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good long-term decisions,
especially those that
concerned mounting a
viable tradeshow that met
the needs of all its
constituents and its core
mission of education.
More importantly, was the
rise of importance of the
Decor shows for the art
industry in both New York
and Atlanta. Decor Expo
managed to knock out the
PPFA shows. At the same
time it wrest away from
ArtExpo a huge chunk of
exhibitors who only wanted
to participate in the
tradeshows and weren’t
interested in ArtExpo’s
consumer draw.
Meanwhile, the Decor Expo
Atlanta show grew from a
solidly successful show with
350 booths to nearly 2,000
booths at its zenith.
The changing nature of
tradeshows affects artists
and publishers.
Tradeshows have been a
mainstay in the arsenal of
marketers seeking to get
art prints to market. They
are a dynamic that
continually morphs.
Marketers must be able to
keep pace with the
changes as they occur.
The past decade has
wrought major changes
that continue to roil the
industry. First, there was
the demise of the
Professional Picture
Framers Association
(PPFA) shows. The
PPFA was always a
small, but important trade
organization. Like many
small organizations, it
suffered from a lack on
continuous leadership.
New presidents came too
often to allow it to make
ArtExpo in the meantime
built a reputation for
starting shows that never
got off the ground or
foundered in after one or
two attempts. ArtExpo
New York has managed
to hang on to most of its
prestige and many of its
customers. Although a
group of top exhibitors
who were unhappy with
the show management
succeeded with the startup
the Fine Art Forum,
which runs concurrent
with ArtExpo. After years
of poor results, ArtExpo
finally stopped trying to
produce a West Coast
show. Forays into
Northern California and
Las Vegas were busts and
led to management giving
up on the West Coast.
Decor Expo had its
troubles on the West
Coast as well. When it
was unable to maintain its
dates in January in Long
Beach, it created an
opening for Picture
Framing Magazine (PFM)
to step into the show
business with its West
Coast Art & Frame
(WCAF) show in January
in Las Vegas. Many
observers gave this show
with its mid-week dates
and early January
schedule no chance to
compete. Not too mention
that Vegas is known to be
a tradeshow killer. Great
for conventions, lousy for
tradeshows, especially
smaller ones was the
rap…too much
competition for buyers’
attention. The hotels are
not inclined to give room
rates on weekends in
Vegas, making it a tough
climate to produce a
successful new show.
Undaunted, PFM took its
Page 3
Tradeshow Trends – Nothing Stays the Same
or 6 years of its existence.
This against a backdrop of
Decor Expo’s new owners
killing off its regional
shows during the same time.
Decor Expo’s management
decided to put its focus on
bigger shows and to quit
producing the more
marginally profitable
regional shows. With a debt
load to manage from the
purchase, such things
needed to be carefully
considered along with
changes in the market. Its
management drove to
tremendous success in
Atlanta. At its high point,
the Decor Expo Atlanta
shot and when it saw
attendance flat, it added a
hefty education
component which saved
the day. This is an
interesting development
because education was
the problem with PPFA
shows. If a buyer is
pulled from the show
floor to learn something,
that can turn down the
din on the floor and
deaden the experience for
the exhibitors.
Surprisingly, PFM
managed to pull together
against the odds and
create a continuing
evolving show that has
gotten better each of the 5
show ranked among the
largest 200 shows in the
U.S. That was quite a feat
considering there are
literally tens of thousands
of shows put on around
the country annually.
Unfortunately, the show
has not been able to
maintain that high booth
count. There is buyer-to-
exhibitor ratio that shows
must maintain to continue
to deliver value for
exhibitors. The Atlanta
show grew to the point of
that ratio becoming
unfavorable and booth
sales declined. Granted,
the cancellation of the
show slated for
September 14, 2001 put a
major hurt on things, but
it is not the primary
reason for the decline. It
has more to do with the
size of the industry and
the buyer pool available
to attend the show.
There has been a change
in the buyer component as
well. While all the
important art tradeshows,
Decor Expos in particular,
grew by servicing the
small independent
retailer; it became harder
to use that model as big
(Continued on page 6)
Tradeshow Trends (Continued from Above)
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