With Las Vegas being chosen as one of four cities to host a presidential debate during the 2016 election season, any question on whether it’s a city where serious business gets done should be off the table, according to Chris Meyer, vice president of Global Business Sales at the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority.

“It takes away all possible argument of shows coming to Vegas,” Meyer said, an issue the city has grappled with, particularly in the government sector.

He added, “We’ll have both presidential candidates here and leadership from both of the parties.”

The popularity of virtual reality is evident with the huge jump in growth of that section of the showfloor for CES 2016.

Owned and produced by the Consumer Electronics Association and on tap Jan. 6-9 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Gaming & Virtual Reality Marketplace footprint will jump 77 percent and feature 40 booths.

For its 30^th show, New Hope Natural Media’s Natural Products Expo East show not only attracted 25,000 attendees to the Baltimore (Md.) Convention Center, but also 1,363 exhibiting companies, representing the natural, organic and healthy living marketplace.

The show, held Sept. 16-19, was collocated with Biofach America - All Things Organic, NPA East, and the Harvest Festival.

Westec 2015 proved to be the place to be for the manufacturing industry. More than 11,000 attendees (up nearly 5 percent from 2013) and 400-plus exhibitors from more than 500 manufacturing companies used the 103,600 square feet of show floor space to learn, connect and discover. 

This year’s show was held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, and the location was no accident.

Every year, when thousands of attendees head to the Toy Industry Association’s North American International Toy Fair, the only thing missing on the showfloor filled with toys and game were the kids.

Starting with the February 2016 show, the public will have the opportunity to see all the latest new products with TIA and LeftField Media teaming up to launch Play Fair - "a celebration of play and entertainment for all ages”.

More than 150 trade show leaders, industry suppliers, investment bankers, media and economists gathered last week at the JW Marriott in Chicago to look deep into a crystal ball for the Center for Exhibition Industry Research’s Predict: Annual Exhibition Industry Outlook Conference.

Britton Jones, president and CEO of Business Journals Inc. and chairman of CEIR, greeted everyone and said, “Thank you for taking the time to be here in Chicago for our biggest event yet.”

Most people trade show professionals know SmartSource Computer & Audio Visual Rentals as a technology provider within the trade show industry, but for the past 17 years,  they also have been providing service for something completely outside the business.

The company has been playing a critical role providing its technology to the National Interagency Wildland Firefighting Teams, who are leading the battle against  wildfires that have been raging in several U.S. Western states.

Three different entities have teamed up to launch ProFood Tech, a new event that will focus on processing technologies serving the food and beverage industry.

ProFood Tech will make its debut April 4–6, 2017, at McCormick Place in Chicago.

The event will be jointly produced by PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, Koelnmesse and the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA).

In just a few days, C-level trade show organizers, suppliers to the industry, financial experts, invest banking firms and media will gather Sept. 16-17 in Chicago for the Center for Exhibition Industry Research’s (CEIR) Predict – Annual Exhibition Industry Outlook Conference.

The past couple of years, the conference typically was broken up into experts talking about specific market sectors, but this year, led by Britton Jones, president and CEO of Business Journals Inc. and CEIR’s board chairman, the program has been redesigned.

Trade show mergers and acquisitions are in full swing, with two big organizers – Urban Expositions (recently bought by Clarion Events) and Marketplace Events – scooping up more shows for their rapidly expanding portfolios.

Hot on the heels of the first acquisition, Womens Wear in Nevada, under the Clarion ownership, Urban Expositions also bought Hamptons Expo Group.

The New York-based show group founded and produces ArtAspen, ArtHamptons, Houston Fine Art Fair and Palm Springs Fine Art Fair.