A Textiles Calendar In Flux

This week, the evolution of the home textiles industry calendar begins.

Global Connections — the portion of the semi-annual Javits Center event populated by overseas mills — will split off from the New York Home Textiles Show, and will run in advance of the show. This will give early-bird buyers, which have been growing in number the past several markets, a chance to check out potential new resources before their schedules are filled with showroom appointments.

The scheduling also opens a door for U.S. suppliers, who are showroom-bound during the Textiles Show dates, to go hunting as well.

The stand-alone Global Connections (Tuesday, March 28 to Thursday, March 30) expects to draw 3,000 attendees, according to show sponsor George Little Management. In 2007, the exhibition will become an annual event held each May in tandem with the Gourmet Housewares Show and the National Hardware Show, which between them draw a whopping 40,000 attendees.

Changes are also ahead for the New York Home Textiles Show, which for the last time will run concurrently with the showroom-oriented New York Home Textiles Market. Come August, the show will hitch its star to the New York International Gift Fair, which is already home to several dozen high-end home textiles exhibitors.

That change, too, will significantly boost buyer exposure. This week's show (March 31 to April 3) will draw an estimated 5,000 buyers, according to GLM. The Gift Fair (Aug. 12 to 17) will attract some 43,000. Beginning in 2007, the Textiles Show will run twice a year in concert with the Gift Fair: in late January/early February and in August.

This week also marks the last time that the New York Home Textiles Market will adhere to what many in the industry complained had become a spring/fall schedule out of sync with today's global supply timetable. Hereafter, markets will kick off on the first Friday of August and the first Friday of February.

In what is surely proof that you can't please all of the people all of the time, complaints have arisen about this as well: The February market will fall over Super Bowl Sunday, and New York in August is just too bloody hot.

But all this shifting about raises questions for other home-related trade shows. Heimtextil takes place less than a month before the new February market dates. With suppliers scrambling to finalize their lines and get their showrooms ready for February, will fewer of them travel to Frankfurt?

The burgeoning Las Vegas Market runs just days ahead of the February and August market start dates. Will the calendar shift hamper Vegas's ability to lure textiles showrooms west?

And does that provide an opportunity for High Point, which traditionally fell on the heels of the New York Market, to capture home textiles suppliers intent on pursuing the furniture trade?

As always, it's all up for grabs.