Where's ShowEast taking new date?
Organizers eyeing East Coast sites
The next installment of the annual exhibition trade show now is skedded to run from Monday, Sept. 29, to Thursday, Oct. 2 in 2003. The show had been skedded to begin Wednesday, Oct. 29, and run through Saturday, Nov. 1, but there was grumbling because those dates overlap Halloween.
Distribs and even some exhibs also have long griped about having to be on the road during big weekend movie openings, so show organizers opted to address both areas of complaint with an alternate set of dates.
Organizer Sunshine Group Worldwide has a contract with the Marriott Orlando World Center in Orlando through 2004, when the show will be held Monday, Oct. 25, through Thursday, Oct. 28.
Thereafter, the intent is to stick to a Monday-through-Thursday sked. But nothing's been decided about exactly when -- or even where -- ShowEast 2005 will be held.
Nothing else certain
"We're constantly talking to exhibition and distribution about what works and what doesn't work," SGW chairman Robert Sunshine said. "We are investigating other locations because we've been asked to. But whether we'll be able to secure the necessary dates and so on, I just don't know."
Sunshine declined to say what alternate cities are being studied, but he noted a return to Orlando for '05 and beyond is also possible.
It's known the organizer has investigated Miami but at least initially found a paucity of available venues able to handle a fall show of ShowEast's 1,000-plus size. More recently, SGW has been kicking tires at one or more other East Coast sites, and a return to the confab's original home in Atlantic City is not out of the question.
ShowEast fled the casino city in 2000, and one benefit of the move to Florida has been a bigger draw of Latin American attendees. But overall attendance has remained relatively flat due to exhibition industry consolidation.
SGW also stages the bigger, glitzier ShoWest exhib confab in Las Vegas each March. That show features much more celeb star power and lavish studio luncheons than its East Coast kin, so ShowEast's claim to fame has been its ability to stage early screenings of big holiday releases for the assembled exhibs.
That probably won't be the case next year, however, as the earlier dates mean studios' Thanksgiving-through-Christmas films will likely be stuck in post-production when the accelerated ShowEast 2003 rolls around.
Trade show trade-off
Still, industryites reacted to the date change as an acceptable trade-off: They like the Monday-through-Thursday skedding enough to overlook the earlier slotting for a year.
"A lot of people didn't like the fact that they had to stay over a weekend, and it also would have run over Halloween," Warners distrib prexy Dan Fellman observed. "So, I think it was a great move for the Sunshines to change that date. But they have to realize that moving it up a month is going to make it harder to get the quality of product that they have had in previous years."
Kurt Hall, co-topper at exhibition giant Regal Entertainment, said the one-year loss of holiday films to facilitate a move to a midweek footing reps a sensible decision. "I'm glad they changed it," Hall said.
Universal distrib topper Nikki Rocco said her studio also applauds the date shift and continues to be a ShowEast cheerleader.
"But we do continue to look at the logistics of the show, and we wonder whether Orlando is the most productive site," Rocco added.
Sunshine noted SWG also has been investigating the possibility of shifting ShoWest from early to late March, beginning in 2004. That would increase the chance distribs' summer releases would be ready to screen at the Las Vegas show.
SWG also operates the annual CineAsia trade show, set to open in Bangkok Dec. 3-5. Recent terrorist threats in the region have caused some pre-show turmoil, but Sunshine said all systems are go for a successful CineAsia 2002.
"I think we could have our best attendance to date, barring unforeseen events," Sunshine said.
