Advanstar Retools Fashion Show
Producer of MAGIC now down to one fashion tradeshow in New York
By Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 9/27/2004
Just a week after the close of its West Coast MAGIC Marketplace fashion show, owner Advanstar Communications announced it was indefinitely postponing its smaller East Coast apparel tradeshow, Industry 212. The suspension leaves the company with the Intl. Fashion Fabric Exhibition as its only fashion-related brand in New York.
Industry 212 has taken place at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center three times a year — in January, June and November, with the January show typically drawing the highest attendance. Although Advanstar did not report final numbers, the company expected 7,500 people to visit 650 exhibitors occupying 85,000 net square feet of the Javits Center last Jan. 11–13.
The show featured designers and fabricators from all over the spectrum: accessories to street wear, high-end fashion to cash-and-carry jewelry. That's one of the reasons for the postponement, according to MAGIC spokeswoman Ernae Mothershed. She said Advanstar's entire fashion group, including Industry 212 Show Director Jesse Allen and MAGIC General Director Laura McConnell, would be talking to customers and retailers to see how the show can be tailored to better serve their needs.
The company has not signed contracts with Javits for any future Industry 212s. Advanstar said the team will take as long as it needs to see what next step makes the most sense.
The show was the latest incarnation of the combined Intl. Fashion Boutique Shows and Style Industrie Shows, part of a $135-million package that Advanstar bought in July 1999 from New York-based Larkin-Pluznik-Larkin, or the Larkin Group. That deal included 16 fashion and fabric shows, four brands that each took place in the city multiple times yearly. Besides the Intl. Fashion and Style Industrie events, the Larkin Group also sold the Intl. Kids Fashion Shows and the Intl. Fashion Fabric Exhibitions, Advanstar's last remaining New York fashion expo.
The Larkin Group acquisition was an opportunity to enter the New York market with established shows, Mothershed said. At the time the deal was made, then-CEO Robert Krakoff said that having both MAGIC and the Larkin Group shows would give Advanstar a leading position in the fashion market on both coasts.
"We were by far the market leaders. There were some smaller shows, but we were in the position of No. 1. Advanstar bought a really great company," said David Larkin, now chairman of the Trade Show News Network.
Today, New York is home to a plethora of business-to-business apparel events. The Javits reported that it hosts about 15 fashion tradeshows annually, while the UnConvention Center, Pier 94, sees another dozen or so. Although Advanstar's Intl. Fashion Fabric Exhibition is still among the largest, with an estimated 400 exhibitors and 5,000 attendees expected this Oct. 3–5 at the Javits, other notable players have cropped up in the field.
ENK Intl. is one example. Coleman McCartan, the company's special events director, said he expects about 1,200 collections to be featured at this September's Fashion Coterie, a semiannual show at the UnConvention Center. Another 1,200 each are expected at the Intermezzo Collection's three stagings at the same venue.
"To tell you the truth, I didn't even know Industry 212 had been called off," McCartan said. "That's how far off my radar screen they are." He explained that ENK focuses on high-end retailers like Sachs and Fred Segal, while Industry 212 targeted more mainstream stores.
Larkin said that since the Advanstar acquisition, he hasn't followed New York's fashion tradeshow business, which his family is credited with pioneering. "What's happened in the last five years really isn't any of my business," he noted.
While the East Coast has no shortage of small to medium-sized events, Advanstar's MAGIC is still the industry heavyweight. The 930,000 net sq. ft. it spanned earlier this month in Las Vegas overwhelms the other fashion-industry tradeshows still taking place around the country.
