Natpe floors it for 2010

Las Vegas television market NATPE will be moving out of the large convention hall it has traditionally occupied and moving exhibitors into suites or the ballrooms at the Mandalay Bay hotel next year. The move follows the decision, in recent times, of many studios and major distributors to swap stands for hotel suites.

NATPE President Rick Feldman wrote a note to exhibitors announcing the changes. “NATPE ’09 was very successful but fell in the center of a turbulent economic storm and the effects on all of us are still being felt. In response to these realities, we’ve made some changes for NATPE 2010. We will make at least four more floors of standard exhibition suites available at THEhotel as we move our floor from a very large convention halls to the ballrooms at Mandalay Bay, which brings the suites closer together,” he wrote.

Natpe has seen attendance fall in recent years as it struggled to define whether it was a domestic syndication market or an international program sales event. There has been an increase in companies taking suites in THEhotel and the Mandalay Bay, while some studios such as Warner Bros even decamped to the Four Seasons.

This year, CBS Paramount and NBC Universal were the only major studios with a floor presence along with FremantleMedia.