Six Apparel Trade Shows in Las Vegas to Join Forces for August Debut
Streamlining may be the answer to shopping the massive apparel shows held twice a year in Las Vegas.
Six exhibits—representing streetwear, action sportswear, menswear, high-end women’s apparel and accessories—will band together to form one entity called Modern Assembly. They will exhibit at The Venetian and Sands Expo and Convention Center starting in August for the Fall/Winter 2013 season.
Combined, the six shows will have a total of 2,500 brands of men’s and women’s apparel and accessories.
One of those shows, Agenda, a Los Angeles–based trade show founded by Aaron Levant, will be new to the Las Vegas trade show scene.
Business Journals Inc. owns three of the shows: AccessoriesTheShow, for accessories; MRket, for menswear; and Stitch, for better to contemporary women’s ready-to-wear.
The other two shows are Capsule, an edited selection of womenswear and menswear created in 2007 by fashion consultancy BPMW, and Liberty, a new show being put together by Sam Ben-Avraham, founder of the original Project show. Liberty will have a selection of 250 premium men’s and women’s labels.
Britton Jones, president and chief executive of Business Journals Inc., said a united front will help buyers. “For far too long, the fashion markets in Las Vegas have not lived up to their real potential because they have been so splintered,” he said in a statement. “Buyers have spent too much time rushing to try to reach all the resources they want to shop, and exhibitors have been frustrated by buyers being so pressed for time. Now buyers can shop the best of each season without leaving the Venetian.”
Tom Florio, chief executive of Advanstar Fashion Group, which owns MAGIC and Project, said he was not fazed by the new competition because the trade show market has always been competitive. “There always was more than one show [in Las Vegas],” he said.
“What’s interesting about this market is that Advanstar built the marketplace for these new shows, which validate what we built here.”
Eric Martin, owner of The Park showroom in the Los Angeles Fashion District, said he was curious to see what the new merged shows have to offer. “It’s hard to make a trade show that is much different,” he said.
Shaun Neff, chief executive of Neff Inc., which makes headwear for the surf and skate industry, said Agenda’s strength is core shops and retail chains such as Zumiez while MAGIC’s strengths are department stores and urban stores.
“All trade shows cater to different genres,” he noted. “You have to be at all of them.”—Deborah Belgum and Andrew Asch
