This year’s biggest hardware show

This year the National Hardware Show will be held in Las Vegas from 17 to 19 May. In a year without the Cologne Hardware Fair/Practical World it will be the major hardware fair and the industry's event of the year with more than 3 000 exhibitors – 600 of them at the Las Vegas Gourmet Show held in parallel – and an exhibition space in excess of 62 000 m². This compares with the 2 300 firms occupying an area of 45 000 m² last year. No figures are available from the organisers on the countries the suppliers are coming from. Last year the Asian exhibitors represented the largest contingent with more than 800 firms. The event is definitely profiting from the fact that there is now only one hardware fair in the USA since the AHMA cancelled its show in Chicago.
This year the fair will be spread over two venues, the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Sands Convention Center. The Lawn & Garden World and the Global Hardware Expo will both be found at Sands, where the event was staged last year.
Garden World will be offering a new products area of its own for the first time, which means that this segment will occupy a total of 28 000 m² overall. Gardens and gardening still continue to represent a growth segment within the home improvement scene in the US. According to Rick Pontz, president of the Lawn & Garden Performance Group, who puts a figure of US $ 22 bn on the American garden market, it is growing by 4.6 per cent annually despite the process of consolidation that retailers are going through.
More than 3 000 exhibitors will be represented in Las Vegas.
The Las Vegas Convention Center will be the venue for hardware and tools, paint and decoration, along with plumbing, electrical, housewares and the New Product World. The organisers have already announced that there are so many new products this year that buyers would be wise to allow three full days for their visit to the fair.
Las Vegas by night.
Due to take place this year for the first time at the same location is the Las Vegas Gourmet Houseware Show, which will occupy one part of level 1 of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Here 600 exhibitors will be displaying their wares. They are from Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Korea, Thailand and the United Kingdom. The range of products on view will include cookware, kitchen gadgets and textiles, decorative accessories, specialty appliances and cutlery, plus tabletop lines. This fair offers DIY buyers an opportunity to round off their assortment…