Aaron Levant on what's next for Agenda

Trade show season is coming up soon, so we asked Agenda President Aaron Levant some questions about the upcoming shows in New York and Long Beach, including why Agenda will head to the Long Beach Convention Center this summer.

Agenda NY is just around the corner on July 16-17. What can you tell us about the new venue?

The new venue in NYC is really amazing. It’s more centrally located in the heart of SoHo at 82 Mercer St. between Spring and Broom Streets in Manhattan. We could not ask for a better location.

The new venue is much nicer inside compared to our past NYC venue and has original wood floors and views overlooking Broadway. All in all, I think it will make for a much better show.

See photos of the new NY venue here.

How is the NY show shaping up? Does it continue to grow? What is the strategy behind the NY show?

The NYC show is coming along great. The show continues to expand each season to the size of the venue we can get. In NYC, it’s really hard to get a large venue unless you want to go to the Javits Center and that’s not what we are looking to do there just yet. It’s only our sixth show in NYC and we want to grow it organically, the same way our California show has grown.

Right now, the NY show is setting itself apart from the California show due to it’s stronger focus towards men’s street and skate brands. Lastly, just like California, as the years go on we will slowly add more categories and bigger action-sports brands into the mix.

For the first time, Agenda will have its summer West Coast show in Long Beach. Tell us about that decision.

We are excited to return to Long Beach this summer, we had a great show there in January and this summer will be bigger and better now that we have a feel for the place.

The decision just came down to space. There was simply not enough space in HB for the show and not enough hotel rooms.

Any worries about being away from the action of the U.S. Open?

We still timed the show this summer to coincide with the US Open and we just moved the show up PCH a short drive, so we feel there is still a strong synergy there between the two events. Plus we are still working closely with the team at Hurley to coordinate with retailers so they stick around through the weekend and check out the finals of the U.S. Open and all the festivities.

See Page 2 for the range of brand exhibiting, including one large surf company that is coming to Agenda for the first time.

Can you give a range of the brands and retailers that are coming to Long Beach? Any big brands that are new this time?

Our range of brands and retailers is big on both fronts, as we are covering a lot of ground these days. The show has grown to cover some of the largest brands in action-sports, streetwear, core skate, emerging, sneaker, electronics, accessory and lifestyle brands.

I believe we have become a one-stop shop for any retailer in the market ranging from the largest department stores and mall based retailers, all the way to your smallest specialty retailer with one location, and international distributors.

As far as new brands, we are excited to add Billabong to the show for the first time and the rest of its family of brands that we did not previously have at Agenda. GoPro will also be joining us for the first time and Quiksilver will be returning to Agenda after a season off.

On the specialty side of the business we are adding more premium brands like Happy Socks, Cheap Monday, AMBSN, Lightning Bolt, Staple, Bodega, Rake and Hang Ten Gold.

See a complete list here.

Any changes to how you are laying out the show floor?

We are always changing the way the show lays out, after last season we learned a lot about how the Long Beach Convention Center flows and we made some adjustments to keep traffic flowing better around the show. We are also adding more unique offerings to the food truck cafe and expect to see lots of exciting initiatives and art displays on the show floor.

What’s on the horizon for Agenda?

We are going to continue to improve and grow our shows each season. January 2013 will mark the 10 years for Agenda in the trade show business, so expect some exciting collaborations and events to commemorate that.

That 10-year mark is a big deal for us considering that Seth and I have done all of this by ourselves with no partners or backers or previous experience in this business. Against all odds we have gone head-to-head with some of the biggest trade show companies in the world and come out on top, and we will continue to do so for the next 10 years and beyond.