Is Las Vegas Market working for the casual industry? – Casual News Now

As the industry prepares for Las Vegas Market this weekend, there’s a big question hanging over casual exhibitors’ heads: Is the market worth it?

Looking at the list of outdoor exhibitors for the market, there are significantly fewer companies than in past years — and there are also almost as many full-line manufacturers as there are specialty outdoor ones. 

This isn’t exactly new, but the number of casual exhibitors has been steadily decreasing for the past five years.

John Hunt, CEO of America’s Backyards, which pulled out of Vegas a few years back, says the No. 1 reason many casual exhibitors left is because of Covid.

“The uncertainty of markets left everybody in doubt about when business would recover,” he explains. “And I still believe that we won’t see a strong recovery until 2025. From a manufacturer standpoint, 2023 is dead in the water. We’re still producing goods, but not any large or consistent volume — nothing you’d want to take to the bank.”

He believes there will be an uptick in business in 2024, and he says his company decided to leave Vegas because they were not aggressive on specialty business, which meant there was no need for a showroom.

“I’ve tried to stay away from showrooms historically,” he says. “Our model is high volume, high capacity. And when you have a dealer who struggles to put one container together, then they want it in four colors, it just doesn’t work with our model.”

Plank & Hide is another exhibitor that left Vegas, and CEO Erik Mueller says, as a whole, the investment versus the return of the Vegas market for most outdoor suppliers simply didn’t make sense over time.  

“It surely didn’t make sense for Plank and Hide Co.,” he explains. “The floors and showrooms looked wonderful and the Vegas Market put forth a tremendous effort to drive buyers to the show, but the overall size of the industry most likely doesn’t support two competing shows dedicated to outdoor.”

He points out that the winter Vegas market is too early for the outdoor buying season, and the July market was the same month as Chicago premarket, which is problematic. 

“Retailers see all those suppliers in July, so why then go to Vegas a couple of weeks later to see the same suppliers?”

Sunset West is one of the few casual specialty manufacturers still showing in Vegas, and CEO Wes Stewart says that because it’s based on the West Coast, Vegas was always a good market for them.

“As the category has become more important to full-furniture stores and the design trade, we’ve been able to have success in Vegas,” he says. “We see some casual-specific people, but it’s mostly full-line and designers.”

That could be one reason many in the casual industry pulled out — designers and full-line stores aren’t their customers. But Stewart also says there’s a potential opportunity for casual exhibitors who still show. 

“There has been a lot of change in the industry over the last couple of years, from people leaving Vegas to the Casual Market moving to Atlanta from Chicago, so maybe we’ll benefit from the fact that there aren’t as many casual guys in Vegas,” Stewart says. “If people come looking for outdoor, we’ll be there.”

Leisa McCallister at O.W. Lee echoed Stewart about the design industry and said, “We started showing in Vegas in 2015 thinking that we were going to get a lot of indoor furniture business out of that show, but we quickly realized that we needed to appeal to the designers at that show.”

And the design business the company gets is certainly profitable.

“We have and continue to get a lot of designer business at the two shows, and now that we’ve moved from the C building, down to the first floor of Building A, which is open year-round, it’s been a profit center for us year-round.”

With many casual exhibitors gone and full-line manufacturers increasingly introducing more outdoor product, will full-line manufacturers be able to capture the design business during these market? Only time will tell.