ES. You have extensive experience in exhibition industry, how did you land up here? Kindly share with us your professional journey in this industry, major milestones achieved over the years.
Geoff Dickinson. My childhood was never easy with a single mother and two sisters always struggling to make ends meet. I worked in shops on evenings and weekends to help support myself and my family. This gave me both a strong work ethic and the ability to interact with customers from a young age. At University I studied Law and graduated early with an LLB Law Hons degree at just age 20 but decided a career in Law was not for me.
At the dawn of the 80’s the publishing industry was going through a boom, and I decided to make a career in that sector. I joined emap in London, who at that time were a dynamic force in launching new magazines for youth and business. I started on the launch of computer magazines as the tech revolution started to explode with the advent of desktop computing. After just one year of working on magazines emap decided to launch an exhibitions division and I was asked to join this new enterprise. None of us really knew how to operate events but we were all young and had no fear, so we launched a number of computer shows which very quickly gained traction and success. From then on, I was hooked, and I knew I had found my future career path.
Some years later I met Richard Hease who was a very well-regarded entrepreneur in the publishing and events space and at just 25 years old he made me Managing Director of his events company (Focus Events). He was very trusting and patient and taught me how to write smart budgets and create event launch strategies. He was a big influence on my development and latter aspirations to become an entrepreneur. At the end of the 80’s I joined Haymarket Publishing and along with my boss Peter Osborne we launched Haymarket Exhibitions and BBC Haymarket Exhibitions. Peter was a big personality and an incredible deal maker with a wonderful imagination for content. He came from publishing. I taught him exhibitions and in return he taught me the value of highly engaging event content. He had a wonderful personality and was incredible at building strong stakeholder relationships and I learnt from him.
In the early 90’s I joined IIR, who were owned and operated by Irvine Laidlaw a hugely successful entrepreneur. Irvine was fearless in opening offices throughout the world and trusting people to launch and acquire in many exciting emerging markets. I went to Dubai to create the Middle East office and quickly also took on the Far East office in Singapore to develop a portfolio of events throughout the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia. In 1996 he rewarded my efforts making me Managing Director globally for
exhibitions and regionally in the Middle East and Eastern Europe for conferences. I operated 16 offices from North America to Southeast Asia – all in my mid-thirties. Irvine taught me how to take calculated risks and in particular understand which parts of the portfolio deserved more attention to drive future growth. He always told me that focus is key, and you have to learn to “Chase the Winners”.
In the late 90’s I developed a close friendship with a work colleague Michael El Nayal, and we decide to launch a business ourselves. We launched a number of events in Dubai and in the early years we struggled. But Michael was always a loyal steadfast business partner who would never give up and his friendship and never say die attitude helped us endure and make the business a success. We sold the business to Messe Frankfurt in 2005 to become Messe Frankfurt Middle East. Following the launch and sale of a second business I decided to join dmg events and return to the corporate world. They were looking for someone who understood how to run a corporate business but also had entrepreneurial experience to launch and drive organic growth. I have been with dmg events now for over 13 years operating as the global CEO. This has been the most enjoyable period of my career. I am blessed with having an incredible team around the world who innovate new content for their events on every edition and constantly launch exciting new events. The two divisional Presidents Chris Hudson and Matt Denton are amazing consistently seeking out and developing new content and event opportunities and opening up new geographies. My CFO Nick Ratcliffe is super smart and empowers the business to consistently grow and develop. My CTO Alistair Roylance has developed systems that help us know where we are in an instant. Working with great people is the most rewarding experience and at dmg events we have so many great people right across the business. I am very lucky.
ES. dmg events has a strong foothold in the exhibition industry, please tell us more about the organization?
Geoff Dickinson. dmg events is a global exhibitions and publishing company, established in 1989 and operating with 13 offices around the world. With a vast portfolio of over 80 exhibitions annually, we attract more than 425,000 visitors, positioning us as one of the leading players in the industry. To provide our customers with exceptional service, we have offices in 10 countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, South Africa, the UK, Canada, and Singapore. Our local presence enables us to understand market needs better and build strong relationships, ensuring unforgettable experiences for our attendees.
At dmg events, we take pride in our impressive growth in emerging and mature markets. Our success is driven by our ability to launch events, acquire complementary businesses, and partner with industry leaders. We also adapt our core event brands to work seamlessly across new countries, resulting in substantial market expansion.
Our team of experts focuses on nurturing professional communities from diverse industries such as Construction, Energy, Mining, Transportation, Hospitality, Interiors, and Food & Beverage. Our exhibitions serve as focal points, complemented by strategic conferences, certified workshops, technical seminars, and industry publications.
