Hard-Surface Shows: Mid-Year 2021 Roundup
Three of the hard-surface-industry’s big trade shows appeared a little later in the year with smaller sizes and crowds … but still open for business.
Photo courtesy TISECoverings, The International Surface Event (TISE) and the Xiamen Stone Fair all managed to open their doors for in-person events in late spring and early summer. None was as big as editions in previous years, but just having the shows marked a major accomplishment for the industry.
For Coverings and Xiamen Stone Fair, this year’s events marked a comeback from cancelled live-show dates in 2020 due to complications from the COVID-19 pandemic. TISE, meanwhile, delayed its 2021 edition from January until June.
All of the events dealt with continuing COVID-19 concerns. Ever-changing rules and restrictions on cross-border travel, including U.S. policies on admitting foreign visitors, affected vendor and attendee participation at all three events. Xiamen, the world’s largest hard-surfaces event by size and attendance, likely took the hardest hit due to severe visa/vaccination policies by various governments worldwide.
Coverings, which saw its 2020 New Orleans show cancelled, ended up with more than health-safety concerns this year; its July 7 opening date in Orlando, Fla., coincided with the arrival of Hurricane Elsa in the Sunshine State. Luckily, the storm shifted some 120 miles west of Orlando, making for only minor disruptions in travel.
Coverings 2021 garnered nearly 10,000 registered attendees for the July 7-9 event’s education, technical resources, in-person networking, and exposition in the North Hall of the Orange County Convention Center. Attendees including the standard mix of installers, distributors, fabricators, retailers, designers, builders, remodelers, contractors, architects others spanning the global tile and stone industry.
“The attendees of Coverings 2021 were highly charged and enthused about being part of the on-site event,” said Jennifer Hoff, president of Taffy Event Strategies, the show management company for Coverings. “What’s more was the positive feedback we received from exhibitors, who were able to connect with new and recurring customers like never before through Coverings’ in-person and virtual opportunities.”
Coverings 2022 is set for April 5-8 at the Las Vegas Convention Center In Las Vegas.
TISE, meanwhile, dealt with a different weather concern during its event in Las Vegas this June 16-19 – scorching heat. Although the desert city regularly sees triple-digit temperatures, it experienced record heat of more than 110°F during the event’s June 16-18 dates.
As one of the initial U.S. trade events held in 2021, TISE at the cool Mandalay Bay Convention Center drew more than 190 exhibiting companies covering all aspects of the floor-covering, stone, and tile industries, with 18 being first-time exhibitors offering new products and services to the industry.
Three of the companies in the StonExpo component of TISE also took home best-of-show honors:
• Product: Blick Industries, suction cups
• Technology: Commandulli, Athena edge polisher
• Innovation: Stone Profit Systems, Jobsite mobile app
TISE 2022 will be held Feb. 1-3, again at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas.
The Xiamen Stone Fair became the first target of major hard-surface events when its 2020 show was first delayed, then cancelled. The May 8-12 event this year signaled a comeback – albeit a partial one — for the largest industry event.
International participation was severely limited by travel restrictions set by various governments at the time of the event. China, for example, would allow entry by citizens of 26 countries, including the United States, but only under very limited conditions for business purposes. All foreign visitors would need to quarantine for 14 days.
Covering a total exhibition area of 1.7 million ft², Xiamen Stone Fair 2021 hosted more than 1,100 exhibiting companies from domestic and abroad, showing stone products, blocks, slabs, machines, diamond tools, abrasives and other goods. More than 97% of exhibitors, in an after-show questionnaire, expressed their willingness to participate at next year’s event.
Xiamen’s trade-visitor mix remained the same as previous years, with more than 70% from purchasing & sourcing, processing & manufacturing and real estate & construction fields. More than 94% of those surveyed after the show indicated they would return in 2022.
As with Coverings and TISE, Xiamen Stone Fair also included an online component. More than 2,000 companies from 57 countries participated in Cloud Xiamen Stone Fair by showing their featured products through various promotion activities. During the fair period, the total page view of Cloud Xiamen Stone Fair reached 261,125.
The event’s live-streaming channel included 14 programs, including a Live Walking Tour across exhibition halls and recorded videos of forums. The channel recorded a cumulative page view of 5,896,500.
Xiamen Stone Fair 2022 will be held March 16-19 at the Xiamen International Conference & Exhibition Center in Xiamen, China.
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