ATLANTA — International Market Center’s LightFair International will be co-located with an Emerald Expositions event at the newly expanded Jacob K. Javits Convention Center as part of New York Design Week (NYCxDESIGN) beginning in 2021.
LightFair, a perennial member of the Trade Show Executive (TSE) Gold 100, will be held alongside Emerald’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in alternating years through 2029. The first show in 2021 will coincide with the completion of the current $1.5 billion renovation of Javits Center, which will add more meeting space and increase the amount of both flex space and contiguous prime exhibit space at the Manhattan mecca.
Since every room needs at least a pair of lamps, if not some track lighting to round out an upscale design, pairing LightFair and ICFF creates a one-stop shop for the designers, architects, and retailers that New York is targeting for NYCxDESIGN. “Alignment with NYCxDESIGN is a natural fit,” said LightFair Show Director Dan Darby. “The tradeshow will present forward-thinking, design-driven lighting manufacturers to the design community, and the conference will bring a new element to NYCxDESIGN’s coterie of thought-leader events and presentations.”
LightFair will continue with its current annual rotation between East Coast and West Coast venues. Next year’s show takes place May 3-7, 2020, at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The new agreement with Javits Center comes after LightFair had enjoyed successful runs at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia in 2017 and 2019. The 2018 show at McCormick Place drew more than 28,000 attendees and covered 285,600 net square feet, which placed it 63rd on the most-recent TSE Gold 100.
Phil Robinson, Show Director for ICFF, told TSE it was too early to determine how much his expo’s metrics might expand, but that cross-over traffic from LightFair was a definite likelihood. “The ICFF LightFair co-location in 2021 further builds on the momentum of the ICFFWanted Design Manhattan co-location in 2020 and makes the Javits Center a truly multidiscipline design-resource center for the North American architecture-and-design community,” Robinson said in the announcement.
The show prospectus for next year’s ICFF projected exhibit space at 120,000 nsf with 20,000 attendees, plus 600 exhibitors in 11 design categories, including lighting. In fact, the prospectus pegged 63.0% of attendees as having an interest in lighting products. “It is an unmatched opportunity for our 500-plus exhibitors to connect with the tens of thousands of designers and students that make up the New York design community during its most important time of the year,” Darby said.
The announcement is also a boost for the NYCxDESIGN strategy. “Bringing these two major design-related events together will create a real impact in New York City,” said Alan Steel, President and CEO of the New York Convention Center Operating Corporation, which operates the Javits Center. “ICFF already plays a major role in the international furniture events calendar. The addition of LightFair every other year will boost the prestige of both events and give another reason for national and international business visitors to come to New York.”
Reach Dan Darby at (404) 220-2218 or dand@lightfair.com; Phil Robinson at (646) 668-3796 or phil.robinson@icff.com; Alan Steel at (212) 216-2000 or asteel@javitscenter.com.