We value our exhibiting companies and ensure they receive the best return on investment. We listen to their needs through focus groups and advisory panels and provide them with services such as business matching, lead scanners, and webinars on best practices for exhibiting. Our sponsorship opportunities and free marketing and PR services help our exhibitors get in front of an audience of decision-makers. Our ultimate goal is to accelerate business through face-to-face events. We bring people together, creating opportunities for them to network, do business, overcome challenges, and discover emerging opportunities. At dmg events, we work tirelessly to make this happen, and we look forward to continuing our legacy of excellence in the years to come. We have seen a huge appetite and growth for events globally since the pandemic – people realised events truly are the fastest, most efficient way to maintain relationships with customers and gain new customers whilst attending conferences that help shape the future of their industries. They serve to help countries and economies grow and aggregate travel in one edition to avoid numerous trips – burning carbon and time. We have grown by over 40% in terms of events and staff since the pandemic. We understand that it is vital to involve governments and ministries in all our events so that we can mirror their needs to develop and grow their economies through dialogue in the conferences ad by introducing new products and the latest technologies and new ideas best practices and for sustainability.
ES. What are your insights on UFI APAC Conference? Can you share some details depicting facts and figures and important facets of the event?
Geoff Dickinson. The upcoming UFI APAC Conference will explore crucial topics and themes, such as sustainability. Sustainability will shape the outlook for Asian exhibitions for years to come. Successful events in Asia will need to incorporate elements of sustainability. Another central theme of the conference is the resurgence of growth. Our latest UFI Global Barometer report shows that key markets such as China are finally surpassing 2019 levels. The conference will examine growth opportunities across the region and beyond. Furthermore, discussions will explore changing event formats and the integration of AI – topics that are shaping the direction of the industry in Asia for the foreseeable future.
ES. In your vision, with the arrival of new year what new plans, changes and trends will the industry witness in upcoming era?
Geoff Dickinson. UFI released this year’s ‘5 trends to watch’, listing the themes that are driving board room discussions around the industry. And we will programme the content for the regional conferences in the coming months around these. Our events have to become more sustainable – both for the good of the planet and to retain the support of our customers. Through UFI, we need to exchange shared learnings on using the latest technologies, such as AI, for the good of our events and our customers. We need to continue to embrace diversity and inclusivity – and be an industry with opportunity for everyone. If we do these things together, then we can solve the issues many of us face in attracting new talent.
We need to position ourselves as an industry always striving to be better and an industry that creates platforms for our customers to positively develop and grow their opportunities for a better future.
ES. There was a lot of hue and cry that virtual shows may reduce the need for physical shows. What is your take on the relevance of physical shows?
Geoff Dickinson. Human beings need to get together to collaborate and evolve – they need in person events. Virtual events have little value in themselves – but they are useful if they are embedded into and around the physical, face to face events. Exhibitions in some form or other have been around for thousands of years and have seen huge advances in technology which have all ended up being not a threat but a benefit. Technology has often been viewed as a threat when in reality it has helped events grow and develop.
Virtual platforms were incredibly valuable during Covid, helping organisers to maintain customer connections and to serve the industries they represent with valuable information. Having virtual options now gives organisers the opportunity to deliver some of the key content from the conference or the exhibitor floor to people who could not attend in person. This extends the events reach and its customer service and is therefore highly beneficial. Our industry learnings about virtual events during the pandemic will help us to make our physical events reach more customers and serve our industries better.
ES. According to you how can the exhibition fraternity benefit from AI’s advanced marketing? Is AI a threat to the industry as it may perform quadruple tasks for which manual labor is needed?
Geoff Dickinson. It is very early to truly assess the impact that generative AI like ChatGPT will have for our business. UFI lists AI as one of our ‘5 trends to watch in 2024’, and we will cover developments regularly throughout the year. I see some good potential for ‘wins’ for our industry: In a secure data space, we can use AI with general visitor customer information to build more relevant conference and exhibition floor content for our customers. We can use AI to target more effectively the right audience for our exhibitors and sponsors, and to identify potential exhibitors, sponsors, speakers. Also, AI can help source content for websites or event community sites to present up to the minute information year-round for customers and to source market data and stats.
ES. In times when the rapid increment of carbon footprint is a worrisome subject, what measures do you suggest to the organizers to attain sustainability?
Geoff Dickinson. Our events have to become more sustainable – both for the good of the planet and to retain the support of our customers. At UFI we will be committed to seeking to get to Net Zero – but we cannot do this alone – we need to engage with our suppliers and discuss ways we can achieve this together. During my Presidency I want us to reach out to our supply chains such as airlines, hotels, venues, stand contractors to seek solutions to help us to honour our net zero pledge.
ES. A message inspiring the industry and influencing youth to participate in the industry.
Geoff Dickinson. People want to think that every generation is different, but young minds have always been attracted to jobs where they have a sense of purpose – just as I was some 40 years ago. We need to position ourselves as an industry always striving to be better and an industry that creates platforms for our customers to positively develop and grow their opportunities for a better future. Together we can use our events to continue to be a catalyst for change for a better, a sustainable, an inclusive world – this is our purpose as it has been for thousands of years and I am sure for thousands of years to come. Human beings need to get together to collaborate and evolve – they need in-person events.
