Pool Trade Show Grows Up
Since it launched in 2001, Pool Trade Show has gained a reputation as the business venue where the counter-culture designer could have it all—a place to discover new art as well as a platform to do serious business without having to worry about spending a fortune on marketing. Yet by August 2005, some of the show’s adherents suspected that the qualities they admired about Pool would vanish.
Pool was considered to be an alternative to mainstream trade show MAGIC. But in August, the show was purchased by MAGIC owner Advanstar Communications Inc. for $3 million. However, Advanstar had no intention of grooming Pool to be a cookie-cutter trade show, according to Pool founder Ronda Walker. Rather, the New York–based Advanstar was going to put Pool on the fast track toward realizing Walker’s aspirations for the show.
In a recent interview at her headquarters in Los Angeles’s bohemian Silverlake neighborhood, Walker announced changes that could vastly expand the scope of her company this year.
“Advanstar was such a good move,” Walker said. “It let me do what I wanted to do, and it took away the stuff I hated, like accounting and legal. Now I can be visionary with this business.”
In addition to producing biannual trade shows in Las Vegas—the next one is scheduled Feb. 20–23 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center—Pool will launch new Pool shows in New York, scheduled in January and July. The debut Big Apple show is scheduled for July 17–19 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center and will run concurrently with the Project Global Trade Show, also held at the Javits Center. Project was purchased by MAGIC in August 2005.
Pool also will add one consumer day to each of its trade shows, possibly by summer. The company will debut an e-commerce Web site, Pooltradeshow.com, at the upcoming Las Vegas show. The Web site will handle both trade and consumer business. And that’s not all. Walker plans to launch a music label, Pool Music, by 2007, and is considering producing music festivals.Keeping the indie vibe
The Advanstar purchase and the bustle of expansion also meant Walker’s facilities had a growth spurt. In October 2005, she moved offices from a 1,000-square-foot space in Hollywood to a 10,000-square-foot warehouse in Silverlake. Her staff also grew from four to 20 people in 2005.
However, Walker guaranteed that Pool’s unique spirit would remain true to the time when it was a 50-vendor show in 2001. With 500 vendors exhibiting at the upcoming show, Pool plans to continue to be the go-to place where edgy, art-inspired apparel labels can do business with a low degree of marketing hype.
Exhibition prices would begin at $4,000 per vendor, the same as they have been for the past two shows. Retailers looked forward to revisiting the original formula for Pool’s success, said Shaheen Sadeghi, owner of specialty shopping centers The Lab and The Camp, both based in Costa Mesa, Calif. “For retailers, Pool has a consistency of good product available if you didn’t want to buy department store product. The show was never about who has the coolest booth, it was about who has the best product,” Sadeghi said. “Pool must keep that functionality. If it becomes more of a public situation, the vision could get cluttered.”
Walker said the Pool show will keep its trade and consumer activities separate and allow vendors time to change gears. The consumer day would be held after the scheduled trade show. The new consumer day could also provide fashion-savvy consumers what could be their first look at many new brands. Mason Brown and Rob Dubar, co-owners of Cardboard Robot, a Long Beach, Calif.–based label that will exhibit at Pool, were eager to try out the new idea.
“We could reduce SKUs, and it would be a good way to show our face to the public,” Brown said.
The new Web site also is part of Walker’s effort to reach out to the wider world. Retailers not able to go to Pool in Las Vegas or New York could place orders through the Web site. Consumers not able to find a Pool vendor at their favorite boutique or not able to visit Pool’s consumer day could have access to the collections through a direct-to-consumer area of the site.Mixing music and fashion
As for building a record label, Pool produced samplers of alternative rock music that were distributed to attendees at the show last August.
Walker promised music won’t be her last effort to expand the boundaries of the trade show. “I see Pool as a cultural place where people can communicate ideas,” she said. “I’m an explorer. I love doing things people haven’t done before.”
Adding to the Mix
Pool Trade Show will soon add a direct-to-consumer component to its business-to-business format, according to Chief Executive Ronda Walker, who announced Pool will add an additional consumer day to its trade show starting this summer.
Other California event producers have tried to mine a similar niche. Most started with a consumer-driven format.
Thread is a quarterly market for new designers in San Diego.
DJs, a party atmosphere and new designers were responsible for attracting 3,500 attendees to the last show in December 2005, according to show founder Lara Mathews. Thread not only attracts consumers looking for underground labels but also a good fashion party. Department store buyers also scout the show, according to Mathews, who said she intends to produce Thread shows in San Francisco and Bristol, United Kingdom.
The mix of underground fashion and music inspired Los Angeles designer Atousa G. to produce her SewDown fashion/technology/music event for the past three years. She’s often scheduled Sew Down during Los Angeles Fashion Week.
Designer Jose Angel also began blending the trade and consumer market for fashion last year when he expanded his 2 1/2-year-old P.KaBu runway series, held during Los Angeles Fashion Week, to include a trunk show called P.KaBu Trunk & Trade.
And in the late ’90s many street-and clubwear labels including Rojas participated in a similar fashion/music series. Ritual Events began in Los Angeles and eventually culminated in a multi-city tour in 2000, when organizers staged similar events in Chicago, Boston, New York and Seattle. —Andrew Asch with contributions from Alison A. Nieder
