Greater Binghamton Chamber gears up for Expo 2012

BINGHAMTON — The Greater Binghamton Chamber of Commerce will celebrate the 25th anniversary of its business-to-business event — this year, called Expo 2012 — on April 19.

“We’ve got a lot of changes — all we feel are for the better,” says Lou Santoni, president of the Greater Binghamton Chamber. The chamber resumed management of the event this year after a number of years of outsourcing it. (Editor’s note: The Business Journal’s sister company BizEventz was one of the companies that used to produce the event for the chamber. The Business Journal is a media sponsor of this year’s event.) 

Another big change the chamber made to this year’s expo is to move it all to one floor. Previously, the event was spread out over two levels in the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena.

“The key was traffic flow,” Santoni says. Eliminating the second level provides better flow into and through the expo, he says.

Another change is the addition of more breakout sessions. This year attendees can choose two professional- and business-development sessions to attend out of four options — search-engine optimization, retirement strategies, branding, and preventing identity theft.

Expo 2012 also features a CEO roundtable including Binghamton University’s new president Harvey Stenger, Endicott Interconnect Technologies CEO James McNamara, Lourdes Hospital CEO David Patak, and M&T Bank Regional Economist Gary Keith.

“It’s really going to be interesting,” Santoni says of the limited-seating roundtable event. Together, those three organizations provide about 40 percent of the area’s employment, so it will be enlightening to hear from those companies about where they see the region’s economy going, he says.

Another change that came from bringing the planning of the expo back in-house was the ability to lower the cost of booths by about 25 percent to 30 percent, Santoni says. Booths for the expo (which were just about sold out at press time) ranged from $200 for a nonprofit sharing a booth with another nonprofit to $725 for non-chamber-member businesses with more than 25 employees.

“It adds a lot more of a personal touch getting a call from the chamber,” about the expo, Santoni adds.

The chamber has moved Expo 2012’s networking reception to the main expo area to encourage people to stay later in the day and mingle more, he says.

While the expo is a business-to-business networking event, it draws in about 2,500 outside attendees as well, who pay a $3 fee, Santoni says. 

But the key focus of the event remains businesses making connections with other area businesses. That’s why New York State Electric and Gas (NYSEG) continues to participate in the event, says Robert Pass, regional community outreach and development manager for the utility company.

“The [expo] just provides an excellent opportunity to promote a lot of our programs and our business initiatives,” he says. This year, NYSEG will promote its commercial and industrial energy-efficiency programs.

Elizabeth Bucci, a recruiter for Northwestern Mutual Southern Tier Group in Binghamton, says the insurer is participating for the first time this year in order to take advantage of the networking opportunities the expo presents.

“Our company is growing tremendously and we’re always looking for prospects for full-time employment as well as internships,” she says. “I think attending the Expo is the best way for us to get our name out there.”

This year, the Expo runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 19 at the Broome County Veterans Memorial Auditorium.