Innovative new exhibitions by: Kenny Lo, Chief Executive, Vertical Expo Services Co. Ltd., Hong Kong, China

1. 2010 UFI Open Seminar in Asia
Innovative New
Exhibitions

2. Innovative New Exhibitions
Topic Development
- Wild thinking
- Getting ideas from internets, exhibition
directories, journals, news letters etc
- Sharing in industrial gatherings

3. Innovative New Exhibitions
Topic Analysis
Potential prospects
How many prospects in the region? Is it enough to support a
trade show?
Trading status
How trading is carried out currently, supplier-buyer relationship,
fixed or variable enough to support trade show?

4. Innovative New Exhibitions
Topic Analysis
Competition
How many competing events in the region, in the global, any
room left?
Major risk assessment
Major risks encountered if starting the show, government
regulation, social perception, cultural and religion
considerations etc ?
Are all these can be handled, what if, to the project, to the
company?

5. Innovative New Exhibitions
Project Planning
Venue selection
Cost, culture,
Timing
Any sourcing seasons, avoid overlapping with other global events
Positioning
Trade or public, or both?
Partners
Local: Advisory board, major players, relevant associations if any,
local government
Global: organizers in other regions

6. Innovative New Exhibitions
Project Planning
Visits to global events
Networking, learning, partnership building
with the organizers, sharing with global
players

7. Innovative New Exhibitions
Case study 1

8. Innovative New Exhibitions
First Edition
Time
April 23 - 25, 2008
Venue
Macau Tower
Positioning
Trade exhibition only + int’l conference

9. Innovative New Exhibitions
30 conferences and concurrent activities
2000 + buyers , delegations, funeral professionals
from over 36 countries/regions
20 groups from USA, Japan, Korea, Malaysia,
Mainland China, Hong Kong, Philippines, Singapore,
South Africa and Taiwan
Exhibitors from Denmark, France, Germany, Japan,
Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Netherland,
USA.
17 media from around the world

10. Innovative New Exhibitions

11. Exhibitions

12. Exhibitions

13. Exhibitions

14. Exhibition

15. Exhibition

16. Conference

17. Reception

18. Reception

19. Visits

20. Visits

21. Social Night

22. Social Night

23. Social Night

24. Social Night

25. Experience Sharing
Topic
- Every body knows things related to death or funeral is
traditionally a taboo in Chinese society. Extra attention was
made when preparing the fair.
- In the fair environment, we deliberately make the lighting of
our venue brighter, backdrops and decoration using brighter
color like yellow and green theme color to avoid the so call
secret/scare feeling
- It is important to educate the society AFE is a professional
trade fair involving only buyers and suppliers just like other
trade shows such as furniture fair.

26. Experience Sharing
- Due to its uniqueness, it draw lots of exposure from
local and global media. Fortunately, all the
comments are very positive with most of them the
first time visiting fair of such kind.
- But still in Chinese society, the topic is more or less
some thing some people unlike. This may create
problem in finding professional venue, especially
within those complex with other entertainment
facilities.

27. Experience Sharing
- In its 2nd edition, AFE is moved to Hong Kong due
to area constraints in Macau.
- To our surprise, we are requested by some Non
Government Organizations (NGO) in Hong Kong to
open some parts to public for educational purpose.
In some booths of NGOs, they even offer the elderly
to experience lying down in a casket. Elderly were
queuing up to try. We had over 100 visitor groups
from local elderly centres with over 3,000 elderly
visiting.

28. Experience Sharing
2nd Edition of Asia Funeral Expo in 2009
No. of booths: +50%
Visitor countries/regions: 36 43
International Media: 17 39

29. Experience Sharing
AFE is 1st and only funeral show endorsed
by the US Department of Commerce
Major funeral fairs in the global:
Asia: Asia Funeral Expo
America: NFDA Expo
Europe: Tanexpo (biennial)

30. Innovative New Exhibitions
Case Study 2

31. Innovative New Exhibitions
First Edition
Time
December 4 -7, 2008
Venue
The Venetian Macao
Positioning
Trade exhibition + 3 Public days (Dec 5-7)

32. Innovative New Exhibitions
Exhibitors from Australia, Canada, Chinese
Mainland, Holland, Hong Kong, Japan,
Macau, Spain, Switzerland and United States.
It attracted the attention and extensive report
of over 80 media from around the world.

