CLEVELAND, Ohio – Marketplace Events has announced a new spring shopping event for consumers. The Austin Spring Boutique Show will be held March 14-15, 2020, at the H-E-B Center in Cedar Park, Texas, an indoor arena just outside of Austin. Product categories will include apparel, gifts, gourmet foods and home décor, among others. Marketplace Events produces 67 consumer home shows and two bridal shows. The new event will be the company’s first spring shopping event.
“Our holiday shopping shows have been extraordinarily well-received. As requests for a spring version have multiplied, we began a search to find the appropriate market to do just that,” said CEO Tom Baugh. In April, the company acquired nine shows from Show Technology Productions of San Antonio. “We visited the H-E-B Center during the acquisition process and felt it would be an ideal venue to launch our first Spring Boutique,” Baugh said. The center’s location in affluent Cedar Park, 20 miles north of downtown Austin, was key, along with excellent parking and accessibility.
“This venue is the perfect location to launch a new shopping show that matches the interests and demographics of the metro area,” Baugh added. “Exhibit sales have been spot on with our expectations, so we are confident our customers will enjoy a show occupying the entire facility — the main floor and all the available concourses. More than 150 exhibitors are anticipated.”
Marketplace Events was formed in 2008, having formerly operated as the North American home show division of London-based DMG World Media. The company’s portfolio includes market-leading shows in Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal — some of which have been around for more than 75 years. Marketplace Events’ shows operate in 34 markets, attract 22,000 exhibitors and 1.9 million attendees, according to the company’s website.
Marketplace Events’ mission statement calls out its status as an industry innovator: “Fall shows, online ticketing, VIP premiums, video analysis, a national spokesperson, on‐site renewals, direct response marketing, guaranteeing attendee satisfaction — even something as basic as payment by credit card — all of these were introduced to the consumer show industry by our management team. We’re pretty proud of that, but we’re not sitting on our laurels. We’re conceptualizing the next revolution of consumer show operations.”
For more on Marketplace Events and the Austin Spring Boutique Show, visit marketplaceevents.com. To read Trade Show Executive’s February 2018 Power Lunch interview with Tom Baugh, click here.
Reach Tom Baugh at (330) 351-3228 or tom@mpeshows.com.
