More on trade publications (Informa, Gartner)

Articles · Business · Source

From Sam Parr

Key report takeaways:

  1. While an often forgotten business, there are hundreds of business tradeshows that have huge revenue numbers and profit margins (30% to 50%) that rival even the biggest software startups.
  2. There is an opportunity to create new tradeshows in the construction space as well as direct to consumer product niches.
  3. The three businesses that are profiled in this report are Informa, Gartner, and Ascential, companies that you may not have heard of but they quietly make hundreds of millions in profit (and we show how).

Informa: The $12B Event Behemoth That You’ve Never Heard of

Launched in 1732 as a weekly shipping magazine, Informa has transformed into a 7,500-person conglomerate that owns dozens of trade publications and events. The company did $2.3B in revenue in 2018.

The company uses a three-prong strategy of trade shows and conferences, marketing services, and subscription revenue to make money in dozens of different niches, from health-care to construction.

Gartner: How IT Conferences Make Billions

Gartner made nearly $4B in revenue last year with ~$260m in operating income through its research, events, and consulting businesses.

Gartner’s business model deserves its own deep dive. But to oversimplify, the company sells research reports that help large companies decide which technology and software they should purchase.

Gartner creates research for multiple niches and hosts dozens of events each year for its subscribers. At these events, attendees learn about the latest tech and research trends and network with Gartner analysts, peers, and industry leaders.

The events, which mostly cater to tech leaders at companies with revenue north of $250m, cover topics like cloud strategies, big data analytics, supply chain management, and IT sourcing.

Ticket costs range from $1,000 to $10,000, and it appears that the majority of speakers are Gartner analysts.

In other words, Gartner’s events are niche. But there’s big money to be made by catering to senior people who work at trendy tech companies.

Ascential: A $60m-Per-Conference Company

Ascential is a publicly traded British business-to-business publisher and event company with a $1.5B market cap. Like Informa, the company owns multiple publications for different industries and uses events in a significant way to monetize its audience.

Their most famous event is Cannes Lions, a festival where thousands of advertising and technology executives flock to to discuss the latest in the media world. The company bills that event as the “world’s biggest get-together of people interested in creativity.”