Las Vegas Market announced today that the just-concluded Summer Market was a success, with growth in buyer attendance across all categories, including furniture, decor and gift. The 2013 Summer Market registered a 31% gain in buyer attendance over last year's Summer Market, with thousands of new-to-market buyers representing all 50 states and more than 60 countries. Las Vegas Market continues to grow its home furnishings buyer base with a 13% increase in furniture buyers, further establishing this market as the leading home furnishings market in the West.
The ongoing expansion and realignment of gift and home decor exhibitors resulted in exponential growth in buyer traffic, with a 67.3% increase in home decor buyers and an 82.5 % increase in gift attendees visiting the revamped Building C, and a positive reaction among exhibitors. Building C featured more than 50 new gift and home décor showrooms and an estimated 1,150 new lines added since Winter 2012.
"We are delighted to have been able to aggregate resources and attendance as quickly as we have, and to deliver such a strong market for both buyers and suppliers," says Dorothy Belshaw, president of Gift & Home Decor, International Market Centers. "Large increases in buyer attendance, as well as substantial numbers of new permanent showrooms and temporary exhibitors, sustain our repositioning of Las Vegas Market as the leading gift and home furnishings destination in the Western United States."
Key elements of Building C's transformation into an impressive gift and home decor showcase for the Western states included the Summer 2013 launch of the new directional c-ONE cross-category presentation with leading home decor and specialty tabletop brands; expansion of better home decor showrooms onto two floors - C3 and C4; and the debut of the dynamic new Lifestyle Collection of fashion-forward resources on C10.
In addition, this summer related temporary exhibits were repositioned onto three floors - C5 for home-related categories, C10 for trend-forward merchandise and C11 for gift-relevant categories - to facilitate synergies between temporary exhibits and permanent showrooms on adjacent floors.
Vendors gave the Summer Market positive reviews, citing enhanced resources, increased cross-category sales and marketing opportunities and overall momentum for a dominant West coast marketplace. Barbara Knight, president of Just Got 2 Have It!, one of the anchors of the C10 Lifestyle Collection premiere, comments: "I think this industry is going towards an East coast/West coast orientation. We've had nice traffic and I'm looking forward to growing the West coast business. I think the buyers are going to come once they know what's happening here. I wanted to be the first one in and I'm very excited to be a part of it."
One of the Summer Market's most eagerly-anticipated highlights was the debut of c-ONE, a new cross-category presentation featuring a collection of leading home decor and specialty tabletop brands to the Las Vegas Market. "We've had good traffic and there are lots of people new to Las Vegas writing orders," says Susan Gravely, owner of VIETRI.
According to Satya Tiwari, president of Surya, which debuted a new 30,000ft sq showroom on the newly launched C4 collection of better home decor resources: "Las Vegas is bigger, better, easier for customers to shop for product. We've had great traffic and order writing from both current customers and new customers."
Buyers immediately recognized the transformation. "We were pleasantly surprised to see so many new, great showrooms and resources," says Jack Bhasin, president of Aahs. "The merchandising and presentations we saw were refreshing at a time when other markets are shrinking, and we were able to find many resources and vendors that we have not seen at other shows in years."
"Coming out of such a strong Summer Market, we are focusing on building momentum for the Winter 2014 Market, running January 26-30, with our primary short-term objective being continued increases in both the quality and quantity of resources and attendance." Belshaw explained. "Looking ahead to the Summer 2014 Market, which runs July 28 to August 1, 2014, we will be launching new categories such as kitchen products and enriching the presentation of better goods to further strengthen Las Vegas Market's position as the must-attend Western marketplace for gift and home decor."
Las Vegas Market continues to see significant momentum in the furniture segment of the market with over 700,000ft sq of new space added in the past year, resulting in 96% of the furniture space now leased.
"Overall, our furniture exhibitors were very pleased; they saw more accounts than in past summer markets and they are clearly doing more business here," says Tom Mitchell, president of home furnishings for International Market centers. "We see this improving trend in our leasing as well; more furniture companies are showing in Las Vegas and many are expanding."
With the addition of many higher-end, design-oriented brands at Las Vegas Market, the show was able to attract a greater number of designers and high-end retailers in search of fashion- forward products.
"This market has been an incredible success for Christopher Guy," said Paul Watson, president, Christopher Guy-Americas. "We exceeded our sales goals by over 200% and we look forward to the 2014 Las Vegas Winter Market. We are thrilled by the strong order-writing, particularly from new, international accounts predominantly from Canada and South America. Las Vegas Market is no longer a regional market and is proving itself as the leading International West Coast marketplace."
Buyers representing the top 100 retailers, the design industry and small to mid-size retailers were out in force at the Summer Market, and were writing orders.
"Traffic has been really solid and we are writing orders," added Len Burke, Sr. VP sales and marketing, Klaussner. "We see all of the majors here as well as west coast customers and even major east coast customers. We are seeing the right people."
