\u201cBlue Sky Meetings\u201d Create Solutions to Challenges Facing National Retail Federation\u2019s Trade Shows<\/span><\/p>\n Once a year, National Retail Federation staff members and key stakeholders gather together and brainstorm on how they can not only solve challenges they have with their trade shows \u2013 Retail\u2019s BIG Show and Shop.org Annual Summit, but also talk about how to make them a more personal experience for attendees.<\/p>\n \u201cWe get an agenda beforehand, so that we\u2019re prepared on what the goals are,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n There are approximately 24 attendees at the meeting who are from different departments, such as conferences, registration, content and marketing, to name a few.<\/p>\n \u201cBasically, any component of the show you can think of,\u201d Olsen said.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s meeting also had a facilitator who Olsen worked with beforehand to talk through what outcomes they hoped to accomplish during the meeting.<\/p>\n Once at the meeting, there were large group discussions, as well as smaller groups that were broken into \u201cpods\u201d at which certain subjects were tackled.<\/p>\n Afterwards, the ideas generated by the smaller groups were written on Post-it notes and shared with the group.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no bad idea, until the end when things start coming off,\u201d Olsen said.<\/p>\n The \u201cBlue Sky Meetings\u201d have been going on for a few years now, and Susan Newman, NRF\u2019s vice president of conferences, said there have been several ideas generated in the meeting that have been implemented at the show.<\/p>\n \u201cWe faced a lot of challenges with the size of our audience and the size of the venue,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Retail\u2019s BIG Show regularly attracts upwards of 30,000 attendees, who pack out the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center of New York.<\/p>\n One big complaint that often came back about the show was the lack of seating. At the \u201cBlue Sky\u201d meetings they took on the challenge to solve this issue and, as a result, shrunk the registration area, as well as made a lounge area that included charging stations and lots of places to sit.<\/p>\n Attendees also wanted more opportunities to network, so the team brainstormed and came up with the idea of having retail \u2018Meet-ups\u2019 around the show.<\/p>\n The mobile app was another topic discussed at the meeting, mainly getting more of what the attendees needed on it to make the show a successful experience for them.<\/p>\n The food court also was a challenge, Newman said, so they have discussed more creative options, such as bringing in food trucks.<\/p>\n In addition, they wanted to figure out ways that a big show in a big city could still feel like an intimate experience through branding in hotels, cabs and around New York. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe even passed out hot chocolate as bus stops,\u201d Newman said.<\/p>\n The \u201cBlue Sky Meetings\u201d are held once a year, usually nine months out from the annual show.<\/p>\n On the content side, they came up with a new format for the keynotes that was inspired by TED Talks, Olsen said. Called \u201cFast Tracks\u201d, the keynotes feature up and coming companies in retail doing things differently, he added.<\/p>\n \u201cWe always reevaluate (the shows) every year,\u201d Newman said. \u201cIt\u2019s all about the customer experience, to make them feel more appreciated and that we know who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/body><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This guest post by Trade Show News Network President and Editor-In-Chief\u00a0Rachel Wimberly\u00a0originally appeared on TSNN.com\u00a0here.\u00a0 \u201cBlue Sky Meetings\u201d Create Solutions to Challenges Facing National Retail Federation\u2019s Trade Shows Once a[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2855,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/theexpogroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/theexpogroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/theexpogroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/theexpogroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/theexpogroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/theexpogroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/theexpogroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/theexpogroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/theexpogroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/theexpogroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/theexpogroup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/f238e685-9f7e-483a-82f8-66bb458dfdaa.jpg\")
They call the sessions \u201cBlue Sky Meetings\u201d, according to Eric Olsen, NRF\u2019s vice president of education strategies, at which they discuss \u201canything under the blue sky you could think of\u201d in regards to improving the shows.<\/p>\n