By Tim Young

For any non-nerds in the audience, please excuse me while I geek out a little. In 1932, Siegel and Shuster created an American icon. In 1938, that icon appeared in Action Comics #1. Faster than a speeding bullet. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Often confused for a bird (or a plane).

In 1988, TIA and USTA created a telecommunications icon. That icon appeared in various cities, and played venues from the Georgia Dome to Las Vegas. Bigger than a bursting bubble. Able to circulate tall buzzwords in a single day. Often confused for... any other massive tradeshow at Chicago’s McCormick Place.

Superman. SUPERCOMM. They share more than just a first name.

In 1992, that first icon met his inexplicable end. The creative minds behind him saw a changing audience and decided that it was time to shake things up. Superman was killed. He met his end at the hands of a guy named (subtly) “Doomsday”. But he didn’t stay dead. He was immediately replaced by an array of spinoffs with names like “Man of Steel” and “The Metropolis Kid”, which each seemed meant to grab a section of the comic book demographic. Doomsday didn’t kill Superman. A desire to maintain relevance in the market did.

In 2005, a similar decision was made regarding SUPERCOMM. USTA and TIA split and each formed their own event based on a slightly different vision about the future of the industry. TelecomNEXT and Globalcomm had to divide tradeshow marketing dollars, and neither show captured the preeminence of SUPERCOMM. The two made up and formed NXTComm, which eventually gave way to a SUPERCOMM redux. Then, just a few weeks ago, it was announced that there would be no SUPERCOMM 2010. The fate of future SUPERCOMMs is undecided, but for the moment, SUPERCOMM is no dead.

Congress. Cable and wireless firms in the US have more successful shows, and telcos aren’t sure that tradeshows are the answer, leaving vendors without an audience, reluctant to spend the big bucks the big shows require.

There are, in short, more targeted shows on the market. Shows that are rooted in intuitive conferences that give background and insight on industry problems and solutions. Shows that combine the extremely practical with the totally conceptual. Shows that draw people in. SUPERCOMM had ceased to be quite that kind of show.

However, I don’t want this to be a mere postmortem for SUPERCOMM (for whom this ‘death’ may not be final). I want to extend this concept to the entire convention (pardon the pun) of trade shows, in general. Are they still relevant? Do they still matter? Is this how people still want to do business?

Part of the woes that events are feeling right now have to do with the general state of the economy. Reports on CES attendance show a 20% decrease in the number of techies roaming that expo floor.