AMC’s LIGHTFAIR International typically rotates annually between the West and East, with its long-time Western home being Las Vegas, but in 2016, the show decided to change things up a bit and head to San Diego instead.

The move is meant to signal continued growth for the world’s largest annual architectural and commercial lighting trade show and conference, according to Jeffrey L. Portman, Sr., president and COO of AMC.  

“For LFI and its global business base, San Diego opens yet another new door to the future with its spectacular combination of Pacific-coast location, superb facilities, unrivaled accessibility and a beautiful, soaring city poised and proud to welcome us,” Portman said. 

He added, “The San Diego Convention Center in particular creates a unique environment perfectly suited to the LFI design aesthetic with its distinctive architecture, downtown proximity and bayshore siting. With these and the many other defining advantages San Diego holds, we expect great things for LFI’s continuing growth in 2016.”

LFI launched its first West-based show at the Las Vegas Convention Center in 1998, returned in 2001 and then recurred in even years 2004-2012.

The shift to San Diego was based on extended study and customer dialogue, including independent quantitative and qualitative research conducted among LFI exhibitors and attendees, according to show officials.

San Diego emerged as the clear winner among LFI customers, which includes top designers, specifiers, engineers, architects and other professionals, they added.

The San Diego CC is close to 11,000 hotel rooms, a few miles from the airport and offers more than 500,000square feet of exhibit hall space.

LFI recently was named one of the TSNN Top 25 fastest-growing shows in the U.S. and honored at the TSNN Awards Nov. 2-4 in Louisville.

The 2012 show in Las Vegas spanned more than 200,000 net square feet and attracted 24,000-plus attendees. Next year’s show is on tap April 21-25 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.

The showfloor and conference is sponsored by the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) and the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD).

“As we approach LFI 2013 in Philadelphia, we also look to the tremendous prospects of a 2016 event enriched and enlivened with the experience which only San Diego can deliver,” said William Hanley, executive vice president of IES.

He added, “Imagine walking the waterfront from hotel to exhibit hall, with the celebrated Gaslight District close by, and the energy and excitement of the world’s largest annual lighting event at the center of it all.”

In 2016, the LFI pre-conference program will run April 24-25 and the trade show and conference will be held April 26-28 at the San Diego CC.