NATPE Grows, Expands Conference Venues

Next month’s NATPE conference in Miami Beach will expand to a second hotel, the Eden Roc, as demand for event and exhibition space has outgrown the Fontainebleau Hotel, NATPE officials said Wednesday.

“We are pacing well ahead of previous years both domestically and internationally in terms of buyers exhibitors and general attendance,” said Rod Perth, NATPE president-CEO, in a telephone news conference.

The principal driver of the expansion is demand for exhibition space, Perth said. But he also emphasized that the conference’s “keynote” events are shifting to the Eden Roc as well.

“The reason for [the expansion] is that we’ve had unprecedented demand for what has become an amazingly vibrant and very commercial market floor. It’s is tripling in size,” Perth said.

He said overall attendance is shaping up to be “well over 5,000” registered participants at the upcoming NATPE Conference and Market to be held Jan. 19-21, 2016.

Perth went over a number of other aspects of the upcoming show – some of which had been previously announced, such as the five recipients of NATPE’s annual Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Awards to be bestowed during the conference: Quincy Jones, Norman Lear, Steve Harvey, Doug Herzog, president of Viacom Music and Entertainment Group, and Sophie Turner Laing, CEO of Endemol Shine Group.

Comedian Howie Mandel will be back for the second consecutive year to host NATPE’s Second Annual Breakthrough Awards, Perth said. The awards recognize non-scripted programming in five categories — competition, docusoap, game show, reality and factual.

He announced this year’s nominees, which are:

• For Competition Show — Alone, American Ninja Warrior, Lip Sync Battle, MasterChef Junior, Shark Tank and The Voice

• Docusoap — Alaskan Bush People, Chrisley Knows Best, I Am Cait, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Vanderpump Rules and Wahlburgers

• Game show — ‪@Midnight, Billy On The Street, Celebrity Family Feud, Hellevator and Hollywood Game Night

• Reality — Catfish, Hard Knocks,Married At First Sight, Naked & Afraid and Project Greenlight

• Factual — Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, The Daily Show, The Jinx and Vice.

Perth also announced some of the producers and talent who are scheduled to appear in a series of on-stage chats at the conference, including Lear and Jones; reality stars Kris Jenner and Todd Chrisley; and showrunners Graham Yost (The Americans), John Eisendrath (The Blacklist), Howard Gordon (Homeland), Michelle Ashford (Masters of Sex), Ilene Chaiken (Empire) and Sarah Treem (creator, The Affair).