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Buyers crowd World Market Center winter session
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Jeff Scheid/Las Vegas Review-Journal
People await credentials Monday at World Market Center. The show has 5.1 million square feet of showroom, event and seminar space. » Buy this photo
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Norm Ward of Wine Country Furniture in Pasco, Wash., sits on a sofa Monday at U.S. Furniture at World Market Center. The winter market runs through Friday. Jeff Scheid/Las Vegas Review-Journal » Buy this photo
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Updated: Feb. 1, 2012 | 7:39 p.m.
Expect to see more gift items coming out of the Las Vegas Market in the future.
As the furnishings design industry descended on the World Market Center for opening day of the winter 2012 Las Vegas Market, center CEO Bob Maricich said the fastest-growing segment is gifts.
Nationally, home gifts is a $60 billion industry, and Maricich sees an opportunity to add to the Las Vegas Market's product mix, which is heavy with furniture, sleep products and home decor.
"There are seven small, regional markets for gifts West of the Mississippi and they're all failing. There's really a demand to have one regional market," Maricich said. "Our research tells us that should be Las Vegas. We're putting a lot of resources into that."
Maricich said he thinks he can grow the gift business "dramatically" in coming years. He said that in the last six months he's been able to secure eight new gift tenants for the World Market Center.
Winter market runs through Friday in 5.1 million square feet of showroom, event and seminar space. The World Market Center does not release attendance, but company representatives said it's up a "couple of percentage points," based on opening day traffic. Maricich said most buyers come for three days at a time.
About 800 permanent tenants are exhibiting and about 200 are renting space during market. In all, 50 permanent, new showrooms opened with the winter market, but the center doesn't list closures that might balance the newcomers.
"That's by far the most new showroom openings we've had," Maricich said.
The 200 renting exhibitors come in, pay for a booth during the show, then leave, as at most trade shows. The rest are signed to a three- to five-year showroom lease, which is a fundamental difference between a market and a trade show.
In past years the outlook for interior design hasn't been so bright; cost-cutting and layoffs were more the norm.
"It's been a brutal recession in the furnishings space," Maricich said. "Even a small uptick has people investing in inventory and buying."
While banking on hope, there are sales figures to back up those tingly feelings.
The Las Vegas Market is the first furniture show of 2012, and retail furniture sales in December were strong. The U.S. Department of Commerce reported $7.7 million in December retail sales for furniture and home furnishings stores, up 5.6 percent year-over-year.
"I think we're really feeling that," Maricich said.
At the First Look trends session Monday morning, buyers were told to look out for vivid oranges and eye-popping blues, which are highly prevalent in showrooms, mixed with varying arrays of beachy, tropical-inspired looks.
Monica Pedersen, a designer on HGTV, and Julie Smith Vincenti, home trends editor for Nine Muses Media, led the session. The duo mentioned the Emma at Home line, with 25 new pillow designs, as one to watch.
Emma at Home President Patrick McDarrah said his line, which also features rugs, debuted in Las Vegas in August.
"We find the Las Vegas Market buyer is good for us," he said, adding that Emma at Home partnered with 15 dealers as a result of the August market.
"The traction we got here was great," McDarrah said.
Pedersen and Vincenti also told their audience that ikat designs have gone mainstream, as have Southwest loom styles reminiscent of traditional Native American patterns.
"These are also on the trend radar for 2012," Vincenti said.
Worth noting was the streamlined look of Palliser's male-driven designs that incorporate black leather sofas and chic charcoal gray reclining sectionals.
"It's a very lovely collection," Vincenti said.
Contact reporter Laura Carroll at lcarroll@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4588.
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So if 258 new storefronts have moved in, then at least that many have moved out, been evicted or have sat vacant since World Market Center B and C Buildings have been built.
The city redevelopment agency gave this entire development a 41% tax rebate as a wholesale furniture mart. Now they have gotten amendments to sell retail furniture while keeping their full 41% tax rebate. Now further changes are drifting in to add other product lines such as home gifts since they cannot fill the joint up with furniture? Not with my tax dollars! How about yours?
why ? for what ? las vegas continues to die and somehow people are trying to keep a dead city alive ...
Again this is the growth in convetion visitors - NOT THE LVCVA- they are losing people and it is not becuaes they need the 100 million renovationn they are tryig to rib tax payers for.. these conventions like CES , SIMA, etc bring their own props and flooring - all they want is a building. The LVCVA just has nothing but the good ole boys stealing millions to funnel to their frieds like R & R - and we will have a budget short fall of, you giuessed it 80 to 100 million to a agency that does nothing