Remember when people attended conventions in person rather than via a computer screen? Maybe you remember The Folio:Show, the largest and most-attended industry event in the publishing industry for many years. And from 1985 to 2000, AURAS was part of its marketing team. It was a breakthrough client for AURAS, allowing us to reach thousands of people interested in our work.
If you were a part of the magazine business, the Folio:Show was a not-to-be-missed event every fall that covered design, editing, advertising, production, and management. The Show grew to five regional shows spread around the country throughout the year. That was how I became involved. I was teaching design at American University when I was asked by another designer to sub for him at the Washington, D.C. Folio:Show in 1984. With little preparation, but a pretty good knowledge of the subject matter, I made my first presentation at a Folio: event. Honestly, I can’t even remember the topic, but whatever it was, it seemed to impress the Folio:Show Marketing Director, who sat in on the course and afterward came up to me and said, “We need someone like you to do our marketing.”
Besides working on the show branding and marketing materials, I created and presented sessions on design and production. Creating courses and presenting at the shows made me realize how much I enjoyed teaching, and it was the start of presenting at shows and conferences all around the country. Because AURAS was on the cusp of new technology and digital publishing, we had a lot of valuable information to share.
Trying to prove cutting-edge speaker credentials, In 1992 I was one of the first to use my PowerBook and a digital projector for presentations. Rather than rely on the dubious IT skills and the outrageous cost of hotel AV rentals, I bought a “portable” projector (22 pounds) to lug around the shows. It was worth it to see the attendees visibly gasp at the transition effects, animated text and titles during the presentations. After that, I had all my presentations on my laptop available if a speaker emergency arose.
I realized I had a knack for speaking. In 1993, David Carson was scheduled to speak in New York, but a snowstorm canceled his flight East. Carson was an art director whose provocative work for Beach Culture and Ray Gun magazines (he once printed an interview entirely in Zapf Dingbats) had earned him a cutting-edge reputation. Rather than disappoint the attendees who had registered for his session, the show manager asked if I could fill in. With his notes and slides, I cobbled together a talk, and at the start of the hour-long session, the show manager told the crowd that I was substituting for the actual speaker and that they could choose another session or stay. Most stayed. I focused the session on his work, following his notes, but added context about how his experimental work influenced mainstream design and pushed forward the use of computers as a production tool. My session must have been convincing because, at the close, a latecomer thanked me for coming all the way from California.
The 80s and 90s were a time of profound change, energy, and optimism in the publishing industry. It seemed like everyone wanted to start a magazine. Joe Kennedy Jr. sat in on one of my sessions and chatted with me afterward. Ultimately, he founded the beleaguered George magazine, which lasted four years without ever finding its groove.
Folio:Magazine was a business-to-business publication that was founded in 1972. As with most B2B pubs, it was distributed free to industry professionals and made money from advertising, tradeshows, and awards competitions. In fact, the tradeshows were the most significant financial asset, followed by the awards programs, the Eddie and Ozzie Awards. It survived through four owners and almost 50 years, but the COVID-19 pandemic finally was the death knell. But when it was hot, it was a real example of money-making synergy.
A ticket for the show was in the high hundreds, and a significant component was the exhibition hall, where more than a hundred vendors paid to show their innovative technologies or products. The exhibition hall was both a major source of revenue and an attraction for the attendees. The awards programs were piggy-backed onto the show events, guaranteeing a good crowd for the presentation dinner, an evening devoted to handing out the awards that required a separate ticket, with recommended purchase of a table for ten.
On top of all that was an extensive sponsorship program, with an opportunity for large corporate exhibitors and industry leaders to promote themselves at keynotes, snack breaks, course tracks, specialty showrooms—even the entire event at entrances and registration areas. Of course, hefty fees were part of this program too. Many trade shows follow the same pattern, but the publishing industry was a perfect balance of publishers and the vendors who served them.
During the years AURAS worked on the shows, we branded and launched three other events, The PRE-show, The Magazine Management Conference, and The Strategic Marketing Conference. We built their messaging, branding, and promotional arcs—and there were plenty of opportunities to be creative. For one promotion, we sent out a promotion rolled up inside a bottle.
Speaking at and attending the conferences were a lot of fun too. The shows were in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and New York. As part of the management team, I joined a close-knit group that liked to party. I had my first manicure, ate my first sushi, got in a giant fat suit and sumo-wrestled, and ate out in some great restaurants. In Chicago, three of us went to Charlie Trotters, one of the first restaurants in America to offer a deluxe tasting menu—twenty courses of bite-size delicacies. Each course was presented with a grand unveiling accompanied by a fourth waiter describing the provenance of each ingredient. By the tenth course or so, we were all dying for a decent piece of steak. Fortunately, Gibson’s, one of the great steakhouses in the U.S., is also in Chicago.
The last Folio:Show I attended was in 2007 when we launched [FPO] Magazine. By then we were merely another vendor. That year [FPO] sponsored a party, purchased a booth, and presented a session about launching a magazine—our very own magazine. That’s another story.
But while AURAS was involved, I learned a lot, gave a lot, made many friends, and probably had too much fun. So I owe a huge debt of gratitude Dave Franek, that original speaker who just couldn’t make it.
