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Industry Interview
Larry Austin, The Onboard Show
www.onboardshow.com
by Tiffany May
The numbers are up for this year’s Onboard Show and Larry Austin is encouraged. The show, which was initially created to bring buyers and exhibitors together at the beginning of the busiest time of the year, is August 13-15 at the Nashville Convention Center in Tennessee.
What is the Onboard Show?
The Onboard remainder show was initially started to bring buyers and exhibitors together at the beginning of the busiest time of the year, which is the forth quarter. That was the reason for its’ founding, and it has grown from there.
This is the third year of the show, how is it going?
Well, the first year of the show we were greatly elated, but disappointed with last year. This year, however, we are expecting a very good show.
What are you doing differently this year than you did for the past two shows?
Well, we started by contacting people earlier this year than we had before, and we have literally sent out tens of thousands of e-mails to people. Since the beginning of March we have had two people on the phone all day long, doing nothing but calling for attendees.
How many new vendors are there for this year?
As of today (Friday, July 9), we have 428 people registered and as most people know usually the last four to six weeks before a show is when most people register. We feel that we will end up with somewhere between 500- 600 attendees.
Who?
New this year to the show is Allegro Music & Video, Booksnsave.com, Books for Less, Elizabeth Kessler Sales, and Chrysalis Promotional Books and Columbia Books, both from the United Kingdom. We also have Consumer Product Recovery, Gumdrop Remainders, Marketing Resource, Maximus Books, and Modern Publishing.
Have you retained most of the vendors from the past two years?
Last year we had a total of 48 vendors and right now we are around 45. We expect that number to grow about 10 more.
Do you feel that attendance will be up this year?
We are already way up in hotel reservations. I look at that as a pretty determining factor, that people who have already made their hotel reservations are coming. One night of the show’s hotel reservations are already full.
How are you marketing differently to attract attendees?
For attendees, we have just basically been tying the phone lines up. We talked to people at The Spring Book Show, at BEA, BEC (Book Expo Canada), and I have been doing some dollar show stores in Chicago and have contacted a lot of people there.
How can they get in contact with you?
The website is www.onboardshow.com. The phone number is 423-442-9200. The fax is 423-442-3600. The e-mail is sales@onboardshow.com.
Is there anything else that you would like to add?
One thing that we are doing is getting a big block of tickets to The Grand Ol’ Opry on Saturday night. We will be sending out emails about that this week.
The Onboard Show is at the Nashville Convention Center, this is same place it has been the past two years. The guest hotel is the Renaissance and the rooms are $139.00.
We will also be handling our own drayage this year which will save the vendors money. The cost of this will be $45 per hundred weight verses last year which was in the $60 range. Everything will also be shipped to and from Madisonville, TN which will help in the classification cost.
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