Yesterday LIGHTFAIR International announced that 2016 was the largest trade show to date and broke West Coast attendance records. Regarding exhibition space. LFI 2015 had 268,580 square feet of exbhitors and 2016 beat that number with 269,680 and I felt like I walked every one of those square feet.
Attendance was very strong also at 27,628 which beat the 2014 West Coast record in Las Vegas of 26,059 and was just shy of last year’s LIGHTFAIR in New York with 29,900.
EdisonReport conducted an unscientific study and asked the audience, “Do you prefer major lighting trade shows to be held in Las Vegas or San Diego?” The results were San Diego: 58%; Las Vegas: 42%. The poll had 272 responses. To our knowledge LIGHTFAIR has not released the venue for 2018, but we strongly suspect it will be back in Vegas.
What we find very interesting is the number of new exhibitors. 2014 had 103 new companies, 2015 had 108 and 2016 had 102. So in the last three years there have been 313 new exhibitors. This seems very high. When some companies complain that they can’t get into LIGHTFAIR, the facts tell a different story.