by Pat Friedlander, Exhibit City News
When I first met Marissa Hohner, the founder and CEO of Good Time Creative, at EDPA ACCESS2022 it was on the beach at The Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, FL. We had a short conversation, but I mentally filed her name and company for future exploration. I wanted to learn more about the company ever since Marissa Hohner became president of our Midwest EDPA chapter, something that happened as our industry was “exiting” from COVID. I never had the chance to explore her business. Over the past year, however, I have been writing articles about design for Exhibit City News (ECN), and when the topic of women in the industry came up, I knew it was time.
Good Time Creative came together during COVID-19 when a group of women decided to strike out on their own. “We partner with brands and agencies on creative strategy and development requests,” their website tells us, “including branding, environmental, exhibition, and thematic formats—bringing each to life through spatial floor planning, 3D renderings, and custom engineering prints.”
The company is 100 percent female-founded, independently owned, and 99 percent female-operated
In Marissa’s words, “As part of the .1 percent of creative agencies founded and owned entirely by women, championing women in business, especially in advancing professional development within the live event and design industries, has been a long-standing passion of mine. After the 2020 shutdown, I was determined not to abandon the industry that fueled my passion for creativity. I launched Good Time Creative on January 7th, 2021. The name reflects my desire to work on cool projects, with cool people, all while having a good time.”
The Changing of The Guard Starts Now
As someone who has been in this business a long time, I find Marissa’s words nothing short of thrilling. As the theme for this issue of ECN states, we are seeing a changing of the guard. More and more young women are leading companies—taking over family businesses, buying existing companies, or, as in the case of Good Time Creative, starting their own companies. My colleague Sam Ogren, who wrote an article on mentorship for this issue, addresses many of these changes, specifically the expectations of young people embarking on careers in exhibits and events. Companies are evolving; new forms and configurations are replacing traditional paradigms.
But what about older generations still in the workforce? Can they change their minds about the way it’s s’posed to be?
Not long ago, a former colleague asked my opinion about publishing a treatise about the tradeshow industry—and predicting where it would be in 10 years. I asked whose opinions and input had been sought. Their list included (1) no one under 60, (2) predominantly white males, and (3) several ‘contributions’ from dead people.
People who will be working in the industry, let’s say, in 10 years, are the ones whose insights count—and today, there are at least equal numbers of men and women leading the way. Too much attention has been paid to industry dinosaurs. Expert panels were more often than not “manels,” showcases for those whose contributions had more to do with self-promotion than their efforts to establish substantive change and progress. We can acknowledge what was good in the past without canonizing it.
It’s Not 1985
As a lifelong Bears football fan, the most fitting analogy of this situation is what a sportswriter recently said: The fans in Chicago will never move on until they stop talking about 1985 (the only year the Bears won the Super Bowl). Until we value the contributions and innovations coming from future industry leaders, the industry will hold itself back. The tradeshow industry was never Camelot; the challenge for those of us who are older is to stay aware of the industry’s direction—sustainability initiatives, diversity, inclusion, technology—and to pay attention to the next generation. They have so much to offer. The guard cannot change soon enough. There will always be “Good Times Ahead!”
This story originally appeared as a truncated version in the Q1 2025 issue of Exhibit City News, p.26. For original layout, visit https://issuu.com/exhibitcitynews/docs/ecn_q1_2025/26.
