Promo To Go: Next Year, Promax Does N.Y.
By Paige Albiniak -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/9/2003
After two years in sunny Los Angeles, Promax&BDA is packing up and going to the Big Apple next year, where it will host its TV-marketing and -promotion convention in a midtown hotel, according to CEO Jim Chabin.
With coast-to-coast airfares and hotel rooms in New York City cheap these days, it makes sense to return to New York after 20 years away, Chabin says. And Promax&BDA plans to bring advertisers in to meet all the marketing and promotion people that attend the conference.
"We're really excited to be merging Madison Avenue with the promotion departments of television stations and cable networks," Chabin says.
More than 2,400 people came to this year's conference in Los Angeles last week, a bit up from last year's 2,300, who attended the show at the cavernous Los Angeles Convention Center. This year's show was held at the Westin Bonaventure in downtown Los Angeles, and Chabin says that venue was much more well-received by attendees.
"People love being back in a hotel," Chabin says. "They can have meetings, do business, see their syndicators, come down to a session and then run back up to their rooms to check messages before going to a cocktail party by the pool. It's been really terrific."
It's because of that feedback that Chabin plans to stay in a hotel when the show moves to NYC next year.
Although the show remains much smaller than it was in the dotcom heyday, maxing out around 5,500 attendees in 1998 and 1999, Chabin was pleased not only with this year's attendance but also with the overall feel of the show. "We've put some power and punch back into the conference. I think it was really a great return to an edgy, information-filled show."
