Off-Price, MAGIC: What Retail Slump?

Rachel Wimberly -- Tradeshow Week, 9/12/2008 11:28:00 AM

Most of the retail market has been hit hard by the economic downturn, and recent Las Vegas-based tradeshows, such as The WSA Show, haven’t fared much better. But at least two other recent shows, Tarsus Group’s Off-Price Specialist Show – Las Vegas and Advanstar Communications’ MAGIC Marketplace, have bucked the downward trend.

Don Browne, Off-Price’s marketing director, said the show, held Aug. 23-26 at the Sands MegaCenter, attracted 9,764 attendees – a 20-percent increase over last year – and had a 100,000 square foot showfloor, which held steady with 489 exhibitors.

Off-Price launched in 1995 and has an exclusive contract with MAGIC to be the only off-price show held during fashion week, according to Browne. “One of the big misconceptions about our show is still the notion of off-price being a rummage sale,” he added. “People that come to the other fashion week shows should give off-price a second look.”

Brown said the increase in attendance most likely was driven by people who might have been looking for bargains and decided to give the Off-Price show a try. “Not to disparage other shows, but people are coming to our show because of tough economic conditions,” he added. “People can’t afford not to go.”

Chris DeMoulin, MAGIC Intl. president and executive vice president of Advanstar’s Fashion Group, said MAGIC also defied the odds. There were 98,000 attendees, down 2 percent from last year, at the show held Aug. 25-27 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel and the Sands, DeMoulin added. The number of exhibitors saw an uptick of 2 percent over last year, to approximately 4,000.

“Everyone was pleasantly surprised,” he said. “I joked to someone the other day that flat is the new up in this economy.

New sections of the show, such as S.L.A.T.E., were received well, DeMoulin added, “It was a huge success. Exhibitors were thrilled with the traffic.”

It was also the first show to have a three-day format instead of four. “There were a couple of people with appointment-driven business, smaller stores mainly, that were challenged to get all of their appointments in,” he said. “Most others were OK with it.”

All in all, DeMoulin added, “Whatever people’s expectations were, I think the show exceeded that.”