It’s hard to believe it’s been more than two years since the National Association Of Theatre Owners (NATO) announced they would be taking control of their annual trade show in 2011 when their contract expired with Nielsen Film Group. At ShoWest in March NATO made public the name of their new confab, Cinemacon. Now NATO has solidified the dates of the revamped convention, which will be held at March 28th to March 31st, 2011 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
ShoWest ran for 36 years and grew into one of the largest and most important annual events for motion picture exhibitors and distributors. NATO is planning for CinemaCon to take up the mantle of largest annual gathering of worldwide theatre owners and as such are moving the event across the Vegas strip from Bally’s and Paris Hotels to Caesars Palace.
The new venue will offer more modern facilities and is meant to accommodate the size of the trade show, especially when it comes to screening product reels and upcoming releases from big Hollywood studios. Such presentations will be held in The Colosseum, a 4,200 seat theatre usually reserved for the likes of Celine Dion and Elton John. NATO is expecting 5,000 attendees at the first CinemaCon.
Like ShoWest, NATO plans for CinemaCon to set the tone for the upcoming summer movie season and will fill the schedule with “sponsored events, seminars, trade show, screenings, product presentations and a gala award show”.
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Ever since March of 2008 when the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) announced that they would be holding their own trade show in 2011 just before NAB the question has been, who will the organization get to put the event together. Speculation was that Bob and Andrew Sunshine who have been producing NATO’s official trade show, ShoWest, since 2001. After all, the Sunshine’s, who originally started out as the Sunshine Group Worldwide before being sold to Nielsen, have tons of experience organizing annual exhibitor conferences such as ShowEast, Cinema Expo and CineAsia.
Such a guess would not have been far off given that earlier today NATO announced they had hired Mitch Neuhauser to be the Show Manager of their official trade show, the first of which will be held in March of 2011. Presently, Neuhauser works with the Sunshines as Vice President of Nielsen Film Group. He is also already involved with NATO in some capacity as the assistant executive director of NATO of New York.
If you’ve ever been to any of the four trade shows Nielsen holds for exhibitors and distributors each year than you definitely know who Neuhauser is. Read More »
The first day of ShoWest has historically been held as an international day where exhibitors from around the world can attend panels that cover issues and topics that relate directly to their markets. In an attempt to bring attendees in a day earlier this year, ShoWest did away with “International Day” and instead jumped right into the convention with a lunchtime keynote address from Jim Gianopoulos, Chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment followed by a panel discussion on current trends in the exhibition industry.
Sitting on the panel, entitled “How To Stay Ahead of the Curve as the Industry Confronts Its Future”, was Rory Bruer, President of Worldwide Distribution at Sony Pictures, Andrew Cripps, President of Paramount Pictures International, Dan Harkins, CEO of Harkins Theatres, Paul Heth, President and General Director of Rising Star Media, Lee Roy Mitchell, the Chairman of Cinemark and Tim Richards, CEO and President of Vue Entertainment. Jeffrey Katzenberg, Chairman of Dreamworks Animation, decided to join in on the panel after addressing those gathered to thank them for the huge opening of his studio’s 3D feature “Monsters vs. Aliens”. Though many of these guests are panel regulars at such conferences, the mixture of exhibitors and distributors at such discussions usually makes for a an interesting hour. Monday’s panel, moderated by Hollywood Reporter editor Elizabeth Guider, was no exception.
The first topic that Guider brought up was, not surprisingly, the increase in box office grosses. Read More »
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