The Black Women’s Expo is entering its 18th year, quite a feat for the annual Chicago women’s super event. This year’s event includes star power awards gala hosted by Loretta Devine, and a healthy roundup of career, health, beauty, and wellness seminars.
This year has been a challenging one, Merry Green, president of MPG Events Inc., producer of the show, tells rolling out, but the show will go on, and in a fabulous way.
What is the genesis of the Black Women’s Expo?
I was the promotions marketing director for v-103 and our listening audience was 60 percent female. Part of my job was to create listening opportunities to attract the listening audience and build on our audience, which is female. I proposed that we create an event, and then we formed an advisory committee which helped to steer us in the right direction to help us put this event together.
It was never to be just for entertaining, we did enough concerts at the radio station. It was built around being a combination, having something serious where we would discuss the serious issues in our community and also have some entertainment, fun, uplift, empower and educate women.
How has this event changed over the years, as far as what women want?
We have to remember that the show is almost 18-years-old, so if an attendee was 20, she’s now almost 40.
We have to provide for the young women who need this so desperately. They have not been exposed to the kinds of speakers, seminars and topics, and some of them have never sat and been a part of anything like that. So we have to program for taste and what they’re interested in.
In terms of the issues, they don’t seem to change much. It still all falls into the same categories, about our finances, our health, about our nutrition, our family, our children and our relationships.
What challenges are you facing this year?
We are the only consistently held event, held every year, at McCormick Place that is African American.
And with all of the new rules and the new union fights and difficulties that go on, it makes it very hard. Last year the rules were changed that gave us leeway in terms of our vendors cost and we didn’t have the union requirements, and that made it cheaper for us.
Our vendors could bring their own stuff in and did not have to go to the docks with the Teamsters, and they did not have to incur those extra costs. Between last August and now, the union fought and they won, at least temporarily.
If you’re a vendor, depending on the weight of what you’re bringing in, your cost could be $1,000 on top of what you’re already paying for a booth.
How can attendees maximize their experience at the Expo?
We want people to hang around longer. I think we need to be ready to walk. We are pretty compact in terms of our seminar rooms, you can just come up and down the escalators and you are inside the entire event, and the concessions are close by.
Women should carve out some time; there is so much more than just coming and grabbing some freebies and going home. There are so many seminars you can be a part of and tips that can be an eye-opener for a lot of people. Take in some of the corporate sponsors and the exhibits.
Our Health and Wellness exhibit is going to be spectacular with Walgreens and the University of Chicago Medical Center. From exercise, nutrition and health screenings; the Walgreens health mobile has a sheet that shows you everything about your health. Also, the beauty pavilion will send you home with a bag filled with retail-sized products.
What kind of events do you like to attend?
I like the movies, I love being in simple, small gatherings of people, women, house parties, going out for dinner, simple things.
What are some of your favorite places to hang out in Chicago?
I like the beach and the Taste of Chicago, events where you can spend some time and take some food; I like being around a lot of people in that respect. I’m not a loner, I like crowds, but I like being out and about.
What is your best advice for businesspeople who want to elevate their brand or signature marketing event?
I think most people need to understand what their brand is. When you’re creating a title for an event you must call it what it is. A lot of people want it to be something other than what it truly is. It can get confusing in the marketplace.
Have you experienced push-back from being named the Black Women’s Expo?
I’ve had that struggle since 2008, some people thought probably [it] isn’t appropriate to have an event called the Black Women’s Expo. We get calls and nasty letters from people who think we’re being racist. I think because this is a multicultural world now, [some people think we don’t] need something that is just for black people. And I know that is still an appropriate [thing] to do, that’s no different from Asian or the Hispanic [events].
How do you resist the pressure to re-brand the Black Women’s Expo?
We spend a lot of time figuring out who our women are. We do surveys at the expo where they come from, where they live, where they work, what their income buying habits, what they like to see, so protecting our brand is staying true to it and not to be something else.
It’s easy to get caught up and try to figure out how to get more attendance and get more people there so you can get additional sponsors. But somewhere along the line you’ve lost who you are. And you’ve lost the brand and I think our brand is pretty stable in terms of who we are. We are targeting African American women, but it’s not just for African American women.
Merry Green was recently named associate publisher of the Who’s Who in Black Chicago publication. The Black Women’s Expo is moving to Atlanta in April 2012.
