With a clean slate, IMG Fashion, organizer of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York City, unveiled plans for its new home at Lincoln Center. After a successful 17-year run at its former home, Bryant Park on 42nd Street, the organizer, along with officials at City Hall and Lincoln Center, decided to start anew with the fashion event’s Lincoln Center debut, to be held from September 9th to 16th. In the announcement today included several important upgrades, such as the addition of fourth venue hall and an area for informal presentations. Runways will be longer with seating capacity increased by 2-fold or more. For those in the media industry, more work stations, for both online and print, will be on-site. Improvements in press materials availability as well as online experience will all be part of an initiative to modernize the event’s capacity. A list of additional upgrades and details, such as:

Upgraded Venues:

Gracious Lobby

• Main Lobby separation from guest holding areas/line

• More seating areas and useable work spaces for guests

• Modernized digital signage

• Free flowing sponsorship areas with expanded services for guests

• Streamlined guest management on-site

• Larger backstage area

• New upstage video wall

• Larger, more robust scenic truss

• Modernized Stadium Seating

• Bench Seating with customizable cushions on seating risers

• White walls with gray carpet

• New gray interior décor

• Larger seating capacity

• Longer and wider runway

• Seating raked higher for better sightline, comparable with larger venues

• Finished and lined interior walls

• Solid proscenium wall

• Industry demand for more flexible “4th Venue’

• Space for live and/or still life presentations and industry activities

• Black interior décor

• Glass walled, formal tree filled courtyard

• Informal presentations

• Upgraded Online Experience

• Expanded designer centric website

• Updated Registration and Credentialing System

• New designer seating program

• Synchronized credentialing and designer seating systems

• Partnership with industry leader Fashion GPS

The Theatre (969 Designer Seating)

The Stage (740 Designer Seating)

The Studio (396 Designer Seating)

The Box Presentation Space (Capacity for 125 people)

The Courtyard (Outdoor Garden)

Press Room and Facilities for Media

• Additional work areas for print and online media

• Improved electronic press handling and seating system

• Expanded press check in and credentialing facilities

• Press materials available for download (electronic press room)

Overall LC Campus

• Campus provides multiple venues for presentations, additional shows and other industry activities

• Opportunity for future consumer related activities around the industry focused shows

• Multiple restaurants, cafés and other areas for meetings, lounging or working

West Side Corridor Transportation

• Convenient to West Side transportation hubs as well as Seventh Avenue Subway Line (weather sheltered access to Lincoln Center stop on Subway line)

• 9th Avenue (Columbus) and 10th Avenue (Amsterdam) provide relatively light traffic
  
  uptown and downtown corridors

• Improved facilities for transportation handling and inclement weather, car service pick up
  
  and drop off, town car waiting areas and on-site parking