Next May, two mammoth trade shows will run
concurrently, but separately, and partially under the same roof.
Sharing space in the Las Vegas Convention Center will be the
1,800-exhibitor (and growing) National Hardware Show organized by
Norwalk, Conn.-based Reed Exhibitions, and the 700-exhibitor Las
Vegas Gourmet Housewares Show run by George Little Management of
White Plains, N.Y.
Both shows have an overlapping audience of about 700 attendees,
and when GLM proposed the idea of a match, Reed pounced. As of
mid-October, more housewares exhibitors already were registered for
Reed’s 2005 show than were signed up for 2004.
“Housewares manufacturers look at us in a better light because
of this co-location,” said Rob Cappiello, Reed vice president and
manager of the hardware show.
Co-locating trade shows is a growing trend, said Steven Hacker,
CAE, president of the International Association for Exhibition
Management in Dallas. “Time and budgets are being squeezed,” he
noted. “If two or more events can appropriately be co-located, it
provides value to everybody.”
Two other examples of co-located shows include GLM’s House to
Home Market Week in New York City (an amalgam of the New York
Gourmet Housewares Show, the New York Home Textiles Show, the
Ex"tracts trade show and the Surtex Gallery event) and the Great
American Dessert Expo, which co-locates with Coffee Fest in
Chicago, Las Vegas and Seattle.
For the Falls Church, Va.-based International Foodservice
Distributors Association’s Productivity Convention and Exposition,
“Streamlining the money spent” made co-locating attractive, said
Kim Earle, IFDA director of sponsorship and conferences.
IFDA handles the marketing and promotion, while the co-locating
Food Marketing Institute of Washington, D.C., is responsible for
exhibit sales and meeting services. The profits are divided, based
on the ratio of attendees for each show.