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The preliminary attendee numbers from the
2007 AWFS®Fair are in and although they show a 5% decline (19,923 vs.
18,987) in overall registration from the record breaking 2005 inaugural
Las Vegas show, the base of potential buyers actually grew. What has
been the most vibrant and growing segment of the attendee base for the
last decade, cabinet manufacturers, continued to expand with an 8%
increase over 2005. Other categories that showed expansion were
Plastics/Metals, up 33%, Mill/Primary Processing, up 70% and the
Dealer/Distributor Category which increased by 3%.
The overall decline in attendee registration was a direct result of
decreases in two categories, “furniture”, which declined by 23% and the
“non-manufacturer other” category which was off by more than 50%. The
decline in “furniture” was no surprise as AWFS®Fair did not have the
World Market Center furniture show collocated with it this time around.
The “non-manufacturing other” category mainly consists of suppliers,
many of which attended the inaugural Las Vegas event in 2005 for
evaluation purposes before subsequently becoming exhibitors in 2007. In
fact, this group contributed to the 8% increase in exhibitor
registration. These two categories alone accounted for a 6.5% decline
and for the entire 5% decline in overall attendee registration. As of
this writing onsite attendance was still being verified and is expected
to be 5 to 5.5% below the record 17,000+ attendees that were present for
the 2005 show.
The most telling statistic, however, is that exhibitors were able to
register 5.2% more leads than they did in 2005, a show that saw a record
40% increase over the last AWFS®Fair held in Anaheim. In addition,
according to Angelo Gangone, V.P. of Tradeshows for AWFS®, “Exhibitors
have already started reserving space for 2009 and we are very happy to
see that many companies continue to expand their booth space. 2007 was a
solid follow-up to the most successful show in our history and early
indications suggest that AWFS®Vegas is still clearly on its growth
path.”
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