Exhibition as a socio-cultural phenomenon and object of event management

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Exhibition as a socio-cultural phenomenon and object of event management

Kovalenko Yelena,

The purpose of the article is a theoretical analysis of exhibition activity as a cultural phenomenon and an object of event management. The research methodology is based on the use of dialectical, systemic, cultural and interdisciplinary approaches, which makes it possible to comprehensively investigate the multifaceted phenomenon of the organisation of exhibition activities. The scientific novelty lies in deepening the understanding of the nature of the exhibition phenomenon and the peculiarities of its event management in the conditions of complicated social relations, uncertainty, and turbulence. Conclusions. The exhibition is a special cultural phenomenon, an object of event management, a source of information about the achievements of individual enterprises, industries, regions, and countries, as well as an effective marketing tool of intercultural communication. It is a semiotic space formed for the purpose of presenting ideas, things created for their presentation to society. Exhibits as semiotic signs form certain meanings, emotional and figurative cognitive activity, contribute to the growth of interest in the relevant products, the development of national culture and economy. Considering the exhibition as a product allows you to look at this marketing tool in the event management system in a new way, identify all the opportunities it provides and use them to get the maximum effect from the exhibition. The market of exhibition services is steadily growing. However, there is a conflict of interests between the organisers and the exhibitors: the organisers cannot offer a product that satisfies the communication needs of the exhibitors, and because of this, the exhibitors do not fully use all the possibilities of the exhibition. The reason for this is insufficient methodical support of the exhibition activity, as well as failure to take into account the assessment of the level of organisation of the exhibition and the quality of services provided by its organisers.

Keywords: exhibition, event management, exhibition product, market of exhibition services, effectiveness and efficiency of the exhibition.

Коваленко Єлена Ярославівна, кандидат економічних наук, доцент, кафедра арт-менеджменту та івент-технологій, Національна академія керівних кадрів культури і мистецтв; Мартинишин Ярослав Миколайович, доктор економічних наук, професор, кафедра менеджменту фешн та шоу-бізнесу, Київський національний університет культури і мистецтв.

Виставка як соціокультурний феномен і об'єкт івент-менеджменту

Мета статті - теоретичний аналіз виставкової діяльності як феномену культури та об'єкту івент-менеджменту. Методологія дослідження ґрунтується на використанні діалектичного, системного, культурологічного і міждисциплінарного підходів, що дає можливість комплексно досліджувати багатогранне явище організації виставкової діяльності. Наукова новизна полягає у поглибленні розуміння природи феномену виставки й особливостей її івент-менеджменту в умовах ускладнення суспільних відносин, невизначеності та турбулентності. Висновки. Виставка є особливим феноменом культури, об'єктом івент- менеджменту, джерелом інформації про досягнення окремих підприємств, галузей, регіонів, країн, а також ефективним маркетинговим інструментом міжкультурної комунікації. Вона являє собою семіотичний простір, сформований з метою презентації ідей, речей, створених для їхнього представлення суспільству. Експонати як семіотичні знаки формують певні смисли, емоційно-образну пізнавальну активність, сприяють зростанню інтересу до відповідних продуктів, розвитку національної культури та господарства. Розгляд виставки як продукту дозволяє по-новому поглянути на цей інструмент маркетингу в системі івент-менеджменту, визначити всі можливості, які він надає і використовувати їх для отримання максимального ефекту від експонування. Ринок виставкових послуг неухильно зростає. Однак існує протиріччя інтересів організаторів та експонентів виставок: організатори не можуть запропонувати продукт, що задовольняє потребу експонентів у комунікації, а експоненти через це не до кінця використовують усі можливості виставки. Причиною цього є недостатня методична забезпеченість виставкової діяльності, а також не врахування оцінки рівня організації виставки та якості послуг, що надаються її організаторами.

Ключові слова: виставка, івент-менеджмент, виставковий продукт, ринок виставкових послуг, результативність і ефективність виставки.

