New Show Dates Land Squarely on Competitor

It's not easy finding available hotel rooms and exhibit space anywhere in the busy month of January. But in the top tradeshow hubs of Orlando and Las Vegas, it's next to impossible, especially when the space request comes in less than a year in advance.

But after the Promotional Products Assn. Intl. advanced its January 2007 dates at Las Vegas' Mandalay Bay Convention Center — purportedly to put some breathing space between The PPAI Expo and megashow Intl. CES$SPACE$— it landed right on top of the secured dates for the Advertising Specialty Institute's competing ASI Show! Orlando.

PPAI opted to hold its expo Jan. 3–6, instead of Jan. 10–12, to make up for the fact that Intl. CES will be held Jan. 8–11 next year in order to retain its Monday-through-Thursday pattern and still avoid New Year's Day.

Darel Cook, PPAI's director of expositions and meetings, said his association became aware only late last year that its Tradeshow Week 200 show was scheduled during the same week — albeit at the other end of the Strip — as Intl. CES, which attracts more than 150,000 attendees and 2,700 exhibitors to the Las Vegas Convention Center and Sands Expo & Convention Center.

"We always came in after them. When they're moving out, we're moving in," said Cook. "Then we found out they'd changed the dates. Even Mandalay was uninformed about it."

The situation is complicated by the fact that the two groups aren't on the best of terms. Last October, the PPAI board revoked ASI's membership after 50 years due to what PPAI President Steve Slagle called "ASI's ongoing disparagement of PPAI's products and services." PPAI has prohibited ASI from exhibiting at its events, although ASI still allows PPAI to exhibit at ASI shows.

Both PPAI and ASI serve the promotional products industry and produce tradeshows. PPAI is a century-old nonprofit association with 6,700 members, while ASI is a 50-year-old media company with 18,000 distributors and suppliers as members. Their tradeshows draw common exhibitors but different attendee groups.

At the heart of the dispute is PPAI's contention that ASI has tried to make its proprietary identifier the industry standard, to the detriment of PPAI's free universal promotional identification code. ASI officials, however, say PPAI is upset about having a strong competitor.

Mary Upton, ASI's vice president of tradeshow operations, said she hopes the fracas wasn't behind the PPAI board changing the show dates. "I would hate to think there was any malicious intent but, gee, what a happy coincidence," she said.

Upton also wondered why PPAI didn't announce the date change until March, ironically on the exact day she was departing to attend ASI Show! Las Vegas. "Was that a coincidence too?" she asked.

Upton, who worked for PPAI for 24 years, added that it's common knowledge among trade-show organizers that CES advances its January dates every four or five years to avoid New Year's Day and retain its pattern. "We took umbrage with that because CES dates have been public for five or six years," she said.

The same day that PPAI revealed its date change, Upton said she called her sales rep at the OCCC and said "help, help, help, help, help."

Because January is such a busy month in Orlando, Upton said, "I knew they weren't going to be able to answer me until they quit laughing."

Ultimately, the OCCC came back with some possibilities, and the ASI Show settled on a Jan. 18–20 run. ASI officials renegotiated contracts with 12 hotels, but lost their favorable rates.

Still, Upton said ASI felt it was important not to put exhibitors in the position of having to choose between the shows. "It would have created serious ill will," she said. "Yes, it was costly. Yes, it was time-consuming. But was it worth it? Yes."

Some renegotiations with suppliers still remain. "We're not out of the woods yet," Upton said. "I still don't have 100-percent commitments from the contractors. What if my florist is planning a trip to Europe?"

Cook said his group was aware that ASI's Orlando show was set for Jan. 3–5 at the Orange County Convention Center, but had no other choice than to reschedule PPAI Expo.

"We knew they had their event in Orlando during the same week we had to move to in 2007. But we couldn't continue the show where we were at. Our hands were tied."

Cook added that PPAI thought ASI could move to other dates at the OCCC, and if it couldn't, his group was prepared to somehow help. "If ASI couldn't move dates, we would have tried to come up with programs to help. Obviously, ASI was nice enough to move their dates," he said.

Cook said the maxed-out PPAI Expo was able to pick up enough extra exhibit space for 100 more booths, as well as more hotel rooms at a lower rate. Two days of meetings were combined into one, and the evening events will be merged.

At this year's Jan. 9–13 show, 13,777 attendees turned out to visit a 377,800 net square foot showfloor with 1,603 exhibitors. PPAI has also moved its 2008 dates to Jan. 14–18, instead of Jan. 9–11.

Cook said PPAI officials felt that their expo would have been compromised if it had been held at the same time as CES. "Not only services within the city, labor was going to be an issue, security, basically every service you can think of relative to a tradeshow," he said.

The 146,600 net sq. ft. 2005 Orlando ASI show ranked No. 146 on the latest TSW 200, with 966 exhibitors and more than 6,600 total attendees. ASI produces a Dallas version in February, Las Vegas in March, Philadelphia in May and Chicago in July. In addition, ASI is taking its Advantages Roadshow series to 60 cities this year.