Fashion Week Gets New Players
New accessories events will add to competition for MAGIC show traffic
By Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 6/6/2005
With the next MAGIC Marketplace less than three months away, the competitive landscape of Las Vegas' fashion tradeshow business is again stirring to life.
Advanstar Communications subsidiary MAGIC Intl. recently announced it is adding the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel back into its suite of venues, launching an accessories event, and partnering with Reed Exhibitions and the Intl. Swimwear/Activewear Market to include jewelry and swimsuit pavilions in its semiannual show Aug. 29–Sept. 1.
Coincidentally, Business Journals has revealed plans to launch a Las Vegas version of its New York event, AccessoriesTheShow, at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino Aug. 29–31. It will join three other fashion-industry shows at the Venetian, and several others around the city that have banded together to promote Las Vegas Fashion Week.
MAGIC pulled its women's wear show from the Sands Expo & Convention Center and last year consolidated it at the Las Vegas Convention Center with the divisions for men's, kids' and street wear.
Starting with this fall's show, which last year ranked No. 6 on the Tradeshow Week 200, MAGIC will again be a two-venue show. A new division, Accessories, will take place at the Hilton adjacent to the LVCC. It will feature women's accessories, "from scarves, belts and handbags, down to cute, trendy things for teenagers," said Camille Candella, marketing director for MAGIC.
According to Candella, MAGIC registration data and attendee surveys indicate that the number of buyers shopping for accessories has increased by 20 percent.
MAGIC's Accessories show will also include high-end jewelry. To bolster that product category, MAGIC has struck a deal with Reed Exhibitions, organizer of The JCK Show — Las Vegas, to put a JCK Pavilion within Accessories.
Dave Bonaparte, vice president of JCK Shows, said Reed would take care of sales and marketing responsibilities, while MAGIC would handle operations. The two teams will co-promote Accessories and the JCK Pavilion.
"It's kind of like a sponsorship agreement," Bonaparte said. "We're lending our brand to them, and they're lending theirs to us."
He added that the move would allow JCK exhibitors to gain access to a new buying sector. Whereas the JCK show draws mainly high-volume purchasers from department stores and large independent jewelers, MAGIC draws fashion-conscious buyers who want designer lines at slightly lower prices to complement their apparel and other products.
MAGIC's Accessories and the JCK Pavilion won't be the only game in town for these buyers, but organizers hope that AccessoriesTheShow will offer them a very different experience.
Business Journals plans to model the Las Vegas version on its New York original, started 25 years ago. In other words, said company CEO Britton Jones, "a very elegant, upscale, amenity-laden show. One of our trademarks is to make both the exhibitors and buyers feel very welcome."
Companies have to apply and be reviewed by a jury before being accepted as exhibitors, Jones explained. Attendees are individually greeted, then given a bottle of water, designer shopping bag, breakfast coupons, an elegant lunch and ongoing cappuccino service on the showfloor.
"We want to treat them like they treat their customers," said Sharon Enright, general manager of Business Journals' tradeshow division.
AccessoriesTheShow is held three times a year at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center of New York. The largest installment, in January, this year drew about 11,000 buyers to visit 1,100 lines spanning 62,000 net square feet, according to Enright.
She has more modest expectations for the inaugural Las Vegas show: a few hundred lines filling 16,000 net sq. ft. Two thousand buyers had registered as of press time, but dedicated attendance promotion was just beginning, Enright said.
MAGIC's Accessories, by comparison, is expected to feature 600 lines, and JCK Pavilion, about 100 lines. Together the two are expected to fill 9,500 net sq. ft. of the Hilton. MAGIC's last August show reportedly attracted 95,000 attendees, including exhibit personnel.
Jones said exhibitors from AccessoriesTheShow in New York approached him asking for a West Coast event more intimate and upscale than MAGIC, more like the Business Journals shows.
He added that his customers are excited to be part of the burgeoning Las Vegas market. "We've met extensively with the people in Las Vegas, and there is a real interest in developing a West Coast Market Week. I think it will happen."
"It's happening right before our eyes," Enright added. "We want to stay there and grow; we're planning to be there for a while."
AccessoriesTheShow will collocate in the Venetian ballrooms with Project Global, ASAP Global Sourcing Show and with the Off-Price Specialist Show — Las Vegas, which is in the lower level of the adjacent Sands Expo. Jones did not rule out the possibility of expanding into the upper level of the Sands, which has remained vacant during the MAGIC dates this year due to a legal dispute between the Sands and MAGIC over the departure of the women's wear show.
Six other exhibitions at venues scattered around the city will join those at the Sands and Venetian in promoting Las Vegas Fashion Week. They shares buses and most honor one another's badges, as well as MAGIC's.
Historically, MAGIC has not welcomed the competition. Roland Timney of Specialty Trade Shows, organizer of Women'sWear in Nevada at the Rio All-Suite Casino Hotel, said his offers to partner with MAGIC in the development of Las Vegas Fashion Week have been rebuffed.
MAGIC has also worked to develop sections of its show that offer products being displayed at competing events, such as the addition last February of Platform, for cutting-edge designs similar to those being shown in POOL, down the Strip at Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino.
However, one formerly independent specialty show will join MAGIC at the LVCC: the Intl. Swimwear/Activewear Market, a small exhibition founded in 1978 by the nonprofit association bearing the same name. The show moved to Las Vegas two years ago, and has taken place at Mandalay Bay and Caesars Palace.
ISAM will collocate with MAGIC only in the summer, and the association will continue to produce its October market in Los Angeles.
Barbara Brady, director of ISAM, said the association would still own and manage the show, and attendees could register with either ISAM or MAGIC. Badges will allow crossover access.
She said she and MAGIC had been discussing such an arrangement for some time.
"It's a good move for the retailers, and for us," said Brady. "There were a lot of complaints about getting back and forth between the different locations."