Relevance of the research topic

exhibition service exhibits

The exhibition as a special cultural phenomenon is of great importance in the organisation of society's life activities. Its multifaceted nature is determined by its political, economic and sociocultural significance. In the conditions of globalisation, there is a growing need for a wide presentation of the achievements of individual people, enterprises, villages, cities, regions, and countries of the world through various exhibitions.

The exhibition business is an integral part of the life of society, as well as one of the factors that significantly affects the formation of the future outline of the world community. It is not only a source of information about the development of the country, region, industry, individual enterprises, but also an effective marketing tool of intercultural communication, where in personal contact with a partner the exhibitor can identify his needs, that is, convey to them a significant amount of useful information, thereby ensuring in the future a source of income for themselves.

Studies of exhibition activity show that, despite the fact that the exhibition is an infrastructural branch of the service sector, as a specific organisation with a complex internal structure, it is a unique system with feedback, an object of event management and a cultural phenomenon. All that has been said determines the relevance of this research.

Analysis of research and publications. Exhibition activity is the subject of research by economists, political scientists, sociologists, experts in the field of international relations, as well as cultural experts. In the works of such domestic authors as I. Antonenko [1], Y. Antonyuk, I. Shindyrovskyi [2], L. Zelenska [3], L. Lukashova [4], V. Pekar [5], T. Povalii [6], T. Tkachenko, T. Dupliak [7] raise issues related to economic and socio-cultural aspects of exhibition activities. In the studies of foreign scientists - C. Breden [8], R. Dowson, B. Albert, Lomax [9], V. Gera [10], S. Goyal [11], M. Rohtmaa-Jackson [12], A. Sharma, S. Arora [13], A. Shone, B. Parry [14], K. Soilen [15],

D. Tassiopoulos [16], J. Tum [17] - the importance of intensifying the management of exhibition activities is emphasised for successful business in the modern socio-cultural situation.

Despite the considerable volume of literature, the activity of exhibitions as specific organisations producing important economic, socio-cultural services and information has not yet been sufficiently studied. This is due to the complexity and ambiguity of the exhibition activity, as well as the multifacetedness of the exhibition information and the specifics of the use of information and communication technologies in the modern cultural space. Therefore, the issue of event management of the exhibition business needs additional research.

The purpose of the article is a theoretical analysis of exhibition activity as a socio-cultural phenomenon and an object of event management.

The research methodology is based on the use of dialectical, systemic, cultural and interdisciplinary approaches, which makes it possible to comprehensively investigate the multifaceted phenomenon of the organisation of exhibition activities.

Presenting main material

A modern exhibition is a new form of a complex organisation that is rapidly developing, has a certain set of interconnected and interdependent goals, its own resources, which are used to realise the set goals. The originality of exhibitions is that they created and sold not material products, but information about products, their advantages and features.

Exhibition activity involves purposeful, planned activity of the enterprise, the ultimate goal of which is to find new consumers, consolidate relations with old ones and, as a result, conclude contracts with them for the sale of products and the development of cross-cultural contacts. This activity is also an important way of objective self-assessment of the country, its technical level of production and services. Such self-esteem is extremely important not only for an individual enterprise or organisation, but also for the country as a whole. An objective view of the country's place in science, culture, production, and the social sphere allows building a development strategy for the future.

Modern society has acquired an informational character. Information provided in digital form becomes a strategic resource of society, and the level of technologies used for its acquisition, delivery, transformation and use becomes one of the main factors contributing to socio-cultural and economic development. Information becomes the most important strategic information resource of society and occupies a key place in the economy, education, and culture.

