For one week in September, every buyer, editor, brand and investor in New York fashion is inside the same square mile. Most people reading this have no way into any of it. The shows are invitation only, the dinners are closed, and the parties are a list you are not on.
Times Square Fashion Week is the open door. Tuesday 15 September, in the middle of Manhattan, during New York fashion week season. You buy a ticket and you are inside the room with the designers, the press line, the brands on the floor and the people who came to meet them.
Tuesday 15 September, Father Duffy Square. There is a film of it on the ticket page.
Get your ticket, and use the code PROPEL for 20% off
Three ways in, and they close in this order.
Come. The marketplace is $50, or $25 each if two of you come together. The whole day is $350. The code PROPEL takes 20% off every tier, so the full day is $280.
Be on the runway. Designer Showcase, $5,000, and two slots are left. Eight looks, press releases, and a Times Square billboard for the whole show. This one closes first, because the running order has to be locked before the day. Reply RUNWAY.
Sell on the floor. Vendor placement, $3,000, a table in the marketplace from noon. Five tables exist. Reply TABLE.
And whichever of those you pick, Billboard With You On It is a $500 add on to any ticket, and only five exist. Your face over Times Square at 9pm while the show runs underneath it.
The day
Outdoors on Father Duffy Square, the pedestrian plaza at 7th Avenue and West 47th Street. Sixth year. Produced by Dee Rivera and DCG Media Group with Propel Earth as co host, and it sits on the Venture Week New York calendar for 13 to 19 September.
Noon. Doors and the exhibitor marketplace. Fashion, beauty, wellness and accessory brands, open to every ticket holder.
5pm. Awards ceremony.
6pm to 8pm. The designer runway show.
9pm. The designer billboards light up over Times Square.
9.30pm to 11pm. After party.
Eleven hours, and the marketplace and the after party are where the actual talking happens. The layout is subject to NYC DOT permitting, so the footprint can still move.
The build. VIP rows sit front of house, either side of the carpet.
The $500 thing
At 9pm the designer billboards over Times Square light up. If you have added Billboard With You On It to your ticket, one of the faces up there is yours, above the square, while the show is still running underneath it.
Five hundred dollars. That is the whole thing. I have never had anything else to sell where the product is a photograph of you standing under it.
Why I am asking you to trust the next one
Hamptons Fashion Week ran on Saturday 22 August at the Southampton Inn, same producer. The final guest list was 374. The day before doors it read 98 founders, 62 investors and 78 press.
Southampton Inn, 22 August. Photography by DCG Media Group.
The runway carried Baccio Couture, Cesar Galindo, Ocean of Origins and Carlton Jones. Jeffrey Banks headlined, two Coty Awards, trained under Ralph Lauren and then Calvin Klein, a longstanding member of the CFDA executive board. He stayed the whole day, did a Q and A, and signed books. George Wayne, who wrote Vanity Fair's celebrity questionnaire for years, worked the red carpet.
It sold out, and I spent part of that afternoon telling working press, creators and models that I had nowhere to put them. When a room sells out, the people you turned away are worth more to you than the people who got in. They already said yes once. They already travelled. Almost nobody writes them down, so by the next time they have gone cold and get treated like strangers. I wrote down every name. That list is why you are getting this email.
And here is the part I can prove, which is the reason I run these at all. While the marketplace was still open, one exhibitor emailed me from the floor asking to be introduced to the family offices in the room. Rooms produce asks, and asks are what we work with by hand.
The full gallery is on Instagram.
What it costs to get in
Every price below is the base. Eventbrite's fee and 9.75% NYC and NYS sales tax are added at checkout, so general admission comes to $411.91 all in. I would rather you see that here than at the last screen.
Shop and Sip, $50, or $25 each when two of you come together. The exhibitor marketplace only, noon to 4pm. Does not include the runway.
General admission, $350. The whole day. Marketplace, awards, runway show and after party.
Two together, $575. Bringing somebody costs $225 rather than another $350.
Billboard With You On It, $500. An add on to any ticket, and only five exist.
VIP, $1,250. A reserved seat in the front rows, priority check in, and a swag bag valued at $500. Limited.
Media pass, $75. Approval required. Accredited journalists, or creators with 5,000 or more followers, in exchange for one piece of coverage within fourteen days.
Use the code PROPEL at checkout and it takes 20% off every tier. General admission goes $350 to $280. Two together goes $575 to $460. VIP goes $1,250 to $1,000. The media pass goes $75 to $60. Unlimited uses, good until the event ends, and it exists because you are on this list rather than finding this cold.
I killed the free press pass, and I will tell you why, because it is the more useful half of this email. It was uncapped and it screened nobody, and the first order that came through the door was one person taking two of them. A free credential that anyone can claim is not a credential, it is an open door, and every person walking through it is standing where somebody who paid should be.
The lesson is portable and it is worth more to you than the ticket. Price your comp tier or cap it, but never both free and open. A free tier with no ceiling is not marketing. It is inventory you gave away before you found out what it was worth.
If you make clothes, or sell a product
Designer Showcase, $5,000. Two slots left. Up to eight looks on the runway at the centre of Times Square. The package carries designated press releases, a Times Square billboard for the duration of the show, and introductions for partnerships with the sponsors and the featured names in the room. Slots close before the day does, because the running order has to be locked in advance.
Vendor placement, $3,000. A table in the marketplace from noon, in front of everyone moving through the square.
Sponsorship is the one thing I am not putting a price on, because the two rate cards I have been handed do not agree with each other yet, and I would rather tell you nothing than tell you a number I have to take back. Every sponsorship includes a billboard. Ask me and I will come back with one number instead of a range.
Reply with one word and I will come back with terms and put you in front of the producer myself. RUNWAY for a designer slot. TABLE for vendor placement. BILLBOARD for sponsorship.
Before you go
Whether or not any of this is for you, there is one thing I would rather have from you than a ticket sale.
Tell me what you are working on, what you need, and what you can give somebody else. That is the Propel Card. Four minutes, free, read by a person, and it is how everything here gets routed now.
In case you missed this morning's email, that is the one that explains why the card exists, what happens to it after you send it, and what I am building with the answers. Read it here.
Then make a profile at propel.earth so the change you are trying to make is somewhere people can actually find it.
If you would rather that happened every month than whenever it comes up, the Private Network is $200 a month: three introductions made by hand, and the first 25 members hold that rate for as long as they stay.
Best,
Stephen
If you missed the last few
I have been sending 16,830 people the same email
28 August. One question, 97 answers, and the reason the Propel Card exists.
Richie Hosein spent 26 years selling healthcare. Now he gives it away.
26 August. A founder feature, researched from a real conversation.
Russell Brand and Pink Floyd's Scott Page on Shelter Island, plus fashion week in the Hamptons
17 August. Two rooms, both of which have now happened.
The Private Network
Three introductions a month, to someone who can pay you, hire you, or move your company forward. Made by hand, from what you told me on your card. Free entry to every room I run. $200 a month, and the first 25 members hold that rate for as long as they stay.
Not sure yet? Take fifteen minutes with me and tell me what you need. If I do not think I can route it, I will say so rather than take the money.
Know someone who should be in here?
Forward this to them. Or send them the front door: propelearth.beehiiv.com, where the card, the map, the Private Network and every room I run all sit one click apart.