Book Expo America, which will meet in New York in 2007, Los Angeles the
following year and New York in 2009, will be held in 2010 in Las Vegas,
Nev., BEA said on Friday. BEA has been in Las Vegas once, in 1990, when
it was the ABA show.
"I view this return to Las Vegas in the same way that I view getting a
new book in the hands of a reader," Lance Fensterman, show director,
said in a statement. "It's a fresh experience that will be entertaining
and rewarding. When the show hasn't been in a city for a long time, as
was the case last year with Washington, D.C., I think it brings a sense
of newness, excitement and energy to the convention experience."
Another factor in the decision to go to Las Vegas: BEA wanted to hold
the show somewhere west of the Mississippi in addition to Los Angeles.
Fentsterman added that "support for Vegas has been high across the
show's constituency" and that the city is "affordable for air fare and
hotels" and "knows how to do a convention."
Through 2020, BEA will be in New York City "on a regular basis,"
Fensterman said. "I hope to create a three- to four-year rotation in
New York with the Midwest and the West represented in between."
The 1990 ABA show in Las Vegas caused much consternation beforehand
because of the city's reputation. But some argued that the book industry
needed to sample parts of popular culture that it likely would not see
otherwise. In the end, many attendees enjoyed the kitsch, admired
the smooth-running convention and hotel operation and wanted to go back.
But already at least one bookseller has expressed the feelings of some
who recoil at holding a book show in Vegas. In an open letter, Carla
Cohen, co-owner of Politics and Prose, Washington, D.C., said she
"strongly disapproves" of holding BEA in Las Vegas because the gesture
gives "our tacit support to an industry that is corrupt and corrupting.
I know that Las Vegas is bigger than gambling now, but gambling is what
the hotel and restaurant industry is about and depends on." She added
that having a convention "in a place like Las Vegas is inappropriate
for an industry
that depends on print, books, editorial judgment."