The exhibition is also a kind of sociocultural phenomenon that affects the cultural, spiritual, political, and economic aspects of life. The complexity of research in this area is determined by the fact that an exhibition is a space created by a person for the purpose of presenting ideas, objects, things created by other people for their presentation to the audience. Since both the organisation of the exhibition space itself and the selection of exhibited objects are carried out in accordance with the ideas, tasks and goals of the exhibition, it can be said that the exhibition is a subjective image of the objective world, a materialised representation of some idea of it. In the space of the exhibition hall, individual objects and exhibits appear in a single composition, where they are grouped in a certain way and act as parts of a whole that has its own idea and meaning. All these given ideas and images meet in the space of the exhibition hall with the subjective ideas of the viewer. Therefore, when organising an exhibition, its authors always focus on the currently leading type of perception, taking into account the main ideas and perceptions in society.

The trends of modern exhibition activity are determined by the fact that a person, living in a society saturated with information, changes, and information, ideas, concepts become the main thing for them. They come to the hall for spectators, where the exhibits as semiotic signs are combined into meanings, forming a single composition - an exposition. The exhibition activity of recent years is also determined by the fact that today's world processes are characterised by the collision and confrontation of two main trends: globalisation, on the one hand, and multipolarity and the desire of individual countries to preserve traditional culture on the other. At the same time, globalisation does not recognise any collective identities, it unifies all spheres of social life, which leads to the loss of existing stereotypes of behaviour, formed moral and ethical concepts and spiritual values.

Therefore, life experience shows that with the correct organisation of the exhibition space and the well-thought-out theme of the products on display, during the exposition, it is possible to form in visitors an emotional attitude to the surrounding reality, to stimulate emotional and figurative cognitive activity in them, to contribute not only to the growth of interest in certain products, but also the development of the national economy.

Today, businesses operate in conditions where one party is better informed than the other does, which affects the outcome of a market deal. The method of overcoming this asymmetry is information provision. This task at enterprises is performed by marketing communications, which must not only collect information about market subjects, but also disseminate data about their activities.

Exhibitions have proven to be an effective tool of marketing communications. This led to the search for an optimal management system for exhibition activities. The object of this event system is the exhibition itself, and the main subject is the enterprise organising the exhibition. At the same time, the organiser in Ukraine can be a national, interregional and regional exhibition centre, or any other enterprise. In addition, the organiser of the exhibition may have several contractors engaged in the performance of various works (design, construction, decoration of the exhibition and exhibition stands, attraction of participants, provision of various services). The subjects of the management event system are also the enterprises participating in the exhibition. However, they are local entities, as they manage only their exhibits, not the exhibition as a whole.

The results of the conducted research allowed us to formulate the concept of the exhibition activity of the enterprise, which is defined as a set of processes consciously oriented to the solution of the goals set for the exhibition, tasks and criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of their implementation in order to ensure a favourable information field for the enterprise in the implementation of marketing communications.

An analysis of the communication process that takes place within the framework of the exhibition event is offered from the point of view of the organisation of marketing communications. At the same time, it should be noted that the main advantages of the exhibition as a communication process are a short message transmission channel, quick recording of the consumer's reaction to the message, immediate feedback and minimal obstacles in the transmission of the message. We believe that the main usefulness of the exhibition for exhibitors is that it clearly demonstrates the segment of the market - novelties, filled and empty segments, the scale of companies and helps the company determine its place in the market.

In our opinion, the market of exhibition services can be defined as a set of economic relations between its various subjects regarding the sale of an exhibition product. Subjects of the market of exhibition services interact according to the law of supply and demand. In this case, the demand for the exhibition as a product is formed by exhibitors and exhibition visitors, and the supply by their organisers. At the same time, the organisers themselves create demand for such components of the product as premises for exhibitions, exhibition structures, printing products, accommodation services, food, transportation, and entertainment for exhibitors.

For the purpose of analysis, it is advisable to consider the exhibition as a multi-level product system. Within this system, at the first level, the product is the satisfaction of communication needs between exhibitors and visitors. The second level of the system contains the goods in actual execution, that is, the number and composition of visitors, exhibition space, exhibition equipment, the number and composition of exhibitors, the venue of the event, its scale and basic services. At the third level of the system, additional services of organisers and exhibitors act as a product.

