For starters, don’t forget the NPE2009 Drawing for Exhibit Space on February 19-20, in the huge new Ballroom (see the picture at left) of the brand-new McCormick West building in Chicago. Along with several hundred exhibitor-company representatives, you’ll meet the entire NPE2009 team, including SPI staff and key exhibitor-service vendors.

I’ll be there as well, in a Press Room we plan to set up right on the Ballroom floor.  If you have questions about how SPI will support your company’s PR program for NPE2009, by all means stop by and say hello.

You can get a sneak preview of what the new West Building is like from an online photo album I’ve posted at http://picasaweb.google.com/Martinocomms/NPE2009McCormickWest.  (For the photos, thanks to Chicago’s Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which operates McCormick Place.)

Now it can be told. That “massive technical conference” that we’ve been saying would take place in the West Building during NPE2009 is none other than the 2009 edition of SPE’s ANTEC™.  This will not be a pseudo-ANTEC or a mini-ANTEC, but the absolutely complete annual ANTEC event as the industry knows it.  The joint announcement by SPI and SPE is posted at SPE’s website: http://www.4spe.org/press/pdf/0802antecnpe.pdf.

I hope to see you in Chicago come February 19!

As a veteran of NPE drawings for exhibit space (I’ve been the official NPE press rep since the 2000 show; it’s hard to believe I’ve attended every NPE since 1973!), I am excited about the next one.  For many shows past, SPI held the grand event in a grand place—the Grand Ballroom of the Chicago Hilton & Towers. But on February 19-20 (it’s coming up fast—so hope you’re making travel plans!), the NPE2009 Drawing for Exhibit Space will take place in what has suddenly become the biggest ballroom in Chicago. It’s part of the new McCormick West facility, which boasts, among many other cool features, a rooftop garden for receptions. Cool is an understatement for Chicago in February, so at the Space Draw you’ll want to skip the garden.

If your company plans to take part in the Space Draw, it has until February 1 to send SPI the completed application and contract, which you can download from the NPE2009 website. 

Be prepared for a unique event. More than half of the exhibit space at NPE2009 will be selected in just two days by people from hundreds of companies. No matter how big the ballroom, when you get that many people together in one place, all of them responsible for getting the best booth space and location for their companies, the atmosphere is intense. Yet there’s always plenty of socializing, plus enjoyable after-hours receptions.  

It’s not just the ballroom that will be new. While every company must have someone physically present at the February event in order to draw space for NPE2009, the proceedings will be reported digitally on floor plans visible not just on a giant screen in the ballroom but via the Internet. So if you’re the one attending the Space Draw, you’ll be able to confer with the folks back home before making your final decision about space.

No matter what McCormick Place building you choose for your company’s booth, you’ll want to see McCormick West while you’re at the drawing. The facility opened only this past August, and it’s huge. Besides the ballroom and rooftop garden, the five-level building has nearly 500,000 square feet of exhibit space, 250,000 square feet of meeting space divided among 61 meeting rooms, a central concourse, its own parking garage and transportation center, and direct access to truck marshalling. If you visit the McCormick Place website  you’ll find floorplans for the West and all the other buildings. - Bob Martino, Martino Communications