The occasional encouraging sales reports that Retailing Together found on the trade show floors in Las Vegas has been confirmed in more detail by the real journalists.

The February 27 issue of California Apparel News ran several encouraging articles:

Better Results Than Expected in Las Vegas

… Some shows"notably the Off-Price Specialist Show and MRket " reported an uptick in traffic this season. …

MAGIC, WWDMAGIC Find Good Sales in Bad Times

The weak economy and new layout of the trade show had this husband-and-wife team forecasting sales would plummet 50 percent compared with their sales at MAGIC last February. However, by the last day of the most recent show, they said their initial forecast was proven wrong when their sales broke even. Better yet, they estimated they spread the word about Dead Threads to 30 percent more buyers than they had during the same show in the previous year.

Pool Trims Size, Gains New Business

… many vendors were pleasantly surprised by doing good business in a poor economy. Cody De Backer of Los Angeles–based label Grn Apple Tree estimated that his label’s sales increased 15 percent compared with the February 2008 show … He claimed that 60 percent of retailers visiting his booth wrote orders.

Retail Traffic Up at MRket

"The buyers coming into Vegas hadn’t bought much, so many of them left paper. It was an order-writing show," she said.

The show was 70 percent larger than the February 2008 inaugural show and 15 percent larger than the August 2008 show. 

Several of the articles also noted that vendors are  offering more immediates, a trend we also learned about from  WWIN and some retailers. 

Can we declare the recession over yet?

In  contrast to the comparatively dead scene at other Las Vegas apparel trade shows, PROJECT February 2009 was packed for its first two days, leaving little space for dancing and drinking at the party-themed show. Instead attendees were busy browsing and writing orders, with spare time for carousing and people watching. 

Based on the light attendance at MAGIC Premium, Street, S.L.A.T.E. and POOL on Wednesday and Thursday, it seems like Project cannibalized attendance from other shows.

This season the PROJECT  exhibitors were showing a greater diversity of styles, a refreshing break from the tattoo-print t-shirts and embroidered denim that dominated  PROJECT in Fall 2008. The show floor was fully booked with a very cohesive set of exhibitors, with some exhibitors being moved from PROJECT to MAGIC Premium because there either was no space for them, or because the line didn’t quite fit in with PROJECT. 

Business seemed brisk, with the few exhibitors we asked reporting a steady stream of buyers. We’d like to report based on more interviews, but we missed nearly all of our interviews because the exhibitors never got a break from buyers – a problem for our reporters, but a good sign for the health of the industry.

UPDATE:  California Apparel news reports that the PROJECT show downsized this season, from 500,000 sq ft in August to 300,000 sq ft in February. The reduced floor space may have contributed to the sense of crowding.