Where market conditions warrant, the synergy of co-locating several regionally based shows -- each serving a vertical segment of a market -- creates an all-encompassing ``front to back end'' event.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the $200 billion California marketplace, where Canon Communications LLC will on Feb. 5-7, 2002, again combine its MD&M West, PLASTEC West, Pacific Design & Manufacturing, Electronics West, and Nutritionals shows, thus creating perhaps the largest design and manufacturing event in the U.S. Exhibitor and buyer response to the Anaheim events has so far been very strong. With more than two months to go, 1,812 companies have reserved 96 percent of the space in the exhibit halls, and almost 10,000 buyers have already registered to attend.

Canon's recent success in Minneapolis is testimony to the strength of regionally based shows. Medical Design & Manufacturing (MD&M) Minneapolis was held Oct. 16-18, 2001 -- just five weeks after the tragic events in New York, at a time when business anxiety was at an all-time high. Despite this, attendance increased 10 percent to more than 3,400 buyers -- including more than 200 who paid to attend the show's concurrent technical conference.

The company expects to attract 2,000 exhibitors and 25,000 buyers to these Feb. 5-7, 2002, events in Anaheim, Calif., in particular pointing to the state's current economic vitality. On its own, California ranks as the fifth-largest economy in the world -- home to approximately 30,000 companies and 2 million industry professionals.

``Within last year's significantly increased attendance, more than 85 percent of those attendees were Californians who drove to the shows,'' according to marketing manager Dan Cutrone. ``We are confident this factor and the state's robust economy will contribute to another such increase in 2002.''

Canon Communications LLC is a publisher, trade show producer and digital media company serving medical device, plastics processing, packaging, electronics, pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, semiconductor fabrication and other advanced technology markets.