Textile Show Organizers: We Love L.A.

LOS ANGELES–Two show management firms have announced they will launch similar textile tradeshows in Los Angeles to be held within two weeks of each other in October 2009. One of the shows will be a semiannual event; its April dates coincide with the dates of an existing show its competitor holds in Miami.

Also typically scheduled for that busy time frame in October is a third Los Angeles textile show, already in existence.

“There's a little bit of competition going on with all this stuff,” said Terrence Chermak, president of L.A.-based Brittania Mills and public relations co-chairman of the Textile Assn. of Los Angeles.

Urban Expositions announced May 22 that it would launch Material World West at the Los Angeles Convention Center Sept. 30-Oct. 2. The show, which will be endorsed by the American Apparel & Footwear Assn., is expected to be a West Coast version of Material World, to be held April 21-23 at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

Exactly one week after that announcement, Market Center Management held a press conference here and said it would launch a new semiannual show, GlobalTex, to be held April 21-23 and Oct. 13-15, 2009, also at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Market Center Management is the parent company of the Dallas Market Center and other markets in Shanghai; Brussels, Belgium; and Bogota, Columbia.

GlobalTex has been endorsed by TALA.

Material World West's October L.A. show will take place less than two weeks before the October edition of GlobalTex. The April GlobalTex has dates identical to those of Material World West in Miami Beach.

Also, somewhere in the mix, is the L.A. Int'l Textile Show, held at the California Market Center since 1993. Although 2009 dates were not available at press time and California Market Center representatives did not return calls to Tradeshow Week, its most recent show was held April 14-16 and its fall show will take place Oct. 27-29.

Both Market Center and Urban Expositions officials said they anticipate producing the premiere show in a destination that is quickly becoming an international hub for the fashion apparel industry. Both shows will focus on textile and fabric production.

“This is the gateway to the Orient,” said Market Center President and CEO Bill Winsor, “and there's no real global textile show in the U.S. right now.”

Material World President Tim von Gal said, “For a very long time we have had keen eyes on L.A. It has wonderful international access and a dynamic apparel production community.”

Both companies also touted the significance of the trade associations they enlisted to endorse them.

“It's the most prominent association in the industry,” said von Gal of AAFA.

“TALA is the association,” Winsor said.

Winsor and von Gal had something else in common: Both said they were surprised, confused and disappointed that their respective shows somehow managed to be scheduled so close to one another.

They said planning for their shows had been in the works for months, if not years. Just one thing: They weren't talking to the same entity about their plans. Material World was in talks with L.A. Inc., The Convention & Visitors Bureau and GlobalTex was in talks with the LACC.

Winsor said his company had spoken with TALA representatives multiple times over the years about the possibilities of launching an L.A. show together.

“Then they called me nine months ago,” he said. “All of a sudden, the timing was much better.”

Winsor said he put a hold on the April and October dates with the LACC last October.

“Their (Material World's) hold on the LACC appeared on the books May 14,” he added.

Von Gal said he too had been pondering a textile show launch in L.A. for some time and “we really felt over the last year the timing was right.”

He added that his discussions had been with L.A. Inc.

“So we were very surprised to learn of another group coming in,” von Gal said. “We're very disappointed that they secured dates in the same facility that we've secured dates in.”

Michael Krouse, vice president of convention sales at L.A. Inc., said he did book the dates for Material World because Urban Expositions was talking about a convention, the CVB's domain. Winsor and Market Center dealt with the convention center because there were no sleeping rooms involved and they were merely booking an event, the LACC's domain.

Krouse said Market Center had asked convention center officials to place its planned dates on the calendar under an anonymous name for competitive reasons.

“We didn't see those dates,” he added, and nobody at the convention center told them the true identity of the group booking them. “That's the challenge of having two entities selling space.”

Representatives of the LACC did not return calls to TSW.

“Here's one that got away from us,” Krouse said. “It was a comedy of errors and it shouldn't have happened.”

He also pointed out that date challenges are becoming more common as Los Angeles begins to attract more tradeshow and convention business.

“And that's the real story here,” Krouse added.