33. Innovative New Exhibitions
Trade visitors from 25 countries and
regions such as Australia, Canada, Chinese
Mainland, Denmark, Dubai, Finland, France,
Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan,
Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines,
Poland, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan,
Thailand, UK, United Arab, and USA etc.

34. Innovative New Exhibitions
It attracted more than 15,000 public visitors,
43 % of them were female and 55% were
couples
A concurrent event Hong Kong-Macau Sex
Cultural Festival with more than 10
educational talks run in parallel during the
show period.

35. Exhibition

36. Exhibition

37. SM Machine from Spain

38. Exhibition

39. Exhibition

40. Bad Boys and Bombshells from
Australia

41. Pricasso, Penile Artist

42. Promotion girls

43. Body painting

44. Mr Kato Taka, Japanese AV Superstar

45. Fortune Teller

46. Japanese BDSM Truman Show

47. Model from Australia

48. Condom tree by Durex (0ver 20,000
comdems)

49. Performance

50. Performance

51. Sexual techniques sharing by
Japanese AV star

52. SM Demo

53. Penile painting (with cover)

54. Performance

55. Sex Education Talks

56. Product Standard Seminar

57. Local fans

58. Photo Session

59. Young couples

60. Visitors

61. Female visitors

62. Foreign Fans

63. Experience Sharing
Topic
- quite sensitive, not as a taboo as funeral in
traditional Chinese society but may touch on moral
issues
- Welcomed by young couples and new generations
Potential risk:
- legal: government censorship on stage program
- objections from religion and education bodies
- damage to company image

64. Experience Sharing
Research and new findings
- in research stage, major traders and
suppliers were contacted. Surprisingly, in
contrast to traditional thinking, over 50% of
the business comes from female market such
as novelty and lingerie.
- sex toys are now very popular among
young couples or lovers

65. Experience Sharing
Target Visitors: young couples and female
famous male performers from Australia, Badboys
Pricasso, the world’s famous penile painter
Instead of AV actress, we had “golden finger”, Mr
Kato Taka

66. Experience Sharing
Educational talks for young couples
Cosplay shows instead of lingerie shows
No naked or topless performance

67. Experience Sharing
To differentiate from so many Sex Culture Festivals in different
cities of mainland China, we have to make our show
“Professional”.
all the performers and models are invited from overseas,
Australia and Japan
medicine suppliers are NOT allowed to join unless they can
show license from Macau Health Department as such kind of
exhibitors comprised over 1/3 of exhibition booths in Sex
Culture Festivals. But they are usually selling faked products.

68. Feedback
There were over 80 media, local and
overseas
They include newspapers, magazine,
television, radio, online media etc.
There were over 200 news clippings, all very
positive on the show

69. Experience Sharing
2nd Edition of Asia Adult Expo in 2009
No. of booths: +70%
Visitor number: 15,000 25,000
International Media: 80 100

70. Experience Sharing
Major adult fairs in the global:
Asia: Asia Adult Expo, Venetian, Macao
America: Adult Entertainment Expo,
Las Vagas
Europe: Venus Expo, Berlin, Germany

71. 88 things to do in HK by CNNGO

72. 88 things to do in HK by CNNGO

73. 88 things to do in HK by CNNGO

74. Challenges and Opportunities
We are always exploring new topics, new ideas in order to
create more room for the development of the company.
Lots of effort and resources have to be invested to make sure
the right topics are chosen.
New topic offers you opportunity but also risk. Risk
management plays a big role when developing innovative
topics, especially when trying out some thing that never tried
before in the country or region.
Risk and return have to be carefully assessed making sure that
they are well balanced.

75. Challenges and Opportunities
To overcome the traditional mis-
interpretation on some sensitive topics, it is
important to show our PROFESSIONALISM.
We have to tell the government/society and
the relevant industry that we are in neutral
position and professional to provide a
platform for the upgrading of the industry.

76. Challenges and Opportunities
Besides commercial return, great job
satisfaction is offered to the project team
when innovative topics are materialized. This
helps to maintain a relatively low turnover in
manpower for the company.

77. Thank you
We welcome cooperation and partnership on
any innovative topics.
Thank you very much
email: kenny.lo@verticalexpo.com
www.verticalexpo.com