WCS Report for PNWSCT

Jan 16, 2018

Bonnie MacKenzie – WCS Director

 

We held another successful WCS. The Board worked very hard over the past 2 years to build on our past successes while bringing in some new initiatives. Registration and total attendance grew by 5% – 6% compared to the 2015 show.  We felt it was important to keep registration fees the lowest in the industry, keep our table tops affordable for western regional exhibitors, and provide excellent value for money to our attendees.

The 2016/2017 WCS Board of Directors consisted of:

  • PNWSCT – Bonnie MacKenzie (JFS) and Bev Spears (D&J)
  • GGSCT – Babette Turk (Turk Int’l) and Phil Avery (TCR)
  • ASCT – Chuck Ray (retired) and Ted Garrett (JFS)
  • LASCT – Larry Teachout (Behr) and Eunice Leung (BYK)

We also employ a company called Alfa Creative to take care of a broad variety of admin tasks.

 

Some stats for comparison:

  • 2011 headcount = 1036 all in.
  • 2013 headcount = 900 registered attendees; 1159 all in.
  • 2015 headcount = 1100 registered attendees; 1360 all in.
  • 2017 headcount = 1150 registered attendees; 1448 all in. (1150 attendees + 159 exhibitors + 4 sponsors + 111 speakers + 6 panelists + 2 keynotes + 2 SA + 8 BOD).

 

  • The Welcome Reception was held Sunday Oct 15 from 6 – 9pm at Drai’s.   On-site feedback was very positive.   Official headcount was 882, plus a few who entered early, so I say 887.
  • The technical program consisted of five tracks over three days, Mon Oct 16 – Wed Oct 18. There were a total of 110 regular presentations, 2 keynote addresses, and one panel discussion. Attendance in the track rooms increased 10% overall from 2015, on Wed it increased 31%, and the last timeslot of the day Wed increased 55%. We therefore conclude that having a full day of talks on Wednesday was a success, and helped keep bodies in the seats.
  • There are 11 student posters and four of those students participated in the Academic Research Presentations on Tues. We subsidized all student attendees who had a poster, and three cash awards were given out for the top three posters.
  • John Berghuis was honoured with the Samson-Adler 2016 award. The 2017 recipient was Joe King.
  • A total of 1150 registrations were received.
  • Sponsorship packages sold out.
  • Our exhibition floor sold out. There were 35 standard tables, 104 premium tables, and 10 diamond tables (12 including those that go to sponsors).   Five std tables were comped to media/educational facilities. Complementary lunch and evening appetizers were served at the tradeshow.
  • WCS2017 mobile app. Comments on the app were very positive. There were 751 unique users between launch (Sept 7) and 2 days post-show (Oct 20).   This is over half of all people at the show.