Can't we all just get around (in Vegas)?
Carole Sloan Senior Contributing Editor -- Furniture Today, February 4, 2007
No one will challenge the success of the new market showcase — Building B — that the World Market Center folks opened for the market last week in Las Vegas.
But that success was not clear-cut across all aspects of what makes or breaks a market.
What appears to be an emerging industry consensus is that some homework concerning the market's infrastructure needs to be done. And as each day of the just-concluded Las Vegas Market unfolded, this need became ever more apparent.
Much of the challenge was external but still involves the folks from the World Market Center.
I'm speaking particularly of the traffic chaos that marked the market's first two days as people tried to go to and from the WMC and the Cashman Center. To describe the scene as deplorable might well be an understatement.
Things were simply out of control as hundreds of folks tried to get a cab, jumping the line for cabs that often weren't available. And many hundreds more waited for shuttle buses that arrived erratically and with little sign of organization or supervision.
Those coming into the market area from hotels, both in the mornings and later in the day, faced a series of traffic gridlocks and lack of direction.
One senior retail executive spent more than an hour trying to get from the building to a hotel because of the crowds and lack of transportation, and finally succeeded by luring a limo from offsite at great expense.
Granted, Building B is spanking new and all new buildings need some shakeout time. But the repeated challenges with the elevators indicated that some of the shakeout should have happened before the ribbon-cutting. And the opening night chaos on the escalators could have been dangerous if there had been an emergency.
I and many other margetgoers certainly hope these critical pieces of making a market successful will be dealt with by July.
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