Off-Price Pavilion Debuts at ASD/AMD Show
Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 8/29/2005
This month's ASD/AMD Trade Show — Las Vegas with ASD/AMD's Jewelry Show & Las Vegas Gift Expo for the first time featured an Off-Price Apparel Pavilion.
Show manager VNU Expositions announced in July the creation of the 6,000-square foot pavilion at the show, Aug. 14–18 at the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Sands Expo & Convention Center. An additional 9,000 sq. ft. of apparel booths were dispersed throughout the showfloor, amounting to about 150 booths.
The firm's ASD/AMD Merchandise Group developed the pavilion as a response to buyer and exhibitor requests for a consolidated discount apparel location at the order-writing show, said Howard Friedman, the group's show director. "Our approach is to deliver merchants that sell discount merchandise," he said, "and the research suggests that more discount merchants are adding apparel to their mix."
And although Tarsus Group's Off-Price Specialist Show — Las Vegas is taking place at the Sands Aug. 26–30, the ASD/AMD pavilion shouldn't have had much impact on the Fashion Week show, Friedman said.
"We are delivering a completely different audience," he said. "We just want to feature apparel, which we believe is a growing aspect of our customers' stores. We want to make sure that we have the verticals that are the growing ones for them."
The Off-Price show typically attracts more than 12,000 visitors to 450-plus exhibiting companies. According to VNU, off-price goods are one of the fastest growing categories within the general merchandise and variety industry.
The ASD/AMD show, No. 18 on the latest Tradeshow Week 200, filled 770,780 net sq. ft. and drew 52,130 professional attendees in 2004. The 2005 show was expected to feature more than 3,300 exhibitors and attract about 55,000 visitors.
