Centurion Changing Dates, Location in 2020

Scottsdale, Ariz.—Centurion will be in different place at a slightly different time next year.

The jewelry trade show is moving from The Phoenician to the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa. It will start on Wednesday, Jan. 29 and end on Friday Jan. 31.

“This year, we found ourselves with four different date conflicts with different events in the industry, which we felt was not really want we wanted to have,” CEO Howard Hauben said Tuesday.

Centurion 2019 overlapped with the RJO and CBG jewelry trade shows as well as The Original Miami Beach Antique Show, and there is a week-long gap between the end of Centurion and the start of Tucson.

Centurion wrapped up Tuesday at the Phoenician in Scottsdale, but AGTA GemFair doesn’t start until next Tuesday, Feb. 5. This meant many retailers and exhibitors—particularly those headquartered on the East Coast—had to choose between the two shows.

For 2020, rates are going up at The Phoenician and Hauben said he couldn’t get the dates he wanted, so he started hunting for another hotel in the Phoenix area and decided on the five-star JW Marriott, which is the same hotel that hosted Couture in 2003 and 2004, after it left The Phoenician and before it moved to Las Vegas.

The Jan. 29-31 dates next year get Centurion “much closer” to the start of the 2020 edition of AGTA GemFair, Hauben said, which is scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 4.

But, he acknowledges, it’s still not back-to-back; Centurion will finish on Saturday and GemFair won’t start until Tuesday.

He said he’s planning to build what he described as a “bridge event,” giving retailers a reason to stay the weekend, but doesn’t have any firm plans yet.

He added that the JW Marriott is larger and will be able to accommodate everyone (right now, Centurion has overflow at the W Scottsdale), and has two “perfectly sized” ballrooms opposite each other with adjoining meeting rooms for those who want them, eliminating the need to put exhibitors in side rooms and line them up in the hallways.

“It eliminates the dispersion of energy and traffic for the show, bringing it all into one concentrated area,” Hauben said. “We’re excited about it.”