The International Federation of Exhibition and Event Services (IFES) meeting was held June 23-24. Six representative companies from the Exhibit Designers and Producers Association (EDPA) attended.

The June 23 meeting was held in Hamburg House, a pavilion site at Expo 2010. The next IFES president is Bruno Meissner, from Hamburg, Germany, who hosted the event for IFES guests.

The Hamburg House is a 90-foot-high red brick building fabricated to keep the interior temperature at 72 degrees without heat or air conditioning throughout the year. It also use only uses only 10 percent of the energy needed compared to an ordinary building. The facility features a future urban life environment that Hamburg residents want and it is the German government’s response to show how it could be done.

On day two, the IFES meeting was conducted at the Sofitel Hotel in the center of Shanghai.

Benedict Soh, Stephen Benedetti and myself conducted a seminar on exhibit and cultural differences when exhibiting from one country to the next. This was followed by a joint discussion with the audience, who shared their own personal experiences. Particular emphasis was on doing business in China. Other topics of interest were on the China business climate and growth.

Various dignitaries from Shanghai shared their statistics and the growth of the exposition industry in Shanghai and in China. The growth of the industry in Asia is nearly double that in the rest of world.

A tour of two exhibit house facilities was arranged for the following day. There were many similarities and good examples of “doing more with less.”

The highlight of the trip, of course, was our visits to the Expo 2010 site. What was of particular interest was to see the country pavilions with our fellow IFES members from around the world and to share their views and comments at each Expo site. Our evenings were spent catching up on the World Cup results. The pride of countries through soccer was quite evident.

The massive size of the Expo fairground, and the waiting time to enter the major pavilions did not allow us to see but half of the Expo in four days. The Chinese people waited up to six hours to get into the China pavilion.

For many Chinese, this was their first visit to Shanghai and the closest they will ever come to seeing another country. Considering that 10 years ago, most families in China did not have refrigerators, they have come a long way.

Behind-the-scene tours were given by several IFES exhibit houses from China, who had the honor of building some of the pavilion interiors. There were many similarities, but doing more with less was evident.

Pavilions of particular interest were those of Germany, French, Switzerland, Thailand, Egypt, Great Britain, Macau, Singapore and Poland. I can only expound on the pavilions I have seen, and I am sure many others were fantastic.

By the way, the U.S. pavilion was a disappointment to me. A good message was conveyed on a small budget compared to other countries. You can Google the Expo website to see photos of the pavilions or go to the IFES website at www.ifesnet.com.

Getting prepared and knowledgeable for assisting our clients in China is a must, and is happening now. Hop on the train to a new tomorrow.

I'm glad to be back home after a long journey.