSS, it's a cost savings and they are getting a big industrywide presence by being active and visible at our trade show."

Whether they take the colocating route and hold meetings concurrently or actually divide responsibilities for programming and share financial risks and costs equally, associations are exploring the benefits of joint meetings. In light of the economic toll September 11 took on the meetings industry, some association executives are looking at joint meetings as a costsavings measure and a means of reducing travel for members. Others, as Walsh points out, are simply "looking for ways to continue to boost attendance and bring in more members."

Your place or mine?

In HIDA's case, each organization has its own meeting planning staff and pays for its own event. IDA works closely with PSS to secure room blocks and meeting space, and also provides shuttle service to facilitate transportation between the PSS meeting and the HIDA trade show. "As members of our association, they do not have to pay to access our trade show floor," Walsh notes. "And they are able to take advantage of our special room rates negotiated for a much larger group." Beyond that, however, PSS is pretty much on its own financially.

Other organizations that colocate their meetings do have some overlap in programming. The National Council of Youth Sports (Nlv YS), Stuart, Florida, reached an agreement with TEAMS: Travel, Events And Management in Sports, an annual conference and trade show for the sports event industry organized by Sports?'ravel magazine, Los Angeles, to hold its annual meeting in conjunction with TEAMS.

"We are incorporating programming that would occur at NCYS's annual meeting into our schedule and also allowing anyone who would have been an exhibitor at their meeting to be an exhibitor at our larger trade show," explains Tim Schneider, publisher of SportsTravel and Association News. "Financially, we structured our arrangement such that NCYS will come out ahead of where they would have been had they held their meeting separately. We also hope to be able to say the same thing."

At press time, Schneider expected 750 attendees at the October conference in Chicago, which would represent a 15 percent growth over the previous year's attendance. Schneider worked with NCYS Executive Director Sally Cunningham to create breakout sessions that were branded as an NCYS track but open to TEAMS general attendees as well. This allows prospective members to be exposed to NCYS, Schneider points out. Parts of the conference, however, are branded under that organization's name and open only to NCYS members while other parts are branded under the TEAMS logo.

"In our publicity for the event, which includes direct mail, e-mail blasts, and broadcast faxes, we have highlighted this relationship," he says. "We include the NCYS logo on all of our mailings. In its promotion, NCYS includes the benefits of full participation in the TEAMS conference as another reason why members should attend. NCYS is able to benefit from the literature we create, and we're able to benefit from having access to their membership base. We're really trying to structure a win-win arrangement."

Conducting a colocated event increases the amount of communication that's necessary, he continues, because you are building a relationship and making joint decisions. During the months of negotiations, the organizations gained a better understanding of each other. "It's important to have a baseline knowledge of each other's goals," Schneider advises. "We tried to be as specific as possible in the agreement about which parts they would be responsible for and tried to eliminate things we though would come up as issues. "The key thing is communication and honest sharing of what the goals ans objectives are for each organiza0tion," he adds. "Then it's making sure those goals are compatiable enought that both organizations will realize them in this cooperative setting." Schnieider's group planned to survey NCYS members after the event to determine whether the two organizations will meet in conjunction again next year.

Joining forces

The impetus for conducting joint meetings is often simply convenience-for members and for the organizations themselves. For associations that have similar missions and serve members with similar needs, combining resources to appeal to a wider audience can save time-and sometimes money-for everyone involved. In 1996, three appraisal societies signed an agreement to sponsor a joint conference for the profession and divided the responsibilities among the groups: the American Society of Appraisers, Herndon, Virginia; the Appraisal Institute, Chicago; and the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, Denver. ASA took the lead on planning and managing the conference and acting as bookkeeper; the Appraisal Institute was responsible for the educational programming; and ASFMRA handled the trade show.

"We spent three years after the contract was signed having meetings among our staffs and volunteers at regular intervals to design the conference," recalls Edwin Baker, executive vice president of ASA. "The conference included meetings of six appraisal societies, a three-day education program supported by the sponsoring organizations and 12 others, and social events. A significant part of what went on during that process was cultural-- getting the three organizations to understand how the others worked. That was the biggest challenge."

The meeting, Valuation 2000, held at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in the summer of 2000, attracted about 1,750 attendees-a major accomplishment, according to Baker. The associations agreed to keep society affiliations off of participant name badges as well as speaker and course identification. Baker believes this resulted in registrants signing up for courses outside their areas of expertise.

"We had the benefit of an appraisal profession where most of the members do the same thing even though they belong to different societies," Baker says. "What we were putting on was equally attractive to everyone. 11 Although all parties regard the event as a success, Baker says the conference just barely broke even. "Even though there wasn't a profit to split at the end," he adds, "it was worth the investment."

All three associations are currently planning another joint meeting in 2005. They plan to market more aggressively, perhaps expanding to include an international audience. Baker contends that the conference didn't do well financially because of "the amount of time and money that was spent up front getting to know each other, rather than just focusing on the conference planning. It was felt that having the various society annual meetings in conjunction with the education program added complexity and cost that detracted from the overall program." Making these adjustments next time around and focusing solely on the three-day educational program will improve results, he believes.

Baker and the other executives are also recommending that the conference meeting planning and trade show be outsourced in the future. "The cost savings in hassle and grief will more than pay for the cost of outsourcing, 11 he notes. "It came off in our case [dividing responsibilities among parties] but at a huge cost in time and energy." He suggests that executives considering joint meetings "start planning a long time in advance. It's going to take longer than anybody believes.

"Be sure that all of the partners really have the same goal: to advance something bigger than the individual societies," he continues. "And offer a program that is really attractive to members of all of the groups."

Careful deliberation. As with any partnership, it's important to consider the caveats before leaping in. Executives concur that a written ageement is crucial to spell out the terms of the arrangement. Even with a contract in place, however, issues can surface. The National Association of Trial Lawyer Executives, Tallahassee, Florida, and the Association, Washington, D.C., have been holding meetings concurrently since the 1970s. "We recognized that many off our members would also have functions at ATLA meetings, so it was a matter od convienve and making the logistics easy on our members," says Kathleen Wilson, CAE, NATLE executive director.

NATLE develops its own program, geared toward executive directors of state and local associations, but opens sessions to ATLA members, who are attorneys. NATLE collects its own registration fees, but ATLA counts those attendees toward its room block. WIlson conceeds that the arrangement doesn't always work to NATLE's advanmtage.

"The difficulty is that because ATLA is such a large meeting, they go in and take over the hotel space," she explains. "It really puts our organization at the mercy of ATLA when it comes time to plan meeting space and to get the rooms we need. On our own, we can't compete-we do a meeting that would only draw 100 participants; ATLA draws 3,000 participants."

Wilson acknowledges that by holding its meeting concurrently, NATLE strengthens its relationship with the national organization and increases attendance at its own meeting. But, she notes, "I cannot go in and negotiate for space or audiovisual needs. There is no negotiating that goes on on my part. We're at the mercy of what has already been contracted for." Other conditions of the arrangement: NATLE members must be registered for the ATLA meeting to be eligible for accommodations in the room block, and NATLE cannot compete with ATLA by holding its own trade show. Although that does limit one potential revenue source for NATLE, the organization is still able to get sponsors.

Wilson encourages associations to consider a joint meeting arrangement and recommends getting involved early on in the negotiating stages to articulate your meeting space needs. "If you are negotiating five years out, your organization's needs are going to grow," she points out. "Anticipate the growth of your meeting. It requires lots of open communication."

She advises national organizations to pursue joint meeting arrangements