Force Behind Gift Show Launch Is Crafty

By Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 10/23/2006

Las Vegas—With more than 250 U.S. and Canadian shows listed in this year's Tradeshow Week Data Book, the gift sector seems to be pretty well covered (it's the ninth most popular industrial category in the book). But one woman, with a well established Web site and a hand-picked team, thinks her corner of the market could use just one more show.

The woman is Nancy Vince; the show, American Craft Retailers Expo, or ACRE, is scheduled to launch May 2–4 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The inaugural show is slated to fill 100,000 net square feet with 1,000 exhibitors and draw 5,000 buyers.

Vince is founder and president of WholesaleCrafts.com, a Web site where retailers can shop for one-of-a-kind gifts like hand-blown vases and handmade jewelry. She developed the 8-year-old site as an online wholesale show, and it already boasts a "three-way marketing approach" for artists (on the Web site, in the company's directories and in co-op trade publication advertising).

All that was missing was a face-to-face show, said Mary Strope, vice president of the company. After seven years in George Little Management's handmade division, Strope began working two years ago with Vince on the concept of a mid-year show in the western United States. The two believe they have come up with a model for success.

First, said Strope, about 13,000 buyers are already using the Web site. Second, through its integrated marketing approach, the company has amassed a database of about 40,000 retailers. Third, ACRE is using the high-end gift industry's tried-and-true method of getting juries to hand-pick products for display. And lastly — but most important — the show is launching in a date and location unoccupied by any other show in its niche.

This could be the key factor determining whether it's a success, said Caroline Kennedy, executive editor of Gifts & Decorative Accessories magazine (like TSW, a Reed Business Information publication).

The gift industry is indeed inundated with tradeshows, Kennedy said, as her readers frequently complain. However, the area of handmade crafts is "a little bit more specialized and a little bit more compact," she added. "I think they're going after a more targeted retailer, more like the craft galleries."

Strope described ACRE's target audience as everything from Anthropologie to gift shops. The sector is "doing very, very well," she said.

That could be true, judging from the success established events in the sector are already enjoying. For instance, this February's Buyers Market of American Craft, managed by the Baltimore-based Rosen Group, drew 1,317 exhibitors and 7,306 professional attendees to Philadelphia for the 165,500 net sq. ft. exhibition, down a bit from last year, when it was ranked No. 157 in the TSW 200.

The Rosen Group also organizes a second, smaller Buyers Market of American Crafts each July in Philadelphia.

GLM's New York Intl. Gift Fair — ranked 23 and 25 on the TSW 200 for its January and August editions, respectively — draws more than 17,000 attendees and fills between 600,000 and 650,000 net sq. ft. with 10 divisions, including Handmade, a craft art section featured in several of GLM's other gift shows.

Strope said WholesaleCrafts.com plans to hold ACRE only once per year and picked its May dates so that artists wouldn't have to choose between it and existing shows. She admitted that "it's a little off-pattern for them, because February is when all the gift shows are, but as long as we're going to be different."

She said customers are telling her that May will still fit into their buying cycle and that they're earmarking funds in their budgets to be at the new event.

One "different" aspect of the show that Kennedy feels could be a challenge: the location. "I'm just not sure Las Vegas is going to be a draw," she said. "It depends on how affordable they make it."

Strope said part of the very reason for choosing Las Vegas is good room and travel rates, compared to other gift show destinations.

She's not the only one to boast of Sin City's affordability in promoting a gift show. Last summer the World Market Center added a gift division within its Las Vegas Market, which is primarily for home furnishings. WMC executives told TSW at the time that they planned to continue growing the gift sector.

But Kennedy stressed that there's a significant difference between general wholesale gift markets and hand-crafted gift markets: "People like GLM are doing a wonderful job filling in on a broader level in San Francisco and Seattle and New York with their handcrafted divisions. That said, there are a lot of craft artists that don't have the financial wherewithal to support the costs that those shows require. That's where some of these other show people come in."

So, will it succeed? "We're keeping a sharp eye on it," Kennedy said, "as is everyone."