Grant Burgham, event director for Defense and Security Equipment International, UK, (right) and Alex Soar, event manager for Defense and Security Equipment International, Japan, (left) discuss celebrating two decades since the launch of the world’s leading multi-service tradeshow and conference, next year’s event in London and the inaugural exhibit in Japan during an interview with Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian at the 2018 AUSA Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. Our AUSA coverage is brought to you by Bell, a Textron Company, Elbit Systems of America, L3 Technologies, Leonardo DRS, and Safran.
Grant Burgham
Alex Soar
DSEI
AUSA Annual Meeting
October 2018
Vago Muradian: Welcome to the Defense and Aerospace Report. I’m Vago Muradian here at the Association of the United States Army’s Annual Conference and Trade Show in Washington, DC, the number one gathering of U.S. Army leaders from around the world to talk about the service’s future, its budget, strategies, technology and programs and more. Our coverage here is sponsored by Bell, a Textron company; Elbit Systems of America; L3 Technologies; Leonardo DRS; and SAFRAN.
We have here our partners at DSEI, Grant Burgham who heads DSEI, UK, the world’s largest defense exhibition for ground systems, air systems, as well as maritime systems; and Alex Soar who’s part of the DSEI team over at Clarion Exhibitions as well, who is doing the new show in Japan which is historic and is going to be I think extremely closely watched.
Grant, it’s the 20thanniversary year for DSEI. What are you guys doing to make the show even bigger and better than it is? And I’m not sure it can get any bigger, but I’m sure if anybody’s going to pull it off, it’s going to be you.
Grant Burgham: Absolutely. We are currently 82 percent sold out, so that’s a good reflection on what we’re doing globally. We’re also looking to celebrate the two decades of supporting the armed forces. That’s really good momentum for us for 2019.
Mr. Muradian: And what do you think are going to be some of the big themes? Every year there’s a very large naval exhibition, that’s part of it. The [Xcel] Center is an extraordinary venue that has that waterfront area where ships can get to. But what do you think some of the big themes are going to be? Every show has a theme and a vibe and a message at the end of the day.
Mr. Burgham: Absolutely. The main theme across the exhibition and the conference program is going to be about emerging technologies, cross-sector exploitation, as well as international partnerships.
Mr. Muradian: And that’s certainly the place to do it. How many international pavilions are there going to be?
Mr. Burgham: Currently about 40, and we’re working on having 45.
Mr. Muradian: And you’re working hard on some of those.
Mr. Burgham: Absolutely.
Mr. Muradian: Alex, let me ask you. Japan has traditionally had one air show, if you will. It’s been the Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies, the SJAC show. But it’s tended to be a little bit of a more modest affair. Japan has always been very sensitive about how it’s seen on a national security perspective, but Japan has been moving very, very quickly to shed that World War II mantle and say hey look, we’ve been a productive member of society for 70 years, and certainly the Asian economic revolution was built on Japanese investment across the region.
Talk to us a little bit about what this new show’s going to be and some of the messages, because I know you’re working closely with the Japanese government, to try to make sure that it sends the right message across the board.
Alex Soar: Absolutely. So we’ve been working towards this for the last three or four years now, and with the change in the constitution in Japan about four years ago, they’ve got an increasing desire for Japanese companies to develop international technological partnerships. We feel this is a good and appropriate time for Japan to have a good and proper international tri-service defense and security show. We’ll build that on the top of what we’ve done at DSEI. DSEI London, we pull together the entire defense security and the supply chain year on year and we want to build on that in Japan and offer another gateway not just to the Japanese industry, and not just for Japanese industry to access the rest of the world, but for the rest of the world to access Asia as well.
Mr. Muradian: And I think that people have a tendency of forgetting that actually some of the most sophisticated defense producers in the world is actually Japanese industry at the end of the day.
And the pavilions have been growing around the world, as well, and when you see an increasing Japanese presence.
First, give us the dates of the show and exactly how large you expect it to be, because there is such a pent-up demand for both Western companies to get into Japan, but also Japanese companies to really showcase the breadth of their capability.
Mr. Soar: Absolutely. The date is November of 2019, so immediately after DSEI in London. And in terms of scale, we expect to have about 250 exhibitors, about 6,000 square meters gross which is about the same size of a Manhattan city block.
Mr. Muradian: That’s a pretty nice exhibition for the way to start off. Just imagine where you’re going to be in a couple of years.
Speaking of a couple of years, every year DSEI works to try to get better. Registration has been smoother than ever. You guys work hard to minimize the lines and really maximize the programs, and it’s one of the shows that I’ve lobbied I think to say we could use one more day, although I know there are some people who would want to kill me. But it is one of the shows that starts furious and really goes right to that Friday furious.
What are some of the things, Grant, you and your team are doing to improve the experience? Each year we see improvements. What are some of the areas you guys have targeted to make better for everybody who attends this year?
Mr. Burgham: I think what’s key is our customer experience. The show lies across a number of pillars. Our experience is one; network is another; content is the other. We want to make sure that those pillars are maintained throughout the on-site as well as the campaign.
We’re very excited about a number of things. Registration is also very key for us, again, as you highlighted, so we’re making sure that we have a speedy access, and making sure that our process is the best in the world.
Mr. Muradian: And you guys manage to actually keep the security end of it up as well, because it’s remarkably thorough and yet pretty fast-moving. See, I’m giving you a free plug. But I have to say, it does work remarkably well unlike some other shows where you’re like, are you sure you’re checking those bags or am I just waiting on line with some placebo effect at the end of the day.
What I didn’t ask you, Alex, is about how far sold are you guys on this? About how many people have already signed up, because you’re still a little bit of a year and change out.
Mr. Soar: We’re 14 months out. We have 45 companies involved in the show, so of that 250 I think we’re doing pretty well at this stage. There are another 40 or so companies who have stands on hold [inaudible], so we’ll be filling up pretty rapidly.
Mr. Muradian: Great. Alex Soar of DSEI Japan. Very much looking forward to seeing you in Tokyo. Grant Burgham of DSEI proper in the UK. Very much looking forward to working and seeing you both. And it’s hard to imagine, but you’re bearing down on the wedding. It’s only 11 months away now.
Mr. Burgham: That’s correct. We look forward to welcoming you, Vago, you’re an integral part of our partnership and we look forward to working with you.
Mr. Muradian: Exactly. Same here, very much, Grant. All the best to you guys and I look forward to seeing you many more times before the shows.
Mr. Burgham: Thank you very much.
Mr. Muradian: Thanks very much. And I hope you guys have a smooth ride home.
Mr. Burgham: Thank you very much.
Mr. Soar: Thanks, Vago.
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