Retailers need to know: Today is the first day of the rest of the life of Las Vegas regional home furnishings trade show.
With that obvious fact in mind, energized and directed delegations from major market centers in Atlanta, Dallas and High Point, plus representatives from San Francisco and Tupelo, are converging on the World Market Center, plus its distant temporary exhibitors five miles away at the MGM Grand Hotel.
The well-informed and prepared delegations believe they will score well out West with solid plans about sustainable opportunities they possess and can deliver. They are on an important marketing mission that affects retailers.
Those disciplined market teams will be conveying an important perspective to the Las Vegas exhibitors (who harbor some palpable concerns): That if some day if there isn’t a there there, then retailers will need to be prepared to go elsewhere, and all those market centers are more than willing to accommodate.
Of course, the biggest winner will be the High Point Market, the historic world home for home furnishings where a thriving creative class overpowers all others. Incidentally, that enveloping creative class of designers, marketers, suppliers, executives, manufacturers and others is the enviable foundation that sustains the High Point Market through thick and thin.
No one knows for sure whether the Las Vegas regional trade can ever be more than a neon regional event, appealing primarily to Western merchants.
Time will tell, and, of course, the concerned Las Vegas regional trade show managers could find a way to overcome any and all economic, financial and sustainable obstacles.
A telling indicator is whether the big, beautiful and expensive WMC Building C will open fully leased with permanent exhibitors.
If they can’t, then retailers needing greater assortment, selection and opportunity will need to make some important decisions.
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