Euroshow Kft. is a full-service event planning company founded 18 February 1997 as part of the Euroshow Events International brand; our fundamental goal was to fulfill our clients’ corporate event needs to the highest standards and the execute creative implementation of such events. The greatest challenge that we faced during our first year of operation was the organization of the events of Duna Plaza, the most glamorous shopping and entertainment center at the time, opened in the previous year. The highest profile of those events was the center’s first anniversary party with two prominent international guest stars (Bellini, Jam & Spoon) and a record-breaking number of 114,000 visitors, of whom a lucky family won a family holiday home as the conclusion of a three-week series of promotional games aimed at boosting sales. This experience was the genesis of our commitment to making the participants of our clients’ events happier.
Inspired by our first year of success, we plunged enthusiastically into implementing the marketing and communications strategies of the new shopping centers, which were opening one after the other at the time. That was the year when we won the organization of the opening ceremony of the Csepel Plaza and we planned up to 50 plaza parties at Duna Plaza as part of a one-year agreement. This was the heyday of shopping center events, and the series of newly opening malls offered our team long-term contracts, which we executed to the highest standards according to expectations. In the same year, we won the open competition for the organization of the one-week opening event series of Lurdy Ház Budapest shopping and entertainment center, as well as the corresponding promotional launch campaign. Still in the same here, we had the opportunity to organize the opening of the Dutch-owned Grand Casino.
In our third year of business, we saw an increasing demand for organizing the marketing and communications activities for the expanding shopping centers, primarily involving events targeted at residential customers, which is how we started our involvement with the newly opened shopping centers in Győr and Sopron. In addition, we signed a long-term contract with the Hungarian- and German-owned Merkur Spielothek casino and entertainment centers, which already had numerous stores in Hungary at the time, mainly for the organization of opening and marketing events. We also tried our luck in the multinational sector, securing our first multinational partner, the Hungarian subsidiary of the Swiss pharmaceutical manufacturer Novartis, who charged us with organizing their sales meetings. The corporation also offered us the opportunity to venture into a new business area when we produced and implemented our first exhibition stand for Novartis.
In the year of the millennium, our successes bred new relationships and our company started opening towards large multinational companies, while the marketing strategies of shopping centers were becoming increasingly sales oriented. In addition to a few sales-incentive promotional events organized for Csepel Plaza, we edited and published monthly promotional brochures. The slow but steady transformation of the ‘Plaza’ craze was palpable, and with more and more shopping centers appearing on the scene, the competition for customers intensified. At the same time, opportunities in the multinational sector were increasing, and in this year, we started working with companies like MATÁV (now Hungarian Telekom) and Citibank, for whom we organized a Christmas party with 1100 participants at Hungexpo.
Starting with the first year of the new millennium, a broadening range of clients put their confidence in our business, while we were also able to retain all of our previous clients. Our newest partners included Tetra Pak packaging material company, Bristol-Myers Squibb multinational pharmaceutical manufacturer and the first of our FMCG partners, Kraft Foods food manufacturing company, for whom we led the nationwide 10-week promotional campaign for their then latest product, the 3Bit chocolate bar at 55 prominent clubs. During the promotional period, we helped the target audience taste 8m3 of chocolate samples. We received our first assignment from the Paks Nuclear Power Plant in 2001, which was also our first government contract. The assignment included the comprehensive implementation of a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Government Council, the success of which paved the way for a long and fruitful cooperation.
There is a saying among businesspeople that if a company doesn’t go under within five years, it is potentially capable of running for a lifetime. We trust that this prophecy is well-founded, because as this summary is being drafted, our company is approaching its 21st anniversary – successful, profitable, full of plans and new ideas. The year 2001 was about slow but continuous growth, as we planned and organized a series of flawless events for our partners. As we were still in the phase of proving ourselves to our new partners, this year was basically about proving that we could meet any challenge. This laid the foundations for subsequent opportunities for growth and deepened our partners’ confidence in us.
In 2003, in addition to achieving consistent increase in volume with our existing partners, a significant event occurred in the life of our company. The Moscow Center of WANO (World Association of Nuclear Operators) published a competition across its member countries for the organization of their biannual global meeting (organized every eight years by the Moscow Center), which is the largest international event in the nuclear energy industry. In the two-round competition, our company first had to win the Hungarian leg in order to qualify for the second round with each country’s winners of the first round. Moscow ultimately selected Euroshow as the winning competitor, starting a two-year event planning process, the largest project in the history of our company thus far.
