Las Vegas, NV, August 14, 2006--When it comes to creating a more efficient and exciting home furnishings marketplace, Las Vegas Market continues to get it right as attendees commented on the success of the third installment of Las Vegas Market, held July 24 – 28, from the growing roster of exhibiting companies and amenities to noticeable improvements in terms of registration and logistics.
Las Vegas Market continues to enjoy strong attendance, and over the course of the last three markets has maintained an average of approximately 50,000 registered attendees each show. Despite reports of attendance being off slightly from January due to the soft retail economy, exhibitors reported larger orders from buyers. Retailers in attendance were more serious and came to Las Vegas to write orders, according to Market officials and the exhibitors they polled.
Expectations are even higher for attendance at the January 2007 Market with the opening of World Market Center’s second building. Building B is a 16-story, $345 million, 1.6 million square foot structure and will debut in conjunction with the Winter Las Vegas Market, January 29 - February 2, 2007.
Dave Palmer, General Manager at World Market Center said: “Buying was up – really up. Exhibitors continued to see new buyers, more qualified buyers and have a great order writing Market. They were particularly pleased with the international business they did.”
“Once again, Las Vegas Market proved to be a record-breaking event for us,” said Michael Amini, President of AICO. “The July Market was the best market we have ever had in the entire history of our company.”
Nfusion, a boutique showroom in World Market Center’s Design Center, added: “This is a very good market. Traffic is slightly off, but the real buyers are here and sales overall are up.”
Neighboring rug showroom Safavieh also supported this reality saying: “The quality of buyers is different from previous markets – there are more serious buyers. Customers are taking it more seriously than in the past.”
Word has spread across the globe as Las Vegas Market welcomed attendees from all over the world with an increase in international participation from both international buyers and exhibiting companies. International attendees came from 116 countries, up from 83 countries as reported last market, and accounted for eight percent of total registrations at Las Vegas Market. Exhibitors throughout Las Vegas Market have also commented on the dramatic increase of international buyers, especially from Europe, Australia, Mexico, Canada and the Middle East.
July’s Las Vegas Market was the largest to date with more than 1,500 exhibiting companies and 2.6 million square feet. Referring to the success of the last Market, Palmer said “the third time was a charm” as the show management team has been able to refine all aspects of Market to deliver a first class event. He said feedback from the buyers and exhibitors is that the Market is getting better and better and virtually everyone noticed improvements to areas such as shuttle service, the overall organization of the temporaries, expanded food services and most notably improvements to on-site registration.
“One of the biggest improvements I noticed this market was definitely registration,” said Jeff Cook, President of Magnussen Home. “The whole registration process operated so smoothly with no waiting in lines, it was great.”
Indeed, World Market Center officials made a number of improvements to the on-site registration process including increasing the size of the registration pavilion thereby allowing for additional points of service with more than 100 counters. Also, separate badge holder pick-up and badge correction locations were added to alleviate long lines. Finally, highly experienced customer service representatives were added to assist with on-site registrations and questions.
