High Point premarket set for Sept. 13-14

Spring edition runs March 15-16

Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, December 2, 2009

HIGH POINT — Sponsors of High Point's premarket have set the fall event's dates for Sept. 13-14. As previously announced, the spring edition will run March 15-16.

Held about a month before each High Point Market, premarket aims to give retailers a chance to preview major product collections, secure distribution, and strengthen relationships with key vendors and company principals, according to market officials.

Twenty-four High Point Market exhibitors and three of the city's showroom building operators are sponsors of premarket this year. They met last week to set the dates and the premarket agenda.

As it did this fall, the September 2010 premarket will coincide with the opening two days of the Las Vegas Market, which is set for Sept. 13-16. The March premarket will occur about six weeks after the winter Vegas market, which runs Feb. 1-5.

Kevin O'Connor, CEO of Samson Marketing, parent company of premarket sponsors Legacy Classic and Universal Furniture, said the High Point event "affords manufacturers and retailers quality time to really connect. It's a relaxed environment that encourages interaction between top-level executives that is quite unlike the frenetic, time-pressed interchanges of market."

Brian Casey, CEO of the High Point Market Authority, added: "The emphasis on the ability to review ‘market-ready' product in advance of market one month later is one of the critical elements making the premarket events so successful."

Premarket sponsors include furniture sources American Drew/Lea Inds., A.R.T. Furniture, Aspenhome, Bernhardt, Broyhill, Casana, England, Hammary, Hekman, Homelegance, Hooker, Kincaid, Leather Trend, Legacy Classic, Magnussen Home, Natuzzi, Palliser, Pulaski, Riverside, Samuel Lawrence, Schnadig International, Stanley, Universal and Vaughan-Bassett, and showroom operators 220 Elm, the International Home Furnishings Center and Merchandise Mart Properties Inc.