JU N E/ JU L Y 2 0 1 0 NATPE Time In Miami Beach Anew city and a new hotel mean new challenges for NATPE participants. NATPE 2011 will be held in Miami Beach, which will offer attendees sub-tropical winter weather. The new hotel is the recently renovated Fontainebleau, a top-of-theline resort located in the heart of Miami Beach. The new challenges are several: keeping costs down at a time when room rates and airline fares are at their peak; making sure buyers are not bussed away from the Fontainebleau by local distributors; creating good traffic flow with a bank of just four elevators (see photo on the right) especially considering that the lobby level is just as narrow as that of Las Vegas’ THEhotel, where NATPE has been held for years; and ensuring that tourist interference is kept to a minimum. Fortunately, the tower reserved for NATPE’s exhibitors, called Tresor (see photo below), has its own entrance right on Collins Avenue, which will help participants avoid mingling with the “snow birds,” as tourists are called in Florida. Problemsmightarisewhenparticipants want to go to the registration and conference areas (where the magazine bins are also located), which are on the opposite side of the hotel, forcing them to pass through the main entrance and across the large hall with shops and restaurants that are connected the hotel’s various sides and thus in close contacts with tourists. But there will be many mitigating factors. To discourage bussing there is the normally horrendous traffic, which will encourage even local distributors to sleep at the Fontainebleau rather than venture home. Also, most of the flights will be direct, which will be a great relief for many NATPE participants who in the past had to connect at least once to reach Las Vegas. Finally, since the Fontainebleau is not within walking distance to anywhere, most of the participants will be hanging around the premises. THR Out Of The Trade Biz According to The Los Angeles Times, by tapping former celebrity consumer magazine US Weekly editor Janice Min as its new editorial director, The Hollywood Reporter is going to be transformed “from a trade to a slick weekly.” THR was one of seven trade publications, including Billboard and Backstage acquired — for a total sum that was less than what just THR was sold for by its founding family — last December by E5 Global Media for Nielsen Business Media, a consortium of investors led by James Finkelstein. The Times paraphrased Richard Beckman, E5’s CEO, as saying, “Although E5 still wants the Reporter to break news online every day, a weekly magazine aimed at a larger audience of upscale influencers could allow it to
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