CKCA Members Attend the 2019 KBIS show in Las Vegas

Covering 430,000 net square feet and 600 exhibitors host design and construction pros at the Las Vegas Convention Center

The 2019 Kitchen & Bath Industry Trade Show (KBIS), the largest North American event for kitchen and bath design professionals, welcomed designers, builders, technology integrators, dealers and kitchen and bath showroom professionals — and even a little bit of snow —along with more than 600 exhibitors to the Las Vegas Convention Center, February 19-21. Early estimates indicate an increase of 30% attendance over 2018; the sixth consecutive year of attendee growth. Floor space increased, expanding to more than 1 million net square feet between KBIS and the co-located International Builders Show (IBS), which together make up Design & Construction Week. More than 400,000 NSF of show floor space has already been secured for KBIS 2020, returning to Las Vegas January 21-23, 2020.

So what was it like attending this massive event? 

CKCA member, Gerald Van Woudenberg of Van Arbour Design, Jim Lawrence of Avondale Kitchens and CKCA President, Mike Slobodian of Decor Cabinets Ltd, had the opportunity to attend and here are some of their takeaways:

• The show was well attended, both from a supplier and attendee point of view (actually broke records) apparently)
• It snowed for the first time in Vegas!
• The US market is a fair bit different than the Canadian market, they are slower to adopt the frameless construction method, choosing to do a lot of full overlays of framed cabinetry to give the look of the more contemporary styles (probably related more to a need to change a whole manufacturing line which would be expensive…)  Frameless construction adoption is starting with companies like Wellborn implementing a frameless line in their facility.
• The US market is still more of a traditional and transitional market than contemporary, but the hardcore traditional continues to shrink
• The Chinese presence continues to increase, both in the kitchen cabinets as well as the stainless steel hoods, sinks, and a very significant number of engineered “stone” manufacturers.
• The most significant area of Chinese presence, in my view, was the number of large displays dedicated to Chinese-made cabinets. This will continue to be a very real challenge to our industry in that they are able to manufacture at a significantly reduced cost.
• In the hardware department, the major manufactures were well represented, showcasing a lot of lift-up systems and sliding door options as well as internal drawer organizational systems, a lot of them in wood grains.
• Lighting inside of cabinetry is increasing, along with the hardware options related to them
• Lots of floating vanities, mix of materials, lots of under sink drawers
• Gold brass is everywhere, from taps to cabinetry hardware
• The appliance manufacturers were there in full force again, great to see
• Lots of textured laminates
• Jim has attended this show many times so was looking to do something different – he chose to attend the seminars, thought there was an amazing lineup
• show has grown from 2 football fields to 4 football field, Jim couldn’t resist still walking the show! and was looking to pick up something on the builder side to work with ERP type systems,( has a 14,000 square-foot facility and under 20 employees), has been resisting the $80K price tag on ERP’s, but sought input from a colleague who got rid of their ERP and is using a specific software instead, Jim is now trying out the software too and so far so good
• number of manufacturers with display booths for job site delivery vehicles, Murphy bed systems, hidden closet door systems and many other related items
• Jim confesses he goes home with big bag loads of literature he tosses 11 months later, this year, he resolves to read it

Here’s a quick highlights video of the show:

https://www.interiordesign.net/videos/16056-kbis-2019-highlights/