7/1/2010 - The 2010 convention of the International Federation of Exhibition and Event Services (IFES), held last month in Shanghai, has been deemed a success. The event was attended by 125 visitors from 31 countries, including representatives from six exhibit- and event-related companies based in the United States.

The first-day meeting on June 23 was held in the Hamburg House (a pavilion site at Expo 2010). The next IFES president, Bruno Meissner, is from Hamburg, Germany, and hosted that day's meeting for IFES guests. The Hamburg House is a 90-foot-tall red brick building that was fabricated to keep the interior temperature at 72 degrees without heat or air conditioning throughout the year. It also consumes a mere 10 percent of the energy needed for an ordinary building of that size.

The second-day meeting was conducted in the event's host hotel in the center of Shanghai. Larry Kulchawik, past IFES president and current senior vice president of 3D Exhibits Inc., conducted a seminar along with co-presenters Benedict Soh of Kingsmen Creative in Singapore and Stephen Benedetti of Heilmaier Messedesign in Germany. The three presenters discussed the cultural differences of exhibiting in foreign countries, with particular emphasis on doing business in China.

Various dignitaries from Shanghai shared statistics regarding the growth of the exposition industry in Shanghai and China: The growth of the exposition industry in Asia is nearly double the growth rate of the rest of the world's continents. A tour of two exhibit-house facilities was arranged the following day.

The undeniable highlight of the IFES event was a visit to the Expo 2010 grounds, where IFES members visited many of the country pavilions. According to Kulchawik, the massive size of the Expo and the amount of time spent waiting in line to enter the major pavilions meant they were barely able to see half of the Expo over the course of the four-day event. "Chinese people would wait in line for up to six hours just to get into the China pavilion," remarked Kulchawik.

Behind-the-scene tours were given by several IFES exhibit houses from China who had the honor of building pavilion interiors. According to Kulchawik, the most impressive pavilions included those from Germany, France, Switzerland, Thailand, Egypt, Great Britain, Macau, Singapore, and Poland.