Sin City or Big Apple?

Lisa Plummer -- Tradeshow Week, 6/12/2008 2:50:00 PM

Take a tradeshow that rotates between two top destinations, Las Vegas and New York, and ask the question: Does one attract more participation than the other? According to show managers, exhibitors and attendees of Lightfair Intl., the annual tradeshow and conference for the commercial lighting industry, the show may have its differences city to city, but remains consistent and valid regardless of where it takes place.

Produced and managed by AMC, Lightfair returned to the Las Vegas Convention Center May 26-30. Now in its 19th year, the annual show attracted 19,800 attendees, with 510 exhibiting companies covering 157,000 square feet of space.

According to Jo Ann Miller, AMC senior vice president of tradeshows, narrowing the show’s rotation to just the LVCC and the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center of New York has worked extremely well. Established in 1989, Lightfair historically moved between New York, San Francisco and Chicago before adding Las Vegas in 1998. By 2004, Lightfair had established a strict New York-to-Las Vegas rotation.

“(Las Vegas) has been a nice complement,” Miller said. “We operate with the same leadership team and standards in both cities, so it’s been a very fluid experience.”

Las Vegas made sense, said Mike Turnbull, AMC senior vice president of marketing, because it was easier for people from the western third of the U.S. to attend the show.

“It’s a nice, complementary synergy,” Turnbull said. “There are certain things (in Las Vegas) you absolutely can’t do anywhere else in the world, and the same goes for New York. People have come to expect that Lightfair will be consistent wherever it is, but the flavor changes according to where it lands.”
 
Exhibitors and attendees alike had their opinions about the similarities and differences between the Las Vegas and New York shows.

“(The shows have) a very different attendee base,” said Mark Walsh, president and CEO of Lunera Lighting. “In New York, they come in and do their business and move on. (In Las Vegas) people have a little more social time. … It’s an easier opportunity to set up a breakfast or dinner appointment.”

Walsh’s partner, Donald Peifer, Lunera chief technology officer, added that though both locations had their pros and cons, his company could never choose just one to exhibit in.

 “It’s imperative (to attend both),” he said. “This is the cutting edge, where you can take the pulse of the industry.”

Attendee Bill Hinson, a lighting representative from Team Lighting, said he thought the Las Vegas Lightfair was fine, but New York was more serious by comparison.

“There’s a general attitude that some of the major lighting companies consider this a secondary show with New York as the primary,” he said. “Also, the eating area (at the LVCC) is really bad. I’ve seen people eating out here on the floor.”

Lightfair returns to the Javits May 3-7, 2009 and to the LVCC May 10-14, 2010.