Natural Products Expo West organizers plan to make full use of Anaheim Convention Center’s expanded campus when it comes to town March 7 through 11.
Orange County’s second-biggest trade show by attendance should draw more than 80,000 people. The National Association of Music Merchants registered 110,000 in January. Expo organizers began planning last year and visited NAMM in January to check out how the competition handled the expanded space.
“Our principal reason for being at NAMM was to see what they were doing,” says Adam Andersen, senior vice president of events for New Hope Network in Boulder, Colo., which produces the show.
The convention center opened a 200,000-square-foot addition in September, bringing square footage to just over 1 million.
The new “ACC North” also provides a second outdoor plaza at the campus between its new doors and the center’s arena—the 1970s/spaceship-looking structure facing Katella Avenue.
“The Arena Plaza is actually larger than the Grand Plaza,” said Jay Burress, president and chief executive of destination marketer Visit Anaheim, which promotes the area for tourism and business travel and books the center for longer-term and larger events.
Grand Plaza opened a few years ago in the center of the square formed by main convention center halls, entrance road Convention Way, the Hilton Anaheim and Anaheim Marriott. At 36,000 square feet, it was a big deal and has hosted everything from Chinese delegations to food trucks at Natural Products and concerts at NAMM.
Arena Food
Burress said center guests can now “spill out from the lobby” of ACC North—previously that spot supported a parking structure. The new look feels more like a planned plaza, and at 64,000 square feet, it can hold a variety of events.
“It was used before, but now we’re seeing new approaches” by clients, Burress said.
Andersen said one use planned for the plaza in Natural Products’ five days is a series of talks on March 10 on the Esca Bona Movement.
Esca Bona, Latin for “good food,” refers to an effort encompassing farming practices, current thinking on the future of food-making, and best-business practices, capped by a keynote by Ventura-based Patagonia Inc. Chief Executive Rose Marcario.
The show considers Arena Plaza “the family room” where discussions take place, and “Grand Plaza is our living room” for an array of activities, including “yoga, music, networking and food trucks.”
The new spaces didn’t necessitate a full-scale show remodel, Andersen said, but a “nearly clean slate for talking to clients” about what they want, as well as traffic flow management and highlighting of expo aspects—new products, for instance—in particular spots.
“We were able to ask, ‘How do we envision the campus?’” and go from there.
Convention Haul
The construction of ACC North led to other changes.
Natural Products runs the full five days but on an interestingly toggled calendar. There are daily educational events, but the trade show is in ACC North March 8 to 10 and in the older convention center space’s main halls March 9 to 11.
“We’ve been staggering it for the last three years,” Andersen said, but ACC North meant all expo booths can be in true exhibition space instead of in ballrooms at the Hilton and Marriott, which in 2015 to 2017 housed about 500 booths.
This year the booths will be on the first floor of ACC North, and 500 more will be on the second floor—“mostly new companies and hot products.” In some cases exhibitors will be able to design new spaces, buy bigger booths, or take space in both ACC North and the main halls. That would afford exposure throughout the expo schedule or help ensure products are seen, whether attendees visit one building or the other, Andersen said.
Hotels California
Meanwhile, hosts of meetings and receptions will be checking in at newly freed-up space at the Hilton and Marriott, he said.
“We help with different associations and retailers in the hotels. We can place them and curate the experience. Everyone gets a little bit of something.”
Hilton, for instance, will host a “Women in Naturals” networking event on Saturday evening and classes by manufacturers. Marriott will have a “Hall of Legends” induction event on Friday evening and a cannabis summit on the morning of March 7 (see sidebar, this page).
“We also have our own events,” Andersen said. The campus “gets creative in how it uses space.”
A third campus hotel, Sheraton Park, will also get events, and Andersen awaits the Westin Anaheim Resort, which broke ground on the campus the same month ACC North opened and is scheduled to debut next year.
“Westin will be a new impact,” and Natural Products’ producer will need to consider “how that changes the dynamic.”
Show Time
New Hope is owned by London-based Informa PLC. It’s been in Anaheim for several decades, and last year, as ACC North was under construction, Andersen told the Business Journal he loved the campus venue—hotels, convention space and plaza.
Now there’s more to love. “This is the year I’ve been waiting for,” he said with a laugh.
The show and co-located sister presentation Engredea, which focuses on raw food, drew 71,000 in 2015, 77,000 people in 2016, and 80,000 last year—which is why he projects “at least that many” this week.
Figure on more. Last year, it had 3,000 exhibitors, this year 3,300.
About 80% of exhibitors renew each year, Andersen said, and some bow out because they exhibit only when introducing products.
The staggering growth and the staggering of the show itself suggest the possibility of adding a day to the event.
“It’s rare for someone to add a day,” Burress said. “You have to have attendees saying they can’t get to everything,” for instance, and “they’d be willing to stay another day.”
Andersen said, “We weren’t quite ready” to do that but are considering it.
It would add to exhibitor costs—even if booth prices don’t go up, “20 staffers [in a booth] is 20 more hotel nights,” he said.
“We’re doing some surveys and want to see what the new space is like. There’s a lot that goes into it. We need to give people enough time to plan.”
Big Year
Burress says this year will be a key indicator of how convention center clients will respond to the new space.
“When you make changes one year, it’s hard to change a show again the next. You want to make sure you get it right.”
Clients visit other shows, as Natural Products staff did several times, Burress said, ending up “reimagining the space more than most.”
Most clients at least look at new digs to “add exhibitors and take care of the big ones—finding new prime space” for them, solving traffic flow issues, and designing fresh experiences.
He said the expansion helps “large shows that needed to grow” like NAMM and Natural Products. It also provides “flex space” that allows Visit Anaheim to pursue new markets, such as medical meetings that require educational sessions. And it allows “overlapping shows and efficient use of buildings”—Natural Products is doing both.
Burress said Visit Anaheim is also considering whether it can produce its own events in Arena Plaza. The space could work for a food truck gathering or “street fairs and festivals … without having to block streets.”