In 2004, our company had one flawless performance after the other, executing each event for our partners with excellent results, which resulted in a continuous growth of order volume from our existing clients and the acquisition of new partners. As a result of our strengthening and broadening relationship with the Paks Nuclear Power Plant, MVM (Hungarian Electricity Companies) also entrusted our company with planning their large-scale event called Electricity Day, which we organized at the Recreational Park in Kamaraerdő to the greatest satisfaction of the 1100 participants. In the meantime, we were making headway with the organization of the WANO BGM (Biennial General Meeting of the World Association of Nuclear Operators), and in the spirit of professional preparation, we visited the venues of this complex, international event encompassing several countries.
2005 was the year of our big breakthrough. We succeeded in proving to ourselves and the stakeholders and company heads of the Hungarian public energy sector that we were capable of organizing world-class events. In fact, the WANO BGM was so successful that the organizations of WANO (not only the Moscow Center) bombarded the management of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant and MVM with thank you notes expressing their gratitude and appreciation, as well as their surprise at what a small Central-Eastern European country is apparently capable of. We planned and organized a four-day plenary session for the 550 decision-makers in the nuclear energy industry arriving from 39 countries, five meetings of the government council, 16 city sightseeing tours, three large-scale gala dinners (Fishermen’s Bastion, National Gallery, Opera House), a press conference and additional post conference trips in five countries.
Due to the rave success of the WANO BGM, MVM Zrt., which became a company group in 2005 representing companies of the Hungarian energy sector, also opened new horizons for Euroshow by allowing us to represent the company group as a unit. We were contracted to organize two large events, a company group-level ball, the Night of Lights, and another group event, the Electricity Day. The former was a protocol event for the management with 450 guests, surpassing even the standards of the famous Opera Ball, while the other was a full-day family event with 8600 participants in the first year, which we organized in the ‘Skanzen’ Open Air Museum in Szentendre, with the success of both events meeting prior expectations.
Besides these two large events, the MVM Group provided us with countless other opportunities, and our orders from the company group gradually reached such a volume that it took up 50% of our resources. At the same time, we separated our event planning activities from the exhibition stand business and created a new brand, EurExpo, which meant a new line of business for the company. Besides Novartisnak, we started designing and building exhibition stands for other pharmaceutical companies and acquired new partners such as AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Our first expo stand to appear abroad was designed for TVK (Tisza Chemical Works), which commissioned us to design, build and operate their stand at the plastic industry exhibition organized in Oyannax, France.
2008 was a record year for our company in every possible way. The MVM Group maximized their trust in us, as a result of which the number of participants in the Electricity Day grew exponentially, with now 13,200 employees and their family members enjoying the event. We created special light installations for the MVM Night of Lights never seen on the Hungarian event planning market either before or since. We projected a 3D animation film (45m wide and 8m tall) onto the walls of the renaissance and baroque halls of the Museum of Fine Arts; the film, written and directed by us with the musical score composed by Imre Czomba, was a wonderful journey into how humans have utilized electricity from the big bang up to the present day.
It was initially frightening when as a result of the advent of the financial crisis at the end of 2008, we lost close to 50% of our contracts for 2009 within a space of two weeks, and we were receiving distressing and desperate news from the media. After some thinking, we decided to carry on and not resort to downsizing. This is when we came up with the idea of acquiring a mobile show vehicle for the Paks Nuclear Power Plant (which functioned independently of the crisis) for the awareness raising activities which are critical for the company in order to sustain the support of the public. This is how we came to purchase our custom-made info-mobile interactive truck, a German-made show truck, which was a huge success in both appearance and content.
Although the ensuing recession during the years of the crisis hit the entire event planning industry quite hard, our company was more significantly affected by the new policies represented by the new government which came to power in 2010. There was a palpable decrease in the volume of orders from the MVM Group, which had been built during the previous decade, and it was clear that this part of our business would completely disappear in the upcoming years, which is why we were searching for a new strategy with which to secure our profitable operation and the retention of our employees, albeit under much more modest circumstances. Accordingly, our strategy including acquiring and fulfilling a large number — although small volume — of orders from large companies in the private sector (as opposed to the public sector). This meant significantly more work at a smaller profit, but we stuck to our guns.
