After many years of sustained years growth, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show started to experience a stagnation and then decline in both revenues and attendance.  Although the media and entertainment market continues to grow, the NAB Show struggled to understand how they needed to change to benefit from this growth.

Moreover, culturally the organisation was not prepared for change. The team operated in silos and had no meaningful understanding of why performance had dipped. Confidence was low and resistance to change was starting to de-stablise the organisation.

Phase 1 of our approach was to develop a growth strategy and transformation plan, covering:

• A full review of the Media and Entertainment market covering core trends, drivers, opportunities and threats
• In depth customer research to understand the challenges and pains faced by customers both
• A overall vision to become the servant leader for plus clear roadmap for a multi-year transformation of the organisation, internally and externally

This work was signed off by the Board at which point I took the lead on delivering the transformation program to restructure the organization as a 24/7 multi-channel community solution for the media industry.

The NAB Show 2020 was cancelled due to COVID. However, figures prior to cancellation were forecasting the following:

• Exhibition sales up 2%
• Sponsorship & Advertising up 25%
• Registration sales up 30%

Overall this equated to around a 5% increase in revenues following three years of decline.

The Board fully understood the value of the work undertaken and the importance of change, particularly in light of the impact of COVID on the events industry. As a result, at the point of departure, the Board then signed off a $$MM budget for the Year 2 transformation.