Last week was a good one for two different shows – ICUEE 2015, the International Construction and Utility Equipment Exposition, and Pack Expo Las Vegas – both of which broke not only attendance records, but also exhibit space and number of exhibitor records as well.

The Association of Equipment Manufacturers’ biennial ICUEE 2015 was the largest ever, with more than 18,000 registered attendees, 13-percent bigger than the previous show.

The 2015 event ran Sept. 29-Oct. 1 at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, Ky.

Penton added to its robust lifestyle and food portfolio with the acquisition of World Tea Media, an event and digital information company for the global tea industry, from F+W, a Content + eCommerce company.

World Tea Media includes the flagship show for the tea industry – World Tea Expo.

Cleveland’s I-X Center has added a unique component to its venue - a state-of-the art live performance space, where acoustically treated sound walls, elevated telescopic seating and custom staging all scales to various flexible configurations.

“Previously, our barriers attracting major concert promoters and national touring acts, included a lack of elevated seating and the sound quality in this industrial complex,” said Jeremy Levine, I-X Center vice president of Business Development.

With Las Vegas being chosen as one of four cities to host a presidential debate during the 2016 election season, any question on whether it’s a city where serious business gets done should be off the table, according to Chris Meyer, vice president of Global Business Sales at the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority.

“It takes away all possible argument of shows coming to Vegas,” Meyer said, an issue the city has grappled with, particularly in the government sector.

He added, “We’ll have both presidential candidates here and leadership from both of the parties.”

The popularity of virtual reality is evident with the huge jump in growth of that section of the showfloor for CES 2016.

Owned and produced by the Consumer Electronics Association and on tap Jan. 6-9 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Gaming & Virtual Reality Marketplace footprint will jump 77 percent and feature 40 booths.

For its 30^th show, New Hope Natural Media’s Natural Products Expo East show not only attracted 25,000 attendees to the Baltimore (Md.) Convention Center, but also 1,363 exhibiting companies, representing the natural, organic and healthy living marketplace.

The show, held Sept. 16-19, was collocated with Biofach America - All Things Organic, NPA East, and the Harvest Festival.

Westec 2015 proved to be the place to be for the manufacturing industry. More than 11,000 attendees (up nearly 5 percent from 2013) and 400-plus exhibitors from more than 500 manufacturing companies used the 103,600 square feet of show floor space to learn, connect and discover. 

This year’s show was held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, and the location was no accident.

Every year, when thousands of attendees head to the Toy Industry Association’s North American International Toy Fair, the only thing missing on the showfloor filled with toys and game were the kids.

Starting with the February 2016 show, the public will have the opportunity to see all the latest new products with TIA and LeftField Media teaming up to launch Play Fair - "a celebration of play and entertainment for all ages”.

More than 150 trade show leaders, industry suppliers, investment bankers, media and economists gathered last week at the JW Marriott in Chicago to look deep into a crystal ball for the Center for Exhibition Industry Research’s Predict: Annual Exhibition Industry Outlook Conference.

Britton Jones, president and CEO of Business Journals Inc. and chairman of CEIR, greeted everyone and said, “Thank you for taking the time to be here in Chicago for our biggest event yet.”

Most people trade show professionals know SmartSource Computer & Audio Visual Rentals as a technology provider within the trade show industry, but for the past 17 years,  they also have been providing service for something completely outside the business.

The company has been playing a critical role providing its technology to the National Interagency Wildland Firefighting Teams, who are leading the battle against  wildfires that have been raging in several U.S. Western states.