The new International Christian Retail Show (ICRS), which replaced the 55-year-old CBA International Convention, concluded in Denver yesterday with nearly 10,000 people in attendance for the show.

With about 1,000 fewer people than last year's 10,969, CBA noted in a statement that "While attendees expressed tremendous enthusiasm about being back in Denver after 10 years, the western city is not as convenient for drive-in attendance as Atlanta or Dallas, which may have been a factor in a decrease in attendance."

Professional attendance (total people minus exhibitors and youth) was at 3,021. Though it did not match up with last year's 24% increase in Atlanta of 3,816, it was on par with professional attendance numbers the previous year in Orlando-another city without strong drive-in attendance-which was 3,071.

After two years of significant decreases in exhibitor personnel brought to the show, exhibitor cutbacks leveled off to a 2% decrease with 6,679 people registered as exhibitors.

Show changes included a newly designed exhibit floor featuring category-specific aisles angling out like wheel spokes, flexible floor hours, 16 hours of exclusive exhibit time, Tuesday and Wednesday morning appointment-only hours and daily soft-close hours designed to give retailers time to explore product, meet with exhibitors and place orders, while offering flexibility to exhibitors.

ICRS attendees averaged 18 hours spent on the exhibit floor-twice the trade-show industry average of nine.

• Next