California Apparel News

After a dismal turnout by buyers, Action Girl, a relatively new trade show focusing on young female skateboarders and surfers, is closing.

The most recent show, held Aug. 19–21 at the Long Beach Convention Center in Long Beach, Calif., drew only a handful of buyers, leaving exhibitors angry they had wasted their time and money on an event advertised to have more than 2,000 preregistered buyers.

“I thought: What a great idea. How wonderful,” said Reesa Mallen, who recently founded juniors T-shirt company Pinto Bean, based in Beverly Hills.

Mallen convinced her business partners to participate in the show, their first, after hearing about the buyers expected to attend and seeing a map showing booths to be occupied by big-name manufacturers that never materialized.

“There were no buyers,” Mallen said. “I don’t know where it went wrong.”

Neither does Jaime Sparks, the show’s creator. Sparks, a former Southern California skateboarder, launched Action Girl last year because she believed the active 15- to 35-year-old woman had been neglected in other trade shows, such as the Action Sports Retailer Trade Expo, which runs three times a year in Southern California with a focus on boardsports apparel and culture.

Sparks held her first show last summer at the Long Beach Convention Center. About 90 booths were filled with various lines, ranging from bike-riding gear and garments to boardsports apparel and swimwear. Last year’s July 17–19 run generated only a few buyers, so this year, Sparks decided to stage the show in August. More than 135 exhibitors signed up, but that was not enough to save the show.

“Due to the extreme lack of buyer attendance, I cannot move forward for another show,” Sparks wrote in an e-mail after the show. “I don’t know if the lack of attendance was from being too close to other major shows, signs of the economy, too many shows or something else. We preregistered a couple thousand retailers by phone, online, postcards, etc. Plus, we mailed each of them their badges prior to the show. But so few actually showed up.”

No-shows end show

Many exhibitors thought the show was well organized and had good fashion shows staged every day highlighting lines.

But few said they saw many buyers. Sparks said 500 buyers attended the three-day event.

Many exhibitors started to pack up on the second day of the show even though organizers urged them not to leave.

By the third and last day of the exhibit, when the event was opened to the general public, nearly half the exhibitors were gone.

“At tops, there were only 10 buyers there on Saturday,” said Donna von Hoesslin, founder of Bettybelts, based in Santa Cruz, Calif. Last year, von Hoesslin attended the show and was able to recuperate her costs by selling many of her Indonesian-made beaded belts to the public. This year, she did not cover her costs.

Mark Korzeniewski, owner of 2- year-old juniors T-shirt line Fierce Girl, based in Dana Point, Calif., stuck it out through Saturday.

“There were absolutely zero buyers,” Korzeniewski said. “I didn’t even sell samples.”

The dearth of buyers left many people fuming, particularly those who came from as far away as Canada.

“It has been the worst show in the world,” said David Khan, marketing manager for Faremon, a health and fitness line out of Toronto. “All the exhibitors are pretty disappointed.”

Khan said he was also angry that Sparks sent out an e-mail saying 2,000 buyers had attended the grand opening ceremony. “It’s okay to be a new show, but it’s not okay to lie,” he observed.

Brinden Asher, the creative director of Bella, a private-label juniors sportswear line based in Commerce, Calif., that participated in the show for the first time, agreed. “I wanted to laugh. That e-mail was pure-out fraud,” she said.

Sparks said she had accidentally added a zero when noting that 200 buyers had attended the grand opening ceremony.

Wipe out

Last year, Action Girl paired up with Surf Expo to be part of that bigger and more established trade show held twice a year in Orlando, Fla. Action Girl was part of the January show but will not be part of the Sept. 17–19 exhibition organized by DMG World Media.

Sparks said her non-compete contract with Surf Expo was canceled in January. “Surf Expo has basically stolen my idea and created a new section called SHE,” Sparks wrote.

Surf Expo officials confirmed they had canceled Sparks’ contract but would not go into details. “We didn’t steal any of her ideas,” said Lori Kisner, vice president of DMG World Media. “We had a legitimate reason for terminating the contract, but we can’t go into that.”

Surf Expo spokesman Dan Darby said the trade show organizer began looking at the juniors market two years ago when young women’s apparel became a growing segment in the show.

“After the January show, it became clear that Jaime’s vision for her section was not in line [with] what we thought would be appropriate for our buyers,” Darby said. “Some of the events she scheduled were more skaterfocused than a general active-girl line.”