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Thursday
March 13, 2008 Kooks Invade Kansas City; Locals Flee in FrightFiled under: ASI Shows, Fun, Travel Hi from Kansas City, where it is day four of the Advantages Roadshow though it feels like day 8, 895. You’ll all be happy to know that Kansas City has been a blast and today’s attendance at the show was 199 — suppliers are freaking ecstatic. “The quality of the attendees has been really good across the board,” says Tom Ngo, director of sales and marketing for Key-Bak and the person who has been my handler on this trip. Tom has also been the bartender extraordinaire on the bus — he is like “Isaac the bartender” on The Love Boat.
Tuesday
March 11, 2008 Advantages Roadshow — Day Two: Des MoinesFiled under: Travel Hi from the show bus in Des Moines! So last night my new friends and I went out in downtown Des Moines looking for some fun, and found it in spades. After cocktails at the aptly-named “Doozies” bar in the hotel, we started the evening at a “rustic” place where Dan Burke from Avaline took music requests from the group. Dan regaled us with Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” not once, but twice. Then, we found ourselves in our first gay bar of the evening. Who knew that downtown Des Moines was so cosmopolitan?
Monday
March 10, 2008 On the Road with the Advantages Show — Day One from MinneapolisFiled under: Travel Hi from the Twin Cities! This is the first day of the Advantages traveling show, which will take me from Minneapolis today to Des Moines, Omaha, Kansas City and St. Louis.
Friday
February 15, 2008 Come Fly With Me (Or Not)Hi from Philly! Well, after traveling to four shows in three countries already this year, I am thrilled to be home in PA for a few weeks. The great part of traveling, of course, is getting to spend time with friends, as I did this past weekend in Austin, TX. After the ASI Dallas Show, I went to hang out with my favorite industry family, the Lindermans — Michael, Jane and Matt. Austin, if you’ve never been, is a very eclectic, idiosyncratic blue reservoir of liberal cool in a big ‘ol red state. Its slogan, of all things, is “Keep Austin Weird” — which should tell you a lot about why I love it so much. Michael & Jane Linderman, who are not weird but definitely fun, took me to an awesome area of Austin called the Domain, where fantastic restaurants, fire pits and upscale shops like Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co. reside. There are condos above the stores and don’t think for a moment that if I lived in Austin, I wouldn’t buy one just so I could say I live at Tiffany’s.
Thursday
February 7, 2008 Michele Does Dallas!Filed under: ASI Shows, Travel Hey Y’all from Dallas, Texas on the first day of the ASI Show! I’ve been here since Tuesday, and spent that night catching up with the one and only Dan Townes, at the Palm. We have dinner there every year and we’ve become friendly with the general manager, Randy Hill, who is just the coolest guys and tolerates (and in fact often encourages) our bad behavior (because, when Dan and I are involved, there will be “incidents,” such as the one year when Dan hurled a pork chop two tables away to say hello to our friend Jay Donlin, the vice president of Visions/Awardcraft…).
Tuesday
January 29, 2008 Northern ExposureFiled under: Travel Hi again from the PPACanada Show in Toronto! The second day of Canada’s largest trade show kept its steady pace, much to the delight of exhibitors, all of whom had just one complaint — they didn’t bring enough catalogs. (Listen to my pod cast with Leslie Oesen, vice president of ASI Canada and expert on the Canadian ad specialties industry, who sat down with me yesterday to discuss trends and changes in the marketplace.)
Monday
January 28, 2008 Baby, It’s Cold Outside… But Hot at the PPACanada Show!Filed under: Travel Hi from Toronto, where — despite the fact that it’s a mind-numbing 10 degrees — everyone is in great spirits here at the PPACanada Show. Even after two major North American Shows this month — ASI Orlando and PPAI Vegas — it’s great to see how psyched everyone is to be at another show and ready to do business. The show opened yesterday and was packed! The show’s organziers anticipated 3,000 distributors but after talking to many exhibitors — all of whom were already out of catalogs and samples — the consensus is that the show exceeded those numbers.
Friday
January 18, 2008 I Love the Vegas Nightlife (Kind of…)Filed under: Travel The industry parties, which seemed to dissipate for a while a few years ago, are back and better than ever. My colleague Christian Brandt, referred to often here at ASI as my “handler” (those of you who know me can empathize with that particular level of Dante’s hell…), were on the circuit, with Christian keeping us on schedule like the maniacal drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket. |
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