In the exhibition event management, it should also be taken into account that the exhibition, like any other product, has its own life cycle, which, in our opinion, consists of the following stages: 1) the youth stage: the

exhibition is primarily aimed at specialists, the terms of participation are available, both leading enterprises and those seeking to enter a new market or a new region with minimal costs are involved; 2) the stage of maturity: the exhibition becomes known, the circle of its participants and visitors expands, the conditions of participation become more and more strict, the struggle for the best places and the opportunity to promote oneself begins, the effectiveness of participation from the point of view of business contacts and image becomes maximum; 3) the aging stage: the exhibition gradually turns into a show: a large number of visitors, large company stands and increasingly lower value in terms of establishing business contacts and conducting negotiations; exposure has only an image effect; 4) the dying stage: the event gradually loses its participants and visitors; participation in such exhibitions has no effect.

The effectiveness of the participation of various enterprises depends on the stage of the exhibition's life cycle. In addition, practice shows that the stage of the life cycle of the exhibition can affect the value of the exhibition product: it is minimal at the stage of youth, and reaches its maximum value at the stage of aging.

At the moment, the main problem of the exhibition industry in Ukraine is the divergence of interests of the organisers and the participants of the exhibition: the organisers do not sell the need for communication, but the exhibition space, and thus do not satisfy this need. Research results showed that the second important problem is a significant gap in the level of preparation and holding of exhibition events in large cities, centres of business activity, and other regional centres.

In large cities, the organiser is a professional firm for which exhibitions are the main field of activity. This company has its own website, which provides complete information about the event (plan of the exhibition space, prices, business programme of the event), history of the exhibition, feedback from the mass media, methodological recommendations for preparing for the exhibition, and official documentation. Here, the number of participants is large, there are specially equipped premises for holding an exhibition event, a high level of personnel training, a fairly wide range of services. In small towns, everything is almost the opposite: the organisers are unprofessional companies, there is no operational website, the number of participants is small, the premises, as a rule, are not equipped and not intended for holding exhibitions, the level of personnel training is low, and the necessary internal infrastructure is missing. All this makes local exhibitions less effective, compared to central and interregional ones.

In order to increase the efficiency of exhibiting, the following sequence of the process of managing the enterprise's exhibition activities is proposed: 1) justification of the choice of exhibitions as a tool of the enterprise's marketing policy; 2) purpose of participation in exhibitions; 3) analysis of exhibitions within the industry (topics, nomenclature, target groups, regional scope); 4) selection of exhibitions for participation; 5) approval and approval of the schedule of exhibition activities; 6) preparation; 7) participation or attendance; 8) summarising the results of the exhibition, analysis, evaluation of effectiveness and efficiency. Within the algorithm of the enterprise's exhibition activity process, special attention should be paid to the selection of exhibitions. It is at this stage that the effectiveness of exposure in general is established.

A system of effectiveness and efficiency indicators is proposed for the analysis of the organisation of exhibition activities. Effectiveness involves determining the degree of achievement of the set goal (for example, fully achieved, partially achieved, in percentage). The effectiveness of exposure is the definition of specific indicators for evaluating the use of enterprise resources in the implementation of the strategy. It is advisable to evaluate the effectiveness of the exhibition activity of the enterprise in three stages: expert evaluation of the performance of the exhibition, primary evaluation of effectiveness, evaluation of economic efficiency.

The first stage in determining the effectiveness of the exhibition is an expert assessment of the company's participation in the exhibition. As evaluation criteria, it is proposed to use the elements of the exhibition product, for example, the total number of visitors at the exhibition - the total number of contacts at the stand; quality of construction of the exhibition area - quality of stand construction. It should be noted that it is possible to change the assessment criteria, taking into account the tasks actually set for exposure.

