MMCS Events Celebrating 10 Years of the Makeup Show - An Interview with Co-Founder Shelly Taggar

Article Information

  • Posted By : Marina Vatav
  • Posted On : Aug 12, 2015
  • Views : 2671
  • Category : Planning
  • Description : The Makeup Show is celebrating a decade of growth and success. Launched in New York by Shelly Taggar and her partners, the show has expanded to 6 different cities and 8 events a year that are attended by over 20,000 people. It is proud to be a premium boutique show where they pick-and-choose exhibitors to offer attendees an unforgettable experience and networking opportunities.

Overview

  • Shelly TaggarShelly Taggar

    The Makeup Show is celebrating a decade of growth and success. Launched in New York by Shelly Taggar and her partners, the show has expanded to 6 different cities and 8 events a year that are attended by over 20,000 people. It is proud to be a premium boutique show where they pick-and-choose exhibitors to offer attendees an unforgettable experience and networking opportunities.

    Below is an interview with Shelly Taggar, Co-Founder of the Makeup Show on their growth challenges, and vision for the future.

     

    How would you describe the past 10 years of the show?

    It's been a busy 10 years. It's been very interesting just learning about this industry in different places around the country and the world. We started with just a New York show and grew to have shows in Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Orlando, Dallas, Berlin, and now we are doing our pop-up event in San Francisco. Every market, every city brings something completely different, and it's just so interesting to see how this industry operates in each city.


    What is unique about the Makeup  Show?

    It's a small “boutiquey” show that only has a curated 100-120 brands. When you come at the door here, you basically meet the owners of the brand, the executives that manage the brand. You meet the influencers and the decision makers in the industry. You don't come here and meet sales people that work the counter for different brands.

    Every time someone walks into the show there is this adrenaline that you feel, an amazing place to network. You would walk the floor and walk alongside some of the biggest artists of the industry, and this is a pretty amazing feeling when you are just a starting artist, or a student, to have that experience.

    We have booth set-ups, there are all the exhibitors meeting, selling, and introducing their new brands to the attendees. Also, there are other floors that have education events: hands-on and seminars, keynotes, career fair, and others.


    Who are most of your participants?

    Our show is open only for industry insiders. It's mostly make-up artists, hair stylists, fashion-designers. We get a lot of students, cosmetology students, from people that work in spa and salons and do make-up on a regular basis, to artists that work on like a lady gaga video.

    We have all range of artists; we get about 6000 people in each show.

     

    What are the key factors for your growth and success?

    I think we are very personalized; we listen and learn after each show. I always say that I have 120 clients, exhibitors that are clients of mine, but on top of that I have 6000 attendees that are my clients as well. I have to make sure that everyone is happy, and part of what we do is to really listen to attendees when they walk the floor. We get emails after the show about what they liked, what they didn't like, what worked, and any suggestions they may have. We listen to them and we listen to the exhibitors, and we make sure that our customer service is superb and we can always deliver better shows year after year. Otherwise, why are we here? This has to be a successful show for them as much as it is for us.

    I have a team of 6 people that work very hard. We sit after each show, we go over all the comments we receive, and discuss what we really think can make a big difference and change to the show.

     

    What has been the biggest challenge so far in organizing your shows?

    Finding facilities in the US. It's very hard to find spaces in New York city and everywhere else. There are just not enough private facilities. Our show is so premium and “boutiquey” that we don't go with convention centers, we don't go with those large expo places. Just finding the right places is challenging, and then making sure you deliver on what you promised while still being successful. Because integrity is the most important thing.


    How easy or challenging was it for you to expand into a new city?

    It was pretty challenging, because we are in New York city. New York was the easiest thing for us. It's not easy producing an event in a different city, not only the production work, but also gathering the amount of artists that you need, the amount of people to attend the show, getting the right exhibitors, exhibitors that can sell their products, create new connections and find new buyers.

    It's always challenging to go to a new city. For instance, our new city San Francisco, which we’re going to in August, is not the easiest to work with. With the difference in time, you have to make sure you do as much as you would do if it was a New York show, and find the right people there. Sometimes there are challenges in operating from New York and trying to produce something in San Francisco, for example.

     

    Is your first event in a new city usually a success?

    So far, all of them have been a success; they are never like an existing show. The New York show gets 7,000 people after 10 years; the LA show gets 6,000 people after 6 years; Dallas and Orlando, for instance, have only existed for a year or two, of course they get more like 3,000-4,000 people and slowly they grow.

     

    What are the main marketing strategies that you use?

    We use a lot of social media because it's so big within the cosmetic world, from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter. We also do advertising in those outlets and we do a lot of direct outreach as well, sending the team to walk around, meet people and owners of spas, salons and stores, and invite them. We also do a lot of marketing mailers to those people, and we work very closely with all the schools in each city that we operate in and each surrounding places in that state to make sure that we get as many students to participate.

     

    What is next for your shows?

    We would love to expand outside the United States again. We did a European show, but there is Canada and Australia for us, so we would hope that in the next couple of years we can expand the show further outside of the US.

     

    Do you envision that you would keep it as a boutique show?

    Always! That's what we are, we sell it like that. I always say that we are more like the founders, it is more about the loyal customer. We have people that have been attending our show from day one and still attending every year. They come from all over the world, not just New Yorkers. That's the most important thing for us. I wouldn't change what we are about. It's something that I would always want to keep.

     

    What advice do you have for other event planners?

    Stay honest, it's the most important thing. Take care of the team and the people that work hard for you. Take care of your sponsors that support your show, and always do the right thing. To me it's the most important thing. I go to sleep every night knowing that I try to make everyone as happy as possible, and that I am making things right with them. I'm never ever going to do anything to jeopardize that.