Coverings Tops 32,000 in 2005

ORLANDO – Coverings set another record for attendance with its 2005 show here in early May – and did it convincingly, with a double-digit growth in turnout.
National Trade Productions (NTP), the show’s producer, announced the final tally at 32,228 attendees for the tile-and-stone event on May 3-6 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando.
The attendee count set a new show record. And, it also reflected a 10-percent increase from Coverings 2004, making this the second consecutive year of double-digit growth.
“We are thrilled by the overwhelming response we’ve received and the increase in numbers across virtually all key industry segments,” said Tamara Christian, Coverings’ show director and NTP president. “We’ve certainly raised the bar and our team is already looking ahead to make Coverings 2006 another year to remember.”
NTP registration data showed significant growth in five key industry categories as the reason behind the record 2005 attendance. Installers led the way with a 25-percent increase from 2004, followed by tile and stone specifiers with a 17-percent attendance boost. Dealers and retailers were close behind at 15 percent, while fabricator and contractor representation increased by 10 percent and seven percent, respectively.
Coverings 2005 also showed attendance from all 50 U.S. states and 90 other countries. While 86 percent of attendees live in the United States, another nine percent traveled from elsewhere in the Americas. Representatives from Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia/Oceania made up five percent of the total show attendance.
“Coverings is the show to drive sales,” said Joe Still of Proflex Products Inc. in Accord, N.Y. “Our on-site team made an enormous amount of contacts and they closed the show with a huge number of leads to pursue. Proflex will definitely be a part of next year’s show.”
“This year we nearly doubled our booth size at Coverings and the traffic was quite impressive,” added Johnnie Howard of Dallas-based Calypso Water Jet Systems. “Within the first two days of the show we had virtually sold every piece of machinery that we brought with us. That’s more than $450,000 in equipment.”