The next stage of the exhibition evaluation is the initial evaluation of its effectiveness, which is carried out within ten days after the end of the exhibition based on quantitative and qualitative indicators. Quantitative indicators: (1) stand visitors: number of visitors; comparison of the composition of visitors to the stand with data from past exhibitions; the share of visitors who make up the target group; contact costs for one visitor; audience activity; (2) negotiations: the number of negotiations; the number of negotiations that ended with an application, a memorandum of intent; (3) competitors: the size of the stand compared to competitors; (4) content analysis of mass media (resonance in the press). Qualitative indicators: (1) visitors to the stand: the analysis of the composition of visitors is carried out according to the following positions: regional composition, official position, industry, status of the enterprise; (2) competitors: location of the stand, equipment compared to competitors; (3) participation and presentation of the enterprise at conferences, symposia within the framework of the exhibition.

When evaluating exposure, it is suggested to use additional factors that affect the effectiveness of participation in the exhibition, in particular, analysis of the exhibition budget, advertising campaign, work at the exhibition, development of prospective contacts. This will allow to adjust the exhibition concept of the enterprise: objectively assess its potential and avoid possible mistakes.

The final stage of the exhibition evaluation is conducted half a year after the exhibition and consists in evaluating the economic efficiency of the exhibition. When calculating it, the amount of concluded contracts is taken into account for each hryvnia invested in the exhibition. Based on the fact that the goals of participation in the exhibition are different, in order to evaluate the economic efficiency of the exhibition, it is suggested to use the investment return ratio, which includes indicators of the cost of one exhibition, the cost of contact, the share of sales per hryvnia of costs.

By the end of the reporting period, based on the summarized results, a general report is formed with an analysis of the effectiveness of the held exhibitions, which includes an analysis of the mistakes made and recommendations for the next planning period.

Therefore, the mechanism of organisation of exhibition event management proposed in the article will allow enterprises - participants and organiszers of exhibitions to more effectively use the exhibition as a tool of communication policy, which will undoubtedly improve the information background of enterprises, as well as allow more rational use of available resources and more balanced management decisions.

The scientific novelty of the article lies in deepening the understanding of the nature of the exhibition phenomenon and the peculiarities of its event management in the conditions of the complication of social relations, uncertainty, and turbulence.

Conclusions

The exhibition is a special cultural phenomenon and event management object. It is not only a source of information about the achievements of individual enterprises, industries, regions, countries, but also an effective marketing tool for intercultural communication. The exhibition affects the cultural, spiritual, political, and economic aspects of society. It is a semiotic space formed by a person for the purpose of presenting ideas, objects, things created by other people for their presentation to the audience.

This is a subjective image of the objective world, a materialised representation of some idea of it. Exhibits as semiotic signs are composed of meanings, forming a complete composition.

It has been established that with the correct organisation of the exhibition space and a well-thought-out theme, it is possible to form an emotional attitude to the surrounding reality in the visitors during the exposition, to stimulate emotional and figurative cognitive activity in them, to contribute not only to the growth of interest in certain products, but also to the development of national culture and economy.

Considering the exhibition as a product allows you to take a new look at this marketing tool in the event management system, identify all the opportunities it provides, and use them to get the maximum effect from the exhibition. The market of exhibition services has a steady growth trend. However, there is a conflict of interests between the organisers and the exhibitors: the organisers cannot offer a product that satisfies the communication needs of the exhibitors, and because of this, the exhibitors do not fully use all the possibilities of the exhibition. The reason for this is the insufficient methodical security of the exhibition activity, as well as the failure to take into account the assessment of the level of organisation of the exhibition and the quality of services provided by its organisers.

To increase the efficiency of exhibition activity, approaches are proposed that will allow more rational and effective use of the exhibition as a tool of marketing communications with the aim of creating a favourable information field for making optimal management decisions.

References

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