Tony Shellman
TRADE SHOWS
After Sale, Agenda To Be Directed by Shellman
After six years of running Agenda, Reed Exhibitions has sold the streetwear-focused trade show for an undisclosed amount to AZTQ Corp., a Toronto-headquartered show producer that started business in 2019.
Despite the change in ownership, Agenda’s Las Vegas show will continue to be helmed by Tony Shellman, who has served as show director since July 2018. He will run the show with fashion-business veteran Laurent Huttinot.
Shellman said that Agenda veterans such as Monique Rice and JC Puebla will also continue working at the show. The upcoming Las Vegas show is scheduled to run Feb. 4–6 at the Sands Expo and Convention Center, where it has produced most of its Las Vegas shows since 2013.
Shellman forecasted that the upcoming show would have the same number of vendors if not slightly more than the August 2018 Las Vegas show. He and Huttinot will aim to create a focus on core streetwear brands. For the time being, it will not focus on action-sports brands, which Agenda has worked with in the past. The upcoming Agenda also will not focus on entertainment as past installments have.
“It’s back to basics,” Shellman said. “We’re building a show where brands can create dollars and cents. People will be able to enjoy themselves. But they will be able to get some work done.”
In future shows, Agenda also will focus on developing special sections and a strong showing of new brands and international labels. There’s also been talk about developing Agenda shows outside of Las Vegas.
Entrepreneur Aaron Levant started the show in 2003 in Long Beach, Calif. “It’s such an incredible brand that Aaron Levant created,” Shellman said. “It’s only fair to give it legs and go back to being a disrupter,” he said.
Shellman attended Agenda shows before Reed acquired it in 2013 for an undisclosed amount. Shellman then worked as a co-founder and creative director for the Enyce brand. Agenda was an independent streetwear show that competed against the then-dominant trade show for surf-and-skate clothes, Action Sports Retailer.
ASR went out of business in 2010, and Agenda found itself as the major trade show for streetwear as well as action-sports styles on the West Coast. It produced a biannual show in Long Beach and a biannual show in Las Vegas.
Levant continued directing the shows, developing the Agenda Festival, a music and consumer day for Agenda Long Beach. Levant left Agenda in 2018 to focus on separate entrepreneurial ventures such as digital retailer NTWRK. The Agenda Festival was shuttered in 2019 due to flagging interest on behalf of vendors, according to an Agenda statement.
Shellman said that he would focus on Agenda’s future. “The beauty of Agenda is its spirit of youth and bringing new brands to the culture and cultivating the culture of fashion and lifestyle,” he said.
