Picara Baby Carriers

Thursday, September 20, 2007

ABC Kids Expo

We had a great time in Las Vegas, although I did find out it's not my kind of town. For a cheapskate (ehem, thrifty) person like me, everything seemed to be overpriced.

We drove into town from Central California on Wednesday, 9/5. We left early AM and drove till breakfast and had a great pancake stop at Apple Annies. Then we drove, and drove, and surprise, drove some more. We ended up stopping near lunchtime in Calico, CA. We explored, ate and even went goldpanning. It was a wonderful break to the drive.


Then we loaded back up and drove all the way to Las Vegas. I had never been to Las Vegas before, didn't really know what hotels would be appropriate for my daughter, so I guessed at Circus Circus. Oh my was that an experience. I wouldn't recommend Circus Circus to other people, although the adult type ads were definately minimal.

We headed over to the Convention Center for set up on Thursday. The set up went fairly quickly and we had some great booth neighbors. School Zone publishing is now one of my fave companies ever. Here's a quick pic of the booth all set up, not very nice or neat, but it's the ONLY picture I have of it.



You can see our fabric decorations on the backdrop. We were worried the fire marshall might disallow them, so we bought fireproofing spray and treated them. The butterfly and flower were okay (they curled a bit) but the grass almost melted with the treatment. It still looked fine, but it was supposed to be MUCH fluffier than it was. I guess the docrations looked good because someone who sold wall decorations came by and wanted to know my supplier.

Next time I'm going to go ahead and bring astroturf for the flooring or at least a small rug of it. I was told it wouldn't be allowed when I called before the show, so I left it out, but I really feel no one would have paid any attention to it. And it would have pulled together the garden look much better than burgundy carpet.

Friday the show opened with a whimper. There wasn't a ton of traffic till about 1-2 hours after the doors opened, although all the exhibitors were there with bells on at 9AM sharp. It was very interesting, you could actually hear the attendees moving into the hall, the sound was moving from the front of the hall to the back.

We had good traffic throughout the show, it was slower for walkbys that I expected, but I don't think I really had a good grasp of just how large the convention halls are. With our preshow work and postshow follow we definitely met our show goals though. It was wonderful to meet all the exhibitors around us, to hear such unique stories about their companies and products. It was also interesting to watch those booths with professional sales people versus those with company owners.

I loved getting out to walk around the show, but I found I didn't have a huge amount of time for that. I did get to see booths for Peekaru, Catbird Baby, Ellaroo, Zolowear, Beco, Hotslings and more. As a group, baby carrier vendors have such great taste. I saw such wonderful fabrics, designs and booths that really reflected the personalities of the companies.

3 Comments:

At 11:39 AM, September 21, 2007, Blogger Shari said...

Oh, the booth looked great! I really whish they would have some kind of convention here :::keeps dreaming::: LOL
I wish I had known you were staying at Circus Circus, we stayed there a few years ago and it was terrible! Our room was just nasty and the place overall was icky! But I'm glad that overall you had fun. Vegas is a great place to visit, short term. I don't enjoy myself there with the kids as much as I can, kwim.

 
At 11:58 PM, September 21, 2007, Blogger Becky said...

Oh honey... you should have told me you needed advice on where to stay in Las Vegas. Vegas is MY town, baby! I love it there. LOL! Shari is right, Circus Circus is fun to visit, but NOT to stay at. Ick! Best places for kids are MGM, The Mirage (Siegfried and Roy's Secrety Garden and Dolphin Habitat is a must see), Treasure Island (aka TI) - but that isn't as much fun as it used to be since they did away with the kid friendly pirate show out front, or Excalibur (but the rooms are a tad small there...fun place tho.)

 
At 2:07 PM, September 22, 2007, Blogger mygirlboutique@gmail.com said...

Yeah, I bombed the "where to stay in Vegas" part.

At least we know for next time, right?

 

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