California Apparel News

Just when people thought MAGIC couldn’t get any larger, UBM—the trade show giant that owns MAGIC, Project, FN Platform and Pooltradeshow—purchased Business Journals Inc., which produces the MRket, Stitch, Accessories The Show and Fame trade shows.

The deal expanded UBM’s ownership stake in apparel trade shows in Las Vegas, where MAGIC is held, as well as in New York, where UBM operates the Project men’s show as well as the Coterie and Intermezzo women’s shows. With BJI under the umbrella, the portfolio also included menswear show MRket; accessories show Accessories The Show; and three womenswear shows, Moda, Edit and Fame in New York.

The acquisition also affected UBM’s footprint in In Las Vegas. UBM’s existing portfolio had already included WWDMAGIC, Project, Collective, Pooltradeshow, Sourcing at MAGIC, FN Platform, WSA and Curve@Project (run through a joint venture with Eurovet) and has now grown to include BJI shows MRket, Stitch and Accessories The Show.

The news, which broke in April, follows a decade of consolidation within the apparel-trade-show sector. Advanstar, which had been operating MAGIC and its sister shows since 1998, was purchased by UBM for $972 million in 2014. Two years before, Advanstar acquired ENK International, organizer of the Coterie, Intermezzo and Collective shows. In 2005, the company acquired the Project and Pool shows.

By the August edition of UBM’s Las Vegas trade shows, the format had already shuffled with all three BJI shows moving from the Sands Expo & Convention Center to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, where MRket was held alongside Project on the main floor, and Stitch and ATS were held upstairs across from the Pooltradeshow.