Both the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show (run by the National Kitchen and Bath Association) and the International Builders Show (run by the National Association of Home Builders) have been forced to postpone their virtual exhibit hall experiences, due to ongoing technical difficulties.Virtual programming and educational sessions are still available.
“After a deep dive into the exact sequence of events and consequences that occurred, we have learned that these are unresolvable technical difficulties,” stated Brian Pagel, EVP, Emerald, which produces both shows, on the KBIS website. “The servers that house the platform are down, requiring that we close access to the exhibitor booths. Looking forward, we remain committed to exhaust all efforts to ensure a successful future experience. We understand the gravity of the situation for our exhibitors and attendees, as the KBIS platform is critical to accelerate their business for the year.”
In an email to attendees on Wednesday, Feb. 10th, the NAHB said they were pursuing alternative solutions to provide the exhibit hall experience at some future date. Along with an apology, registration fees were automatically refunded.
NAHB Chairman Chuck Fowke also released a statement reading, “We had to make the very difficult decision to postpone the exhibitor portion of IBSx due to unexpected and significant site performance issues across both the IBSx and KBIS Virtual platforms. We are investigating alternative solutions to allow the exhibit experience and virtual booths to open in the near future. This did not live up to the high standards we expected, and we truly regret the inconvenience this has caused. While the exhibitor portion of the show was not available, we still made all of our educational programming, special events and press conferences available for show registrants as scheduled this week.”
KBIS and IBS have been co-locating since 2013 as Design and Construction Week. In 2020, the joint show drew over 100,000 attendees to Las Vegas, NV to view 1.2 million sq. ft. of exhibits. The 2022 show is scheduled for Feb. 8-10 in Orlando, FL.