May 2003

Supersize that

SuperZoo co-locates for crossover market share

By Cathy Chatfield-Taylor

What do a pet store, garden center and mass merchandise retailer have in common?

Surprisingly, all have purchasing agents that buy both pet supplies and gardening products.

That simple fact led to the bizarre union of two wildly different shows, SuperZoo and Western Expo, to be co-located at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Sept. 22–23, 2004. By housing both shows in one hall, the producers will effectively double their attendance to more than 16,000 in one year.

“With the consolidation and changes in our industry, there were fewer buyers out there,” says Doug Poindexter, Executive Vice President for the World Wide Pet Supply Association (WWPSA), Arcadia, CA, producers of the annual trade show, SuperZoo. “We needed to look at what other areas were buying pet supplies and try to find a way to include them in our show.”

With a trend toward pet stores carrying garden products for patios and ponds, and garden centers adding pet departments to generate off-season revenue, the logical solution was to co-locate with a garden show. A show in England had tested the strategy and proven it works.

WWPSA first approached the California Association of Nurseries and Garden Centers (CANGC), Sacramento, CA, producers of the Western Nursery and Garden Expo (Western Expo). Both associations produced regional shows, but CANGC had recently moved Western Expo to Las Vegas.

“We asked SuperZoo if they wanted to come to Las Vegas,” says Elaine Thompson, Executive Director CANGC.

The destination was attractive because it’s within driving distance for southern California members but also accessible by air, at low fares, to buyers from Western and Midwestern states. WWPSA also wanted to target Eastern states and so contacted the Southern Nursery Association (SNA), producers of SNA — The World’s Showcase of Horticulture, held annually in Atlanta.

All three associations quickly came to an agreement: SuperZoo would share an exhibit hall with Western Expo in Las Vegas in 2004 and 2005; and, it would occupy an exhibit hall adjacent to SNA in Atlanta in 2005. Exhibitors would buy space with their original events. Attendees would register for one show, then move freely between the co-located exhibits.

The first step toward co-location was to compare the two shows.

“You have to sit down and take every component of the show and say, ‘This is what we do. This is what they do,’ ” says Thompson. “We compared it line by line.”
That process revealed obvious differences: SuperZoo was three days. Western Expo was two days. SuperZoo outsourced floor management. Western Expo handled it in-house. SuperZoo did its own registration. Western Expo outsourced it. Even their decorators were different. And, not surprisingly, space rates and registration fees for the two shows also varied.

“We decided to focus on having them do their show, and we’d do ours,” says Thompson. The two shows will have separate registration areas and separate entrances. They’ll split the hall in half, with each show selling about 800 booths. They’ll negotiate who can claim the 20 companies that previously exhibited in both shows. In the center of the hall, a blended display will transition the theme from pet supplies to garden supplies.

After the official announcement, which sent a shockwave through both industries, CANGC experienced brisk booth sales for 2003, as companies raked up priority points. Thompson projects a 15 percent increase in sales for 2004, when exhibitors will get double the exposure.

Poindexter won’t make growth projections, preferring to wait and see how well the first co-located event does. “All the exhibitors want is to see more qualified buyers,” he says. “Buy doing this, we give them that option. And by moving to Las Vegas, we’ll draw from more Western U.S. states, as well as internationally.”

What’s the next crossover market? If there’s a retail store fixture supply association, it’d be a great candidate.

Cathy Chatfield-Taylor is a freelance writer/editor. E-mailcathy@cc-tunlimited.com.