ASAE’s 2010 Annual Meeting & Exposition, held next to the new LA Live entertainment district Aug. 21-24 at the Los Angeles Convention Center here, demonstrated some positive signs both for the association and the meetings and conventions industry.
According to John H. Graham IV, CAE, president and CEO of ASAE, the meeting attracted approximately 5,300 participants, which represented an increase approaching 30 percent over last year’s number of registrants.
The buyer-seller ratio was also impressive, coming in at 60 percent buyers to 40 percent sellers, although because of the demographics of the association’s members, not all buyer-side attendees are considered decision-making buyers.
“Face-to-face attendance is up,” Graham said. “Clearly, some of the people I’m talking to say their attendance is up to 2008 levels.”
Although Graham may be seeing an increase in face-to-face attendance, he said the association was hoping for more virtual customers to take part in the 2010 annual meeting.
“We were disappointed that we only had 213 people participate virtually,” he said. “We thought it would be higher.”
Graham did note that about half of the people who paid to participate in the virtual program had representatives from their organizations in attendance, however.
In what he described as a key indicator of the improving health of the industry, Graham also noted an increase in posting on ASAE’s job board, and while the “position wanted” numbers were not quite at pre-recession levels, they are rapidly climbing.
This year’s conference marked the beginning of a new core brand for ASAE, which in previous years went by the moniker ASAE and The Center for Association Leadership and ASAE and The Center.
According to Graham, the move will improve the name recognition of the association and also improve the fundraising capabilities of its renamed ASAE Foundation.
Major initiatives announced at the meeting include: separate subgroups handling small-staff associations (fewer than 10 members) and secondary associations (30 or more members); the hiring of an account representative for large-staff associations to help with issues such as career advancement and training; an expansion into the Pacific Rim region; and a move to offer four editions of a digital publication, while lessening the frequency of its print publication to 10 times per year.
The association announced it is relaunching its website to be more user-friendly, and it also has produced a mobile application named MY ASAE that is available in Apple’s App Store.
