Post Con

SpaceCom 2015

The inaugural Space Commerce Conference and Exposition (SpaceCom) brought more than 1,500 aerospace executives, space and defense analysts, and policymakers from 25 countries and 40 states to Houston.

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“Space City” was a fitting host for the first SpaceCom meeting, which culminated in a tour of NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

SpaceCom 2015
Nov. 17–19, 2015
George R. Brown Convention Center
Houston

CHALLENGESJames Causey, SpaceCom’s executive director, was concerned about communicating to potential attendees how the meeting would be different from other space- and aeronautics-related conferences. Happily, attendance exceeded his team’s original goals, and feedback from both exhibitors and attendees has been uniformly positive. Causey related how Satellite Applications Catapult CEO Stuart Martin said in a speech at the conference that in less than 24 hours, SpaceCom had become the premier commercial space event.

INITIATIVES Organizers wanted to make sure SpaceCom had a large social-media footprint. To that end, they promoted the meeting well ahead of time, then blasted out continual updates on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter during the program to keep attendees engaged and informed. Two live broadcasts from the International Space Station upped the excitement factor ahead of the Space Center tour. “Having the opportunity to see the Johnson Space Center is a pretty exciting thing for a lot of people,” Causey said. “It adds an additional dimension to the event.”

Kate Mulcrone

Kate Mulcrone is digital editor of Convene.