TRADE SHOWS
The Year in Trade Shows
There was a lot of movement in the trade-show sector in 2016. The big news was UBM’s purchase of Business Journals, which added MRket, Stitch, Accessories The Show, Edit and Fame under the enormous UBM umbrella, which includes MAGIC, Project, FN Platform, Coterie, Intermezzo, Sourcing at MAGIC and WSA.
The year also saw the acquisition of West Coast–based Swim Collective and Active Collective by Emerald Expositions LLC, the San Juan Capistrano, Calif.–based company that runs Surf Expo, Outdoor Retailer, GlobalShop and the Imprinted Sportswear Show (ISS).
Following the UBM/BJI announcement in April, visitors to the Las Vegas trade shows in August found a changed landscape with the BJI shows moving from The Sands Expo and 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.
UBM also moved the lingerie and swim show Curve Las Vegas (which is run through a joint venture with Eurovet) from the Sands to the Mandalay, as well, where it showed alongside Project Women’s.
Other changes on the trade-show front:
After hosting trade shows in New York, Las Vegas and Paris, Capsule, owned by Reed Expositions, hosted its first Los Angeles edition in October. The show featured a special section curated by sister trade show Axis.
Reed—which also has a stake in Agenda—launched a new trade/consumer pop-culture hybrid show calledComplexCon in Long Beach, Calif., in November.
Upscale accessories and lifestyle trade show Coeur moved from a space outside of the Los Angeles Fashion District to the top floor of the California Market Center (CMC) this year.
The CMC also launched several trade shows this year, including ALT, for active and lifestyle brands; Contemporary Curves, for plus sizes; and Sourcing at LA Textile, for factories, design development and contract manufacturing. The CMC also got into the off-price trade-show segment with the launch of Surplus at Majors in October.
MRket added a men’s activewear section called Move to its New York show in January.
Irvine, Calif., manufacturer Z Supply Inc.—maker of contemporary labels White Crow, Black Swan, Others Follow and Rag Poets—launched a regional trade show in April called OC Mix. Held at Z Supply’s headquarters, OC Mix featured local contemporary and swim labels as well as retailers from across the region.
Denim trade show Kingpins launched Why, a new show for branding, featuring label, button and zipper suppliers. The show was held concurrently with the Kingpins show in Amsterdam in April.
A new sourcing show bowed in Canada in August. Produced by JP Communications, the Apparel Textile Sourcing Expo gave Canadian manufacturers the chance to meet with representatives from factories and mills across the world, including China, India, Bangladesh, Taiwan, Vietnam, the USA and Mexico.
UBM in September launched a sourcing show for contemporary resources. Running alongside the Coterie trade show, Sourcing@Coterie featured apparel, accessories and footwear factories from the U.S., Japan, Europe and South America.
