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March 23-25, 2013. This show is all about giftwares and specialty foods. Giftwares? Well, things like bottled preserves, hand-crafted pottery, basket-weave goods, artisanal jewelry, fancy cookies (we especially liked the ones shaped like polar bears and doggie bones), games and toys (try your hand with the patriotically-decorated juggling batons) and, well weird stuff; (we’re thinking of the wall-decorations fashioned out of old vinyl LP records… VERY 1970s…!) NEM attracts buyers from all over New England and beyond. Buyers range from seasonal gift stores, gourmet shops and gallery/museum stores to large chains, catalog and major retailers. The show is an opportunity to meet gifted artisans, craftspeople and owners of micro businesses, who from meeting there go on to make beautiful and useful products for the home. Buying locally in this North-East region helps build more resilient local economies, and leads to improved environmental outcomes, we heard. Doggie bone cookie, anyone…?
Aug. 22-25, 2012. The FarWest Show is a nursery trade show with nursery tours, seminars, nursery and allied supplier exhibitors, workshops on the expo floor, new plants and new products. It’s an experience attracting members of the nursery industry from across the country and internationally. Visitors could check out the new plants that captured the attention of this year’s New Varieties Showcase. 45 speakers conducted 29 seminars throughout the three days of the show. FarWest seminars, we learned, are designed to provide valuable professional development in the nursery, landscape and garden center businesses. The speaker lineup included marketer and humorist Michael Katz, customer-retention pro Anne Obarski, garden center business consultant Sid Raisch, and horticulture professors Dr. Raymond Cloyd and Dr. Charlie Hall. You could spot the real garden enthusiasts by their green fingers…
July 28 – Aug. 1, 2012. WBC is the World Brewing Congress. Current technological advances, new research results, the future of brewing, and different brewing methods were all discussed on a global scale. Anyone concerned about keeping the brewer’s product up to standard needed to be at the “Sensory Application and Quality Control” and “Setting Up a Brewery Quality Assurance Program” seminars. For those clueless enough to get that puzzled look when beer gets even mentioned, there was a session entitled “Beer Steward Seminar: Understanding Beer”. If you still didn’t understand beer after that, you probably needed to get out in the field for the Mount Hood and Brewpub Tour, plus maybe the Hops, Farm & Field Tour. Are you getting the hang of this now? Look, you put the edge of the glass against your mouth, frothy side up, and kind of tilt it towards you…
Apr 19-22, 2012. SCAA is billed as “the specialty coffee event of the year”. (The SC part stands for specialty coffee). The SCAA is known for having its finger on the pulse of the coffee industry, due to an ongoing focus on statistics and trending. They speak fluent Barista, and claim to be well ahead of the who, what, when, where and why of caffeine-based beverages. Exhibitors cater to diverse market segments, and the show tactically reaches out to those interest groups that yield the highest ROI for their companies. With the goal of serving the needs of the entire coffee community, the SCAA developed The Event, an all-in-one model that creates the opportunity for coffee industry professionals to reach their target audience easily, economically and all under one roof. Now what shape do you want in your froth, a heart or a palm-tree? Uh, no, I don’t think we do a bunny-wabbit…
Just some random shots from a few shows this week. Full galleries and coverage will be forthcoming but this is just a little preview:
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NAB2012: Crashed Exhibitor at Press walk through
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Netflix crew – the 9.95 streaming package
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Look who I ran into- The Woz
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Louis Anderson at The Pulse interview
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Booth Bunnies for Holyfield
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Hoodman with RIP Trayvon notes
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Coverings2012: Handmade tiles
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FILA Feeds Us.
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SCAA 2012 – Charlie is official
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Specialty Coffee show SCAA 2012
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Remy the Bed Bug sniffing Lab
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Space Shuttle over DC
Technically the last 2 pictures don’t really belong to any show. The 1st one on the bottom left is Remy, who has been trained to find bed bugs. We met him at the Pest Control show in New Orleans. I just like this picture his owner sent us because it shows that even if we have differences, we can still all get along.
The picture on the bottom right is the Space Shuttle Discovery in its last flight on its way to the Smithsonian in Washington DC. By doing this low, 1500 ft, flyover it brought together people from all areas in a city that is constantly ripped apart by partisan politics but on this one day, no matter the party, everyone came out to salute the shuttle. There is another one scheduled to do a fly over in NYC on Monday, April 23rd. It will be the Enterprise not the Discovery but it will dip its wings in the direction of the WTC as a salute to overcoming obstacles and letting our imaginations soar. The Enterprise will be on permanent display at the Intrepid, the Air Space Museum on the Hudson.
Jan. 15-18, 2012. The NWFPA “SOLUTIONS Marketplace” attracts a mix of food industry decision-makers from across the Northwestern USA, Canada and the rest of the United States. The event attracts a diverse range of food industry professionals, including CEOs, plant managers, purchasing managers, production and quality assurance managers, engineers, and sales/marketing managers, as well as mechanics on the production floor. They come to attend industry-relevant conference sessions and to see and experience the latest technology, systems and related information. Attendees also gain valuable ideas and insights from face-to-face contact with representatives from the world’s leading food equipment and service providers in the SOLUTIONS Marketplace. Hey, all this networking is making me hungry…
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