Posted on: Thursday, August 15, 2002
Jewelry trade show fizzles
By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer
A major jewelry trade show planned for the Hawai'i Convention Center next week is off, leaving vendors out thousands of dollars in fees and travel expenses.
The Gateway International Jewelry show was scheduled for Aug. 21-25 and was advertised to attract 5,000 participants. But the event's organizer, Feitech Industries out of California, has defaulted on its rental agreement.
This is the first time since the Convention Center opened in 1998 that a show has been canceled because a company has breached its contract, said Joe Scheper, the center's director of finance.
Scheper said Feitech agreed to pay $75,000 to rent all three exhibition halls and several meeting rooms and made a payment of $37,500. But the company failed to pay the balance and officials have not been able to reach Feitech president Alan Feigen.
The firm's voice-mail tells callers that Feitech is closing its business because of economic considerations.
The event had been scheduled for this past March, but after the Sept. 11 downturn was rescheduled for next week. It was to feature 600 exhibitors, 1,000 booths and 5,000 attendees.
A Hawai'i jeweler said she had planned on participating in the March show, but decided to pull out of the August event. She said it would have cost her company $3,000 for one booth.
In April, Feigen sent a letter to vendors who requested refunds for the March show, saying that he would do everything possible to repay them. But he said refunds would depend on the success of the August event. "We are in the process of selling booth space for the August 2002 show and as quickly as the money is coming in we will make good on our obligations," Feigen wrote.
But based on advanced bookings in hotels that were blocking rooms for the convention participants, the show was not selling well.
Sandra Moreno, vice president of meetings, conventions and incentives for the Hawai'i Visitors and Convention Bureau, said there have been fewer than 100 reservations. She said those reserving rooms were from the Mainland, Europe and several Asian countries.
"This particular producer wanted to do two a year here every year. Had it worked out it would have been excellent for Hawai'i," Moreno said. "We saw every evidence that the producer was putting a great deal of funds into marketing it aggressively, and certainly had the contacts in the industry globally."
Scheper said the convention center did check out Feitech and "this one was deemed viable."
Moreno said there always is a risk for a first-time convention producer. "There is always risk because there's no history, and so everybody knew there was risk. But we all felt the concept was sound," Moreno said.
Feitech's Web site says the company was founded by Feigen in 1997 "with the express purpose of serving the jewelry industry."
