Tag Archive for 'IHA'

COME VISIT US IN CHICAGO

2010 Houseware Show Invitation

It’s pack up your bags time for us again, this time to one of our favorite cities… Chicago.

The show this year will be a first for us on a few fronts. Number one, we are finally moving our booth to a brand new space in Lakeside (yes! away from the wall). We’ve doubled our space from previous years; we now have a full 600 square feet of space to fill. We’ve also built a brand new booth that is really magnificent. It’s been six months in the making. Can’t wait to see it on Saturday when we arrive.

Number two, we are launching five of our six new products for 2010 at the show. While they still need to be under wraps for a little while longer, I can tell you that there’s a lot of excitement here about these new projects, and we are thrilled to be showing them for the first time in Chicago.

As always, we look forward to seeing old friends at the show, and making new ones. Plus, we get to sample some of Chicago’s finest cuisine.

We look forward to seeing you there.

HOUSEWARES SHOW FOLLOW-UP

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I’m pleased to say, that we’ve survived yet another Housewares show. The much publicized event was definitely slower this year in terms of overall attendance, but we kept ourselves busy, particularly on day 1 and day 2. Day 3 was a different story. I guess many companies decided to save on the extra nights stay and brought their staff home early.

It’s always a very stressful week, getting the final touches to the booth ready, preparing promotional material, and making sure all of the last minute details have been looked after. After this years show I am more determined then ever to hire a company to do our booth set up and tear down. It’s not that we do so many shows any longer (we don’t), but it’s a very long week as it is, without having to deal with the booth itself. I’ll try to remember this for next year (note to self, remember this).

We did get a chance at the show to say hello to many of our new reps that have come along with Dave at NRPP.  A special hello and thank you to the reps that spent time with us, learning about the products and getting to know who we are.

The response from our customers and reps for our new products was very rewarding. We’ve spent a great deal of time on these new items, and I was delighted by the positive feedback.

And of course a special thank you to Alice, Art and Martha for all of their help during the week. We’ve got quite a team here, and they stepped up to the plate like they always do.

Chicago was as schizophrenic as it usually is. One day hot, one day freezing windy cold. You’d never know there was a recession by the line-ups at the restaurants in Chicago. One hour minimum. But the wait is always worthwhile, and our normal spots didn’t disappoint. Can’t wait to do it all over again next year.