The change of government also resulted in the complete replacement of the entire management of the MVM Group, and the new management almost completely discontinued their involvement with us in their first year. We contemplated our opportunities and decided to move on. We contacted new companies and tried to grab every opportunity in order to ensure our survival. The huge knowledge base, experience and practice that we had accumulated was to our advantage, as was our highly qualified team, which could easily tackle any task. Our sales activities that year were enormous in scale: we contacted close to 3000 companies and got to know businesses that we had never heard of. In the end, we acquired 15 new partners.
We won a three-year event planning contract with MOL Hungary, the country’s largest company, which was an incredible joy and confirmed that the quality of our work still ranks us among the best. In addition, our extensive sales activities earned us new clients, such as ISD Dunaferr Zrt., Terrán Tetőcserépgyártó Kft. and Grundfost, while a corporation agreement with the Hungarian Post Office was also in the pipeline. In addition to our corporate events, 2012 saw the fourth year of our CSR activities: we built our 10th exhibition installation produced and donated to the Kolonics Foundation and started promoting the kayak-canoe department of the Dunaferr Sports Association.
In 2013, we participated as main organizers in the planning and implementation of the dragon boat world championships sponsored by the IDBF (International Dragon Boat Federation) and the MSSZ (Hungarian Dragon Boat Federation) with the participation of 3000 athletes from 33 countries; the international sports management called in the event clearly “the best world event we’ve ever had.” During the world championships, the second half of our team was organizing a highly successful promotional event in Romania as part of our first cooperation with the Hungarian Post Office at the “Tusványos” festival of Tusnádfürdő, where the Prime Minister of Hungary also made an appearance. We also organized a large award ceremony for MOL Nyrt. among other important events, including a family day for Grundfos with 4500 participants, which contributed to the achievement of our organizational objectives.
With economic discipline and proactive, optimal commitments, Euroshow has always strived to avoid leasing constructions. The office property purchases in Dunaújváros in 2003 and 2006, in Budapest in 2005, the industrial land purchase in Dunaújváros in 2006 and the construction of our own central warehouse hall in 2007, as well as acquiring our own transport vehicle fleet and promotional show truck were all testament to that endeavor. It was in 2014, however, that our dearest dream was about to become a reality when we purchased a 16.6ha recreational park on the Danube bank from ISD Dunaferr Zrt., where we plan to build our independent event center suitable for hosting our own events. These developments, however, never distracted us from our regular operation.
In the meantime, our EurExpo line of business kept receiving countless business assignments, giving us the opportunity to design smaller exposition installations in Oman, Qatar and Russia for the MOL Group, the successes of which helped us secure a contract with the MOL Group by winning a competition, as a part of which we built five gigantic, multi-story expo installations in Poland and Germany. Our stand at the Plastpol testing industry exhibition in Kielce, Poland won the award for the most innovative and attractive installation, which was the biggest achievement for this line of their business thus far. Our company also won a government contract for the organization of 400 nurse training workshops in Budapest and other large towns in Hungary for ÁEEK (National Healthcare Services Centre).
Although following the change of government in 2010, the MMV Group started renting our uniquely equipped and therefore unparalleled info-mobile vehicle, the promotional show truck with various leasing constructions through intermediary companies, the already operational Paks II Nuclear Power Plant Ltd. made use of the vehicle through a direct contract. With the development of the new nuclear power plant, continuous information sharing with the public is indispensable, and one of the most efficient marketing-communications devices is WOM, i.e. personal, interactive and deep information sharing, which our company conducted during the summer at eight prominent festivals, then continued touring Hungary from autumn to spring. Our information truck reached close to 80,000 people in 180 towns.
Our company celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2017. However, we honored our history with hard work and extraordinary efforts rather than self-celebration. The anniversary year involved investments, planning, dreaming and internal restructuring in an effort to continue our operation after two successful years with new impetus, state-of-the-art methods and an updated image, but with the same commitment and profound love for our work. Our most important value remains the person and the customer, no matter the company, the cause or the principle they represent. We have reconsidered everything we have done, evaluated and let go of the past, freeing up space for the new, the modern and for tomorrow.
2018 is about building the future in which we continue our path along new strategic lines. Our goal is to create and introduce to the market new, innovative event programs, independently create our own events and open our business towards additional areas within marketing and communications. We are rethinking the internal design of our promotional truck to create a futuristic ride, and in our day-to-day operations, we are transitioning towards completely digitalized, exclusively web-based solutions in order to protect our precious environment. All these changes, innovations and developments serve a single purpose: understanding and fulfilling our clients’ needs to the highest degree, contributing to the full achievement of our partners’ business objectives. Yes, this is indeed our goal, as our partners’ success is the key to our own.
