AGENDA TO TRANSITION ITS LONG BEACH TRADE SHOW INTO CONSUMER FESTIVAL

Trade show and events organizer Reed Exhibitions has announced that it will postpone its upcoming Agenda Winter Long Beach trade event scheduled for January 3-4, 2019 at the Long Beach Convention Center.

Agenda maintains that this decision was not arrived at lightly, but was made after careful consideration and feedback from the show’s exhibiting brands, retailers and media. For over 15 years, Agenda Long Beach has been one of the preeminent Business to Business (B2B) events in the action sports and streetwear industries.

The Southern California edition of Agenda will evolve its platform to have a greater focus on the Business to Consumer (B2C) festival in June 2019, merging streetwear, action sports, lifestyle and fashion alongside music, art, food, education and more.

For the past two years, the summer edition of Agenda Long Beach has included a consumer festival day, each which attracted over 10,000 young men and women. This natural evolution from a B2B to a B2C event reflects the rapidly changing industry landscape.

“The business of fashion for our customers has changed dramatically over the past five years,” said Ron Walden, group vice president of fashion and festivals at Reed Exhibitions. “While large brands are focused on fewer, more meaningful retail relationships, smaller start up brands are utilizing technology and digital platforms to market and sell directly to the consumer. This makes meaningful experiences with consumers more important than ever for our customer brands, both large and small.”

Agenda has seen a strong showing of support regarding the move from many of its bellwether brand exhibitors. “Our customers seek a personal experience with our brand and that’s why Agenda Festival makes sense,” said Bobby Hundreds, co-founder of The Hundreds. “This move is what we need from Agenda: a relevant and authentic fan expo that integrates customer interaction and speaks directly to the youth/fashion lifestyle market.”

With the transition underway, Agenda will continue to embrace the retail community in Southern California and throughout the country. “We’ll continue to work with retailers across the board,” noted Neil Wright, event director at Agenda.

“From curating partnerships between retailers and brands for activations, to promoting events through their doors and digital networks, retailers will play a significant part in the success of the Agenda Festival.” Nick Jacobs, Director of Special Projects for Active Ride Shop added “Agenda Festival provides an excellent opportunity for us to connect with our consumer in a neutral arena, allowing for interactions that are hard to come by in our stores or online. It’s a great reminder not to take ourselves too seriously and that this is supposed to be fun.”

Recognizing that many brands and retailers still desire and have need for a strong B2B trade event in the men’s sportswear, action sports, streetwear and footwear spaces, Agenda will be there to support them during Las Vegas Fashion Week. Agenda, along with Liberty Fairs, recently announced their move to The Pavilions at World Market Center Las Vegas, a downtown location that will offer exhibitors and attendees an innovative trade show model which features stand-out on and off floor programming, exciting activations and an overall elevated experience without limits. The upcoming Las Vegas edition of Agenda will take place February 5-7, 2019.