Exhibitors Return to NATPE Showfloor
Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 11/8/2004
Although encouraged by the 80 percent of exhibitors headed for his annual meeting's show-floor instead of nearby hotel suites, Natl. Assn. of Television Program Executives President and CEO Rick Feldman said he's "just happy that everyone will be in the building."
The NATPE Conference & Exhibition will take place at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas Jan. 25–27.
Even though the show "notoriously books late," Feldman said, registration is pacing ahead of last year. Approximately 350 exhibitors, both on the showfloor and in hotel suites, are expected to attract more than 7,000 attendees.
Feldman said exhibitors continually remind him that streamlining the show should remain a top priority.
"It is always our goal to try to make NATPE easy to negotiate," he said.
The 2005 exhibition will showcase the domestic and international arms of many television production companies exhibiting together, including Viacom's three television divisions, which were split up in 2004.
Exhibitors returning to the showfloor have created some momentum for the show, said John Weiser, NATPE co-chairman, but it makes sense to him that a number of companies would prefer to display their products in the hotel's suites.
"It just comes down to point of style," Weiser said. "If everyone's doing it the same way, I'd have questions."
Chuck Larsen, president of October Moon Television, said his company will be in a suite since the option provides more privacy and attracts "more people who are there for a reason and who seek you out."
Media mogul and keynote speaker Ted Turner and FCC Commissioner Michael Copps will address the gathering.
To tackle the impact of wireless, mobile and digital distribution technologies on the television production industry, an inaugural event entitled NATPE Mobile ++ will be introduced Jan. 24.
The 2003 NATPE drew 350 exhibiting companies and more than 7,000 attendees. The 2002 show, which was No. 195 in the Tradeshow Week 200, drew an estimated 7,000 attendees to visit 553 exhibitors covering 140,000 net square feet.
