{"id":5,"date":"2008-01-10T12:33:53","date_gmt":"2008-01-10T12:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/2008\/01\/10\/hello-from-psi-dusseldorf\/"},"modified":"2008-01-15T16:43:36","modified_gmt":"2008-01-15T16:43:36","slug":"hello-from-psi-dusseldorf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/2008\/01\/10\/hello-from-psi-dusseldorf\/","title":{"rendered":"Hello from PSI Dusseldorf"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello Everyone —<\/p>\n

Welcome to my first blog. Now, when I travel to every show —\u00a0in the U.S. and abroad — you will be there with me, for the\u00a0good, the bad, the wacky and the (really) weird.<\/p>\n

I am\u00a0here in Dusseldorf at the PSI Show — Europe’s largest show — which today, the opening, saw a 5%\u00a0increase\u00a0over last year’s attendance. The show, as always, is\u00a0the epitome of appearance. From the booths (see photos) to the\u00a0exhibitor staff, these people treat the event as if it were a\u00a0fashion, design and hospitalty extravaganza. I don’t think it’s any secret for those of you who know me, that Europe is my happy place and this show is my favorite of the year.<\/p>\n

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With over 19,000 attendees, people come to not only solidify relationships, but to\u00a0write orders for the coming selling year in the booths. One reason for this, of course, is the\u00a0welcoming\u00a0atmosphere of each booth. Rare is the booth that does not serve coffee, light\u00a0snacks and cocktails, which is extremely conducive to sitting and solidifying relationships. Unlike shows in the States where\u00a0distributors tend to go\u00a0from booth to booth saying the ubiquitous “scan me,\u00a0please,” people at this show stay in the booth for an hour at a clip, reconnecting with their sales reps and placing early orders for the year.<\/p>\n

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The booths themselves are amazing, and are not contrained by the restrictions that are put in place by most U.S. convention facilities. Many are built on platforms and multi-level, and the size and scale are amazing. For example, Polyconcept, Europe’s largest supplier and the parent company of Leed’s, Bullet Line and JournalBooks occupies\u00a0space with a 20,000 square foot booth (and yes,\u00a0I am sober — that is an accuarate number…), with the MidOcean and LM Accessories booths coming in not far behind.<\/p>\n

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Having attended this show in the past, one noticeable aspect is that there are far fewer\u00a0North American attendees than in the past.\u00a0Jonathan Isaacson from Gemline is here, as is Trevor Gnesin from Logomark, Jack\u00a0Teague from BIC Graphic, Scott\u00a0Siegel, owner from R.S. Owens, Jo-an Lantz from Geiger and Matt Bertram from Fields Manufacturing\u00a0are those we saw. Perhaps this is because the PPAI Show is immediately after this show (unlike in previous years) or the pitiful state of the U.S. dollar.<\/p>\n

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Regardless, Sabine Geldermann (whose birthday is tomorrow, January 10th… Happy Birthday, Sabine!) is the director of the PSI Show and the woman who runs the PSI Shows like well-oiled machines,\u00a0is the consummate host,\u00a0making sure all us jetsetting\u00a0North Americans are\u00a0very well taken care of. As the economies in\u00a0Europe\u00a0are much healthier than the U.S.’s , you might want to consider visiting PSI’s Power\u00a0Summit, which will be held in Barcelona in early may. For more information you can contact the birthday\u00a0girl at sgeldermann@reedexpo.de<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As for us ASI troopers,\u00a0Tim Andrews, CEO\/president, Rich Fairfield,\u00a0senior vice president of publishing, myself and Ron Ball (international incidents in the waiting… ASI’s\u00a0in-house attorney with the extradition papers) are all here and doing well. Tim Andrews has always been the epitome\u00a0of cool, calm, composure… except when he’s not. I’ve only seen the vein in Tim’s forehead\u00a0pop\u00a0out and throb like bass drum one other time (ask me about that!)\u00a0 but his luggage was lost by Air France, and he had to speak at the welcome reception for the international press. Needless to\u00a0say, he\u00a0did a quick\u00a0shopping\u00a0spree run and Prada’d himself up so he looks\u00a0presentable.<\/p>\n

Now, here we sit, two days after arriving, he has\u00a0yet to\u00a0receive his bags. He called Air France, who assured Tim that his bags were indeed in Dusseldorf and would be delivered to his hotel YESTERDAY.\u00a0Tim is sitting next to me now, at the bar\u00a0at the SAS Radisson Waterfront in the same swanky Prada suit. He is not happy, to say the least. He tells me that his parting words with Air France were, less than cordial, shall we say. They told him, in an\u00a0abrupt fashion, that he can look forward to his luggage in the next\u00a048 hours. He will, of course,\u00a0be back home in Princeton, NJ by then. After his dressing down\u00a0towards Air France, I assured Tim that his luggage is floating luxuriously down the Rhine…<\/p>\n

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Tim was invited to address the international press at a welcome reception this morning with the Mayor of Dusseldorf, Hans-Joachim Erbel, the executive director of PSI, among others. During the Q&A period, one reporter asked Erbel why the dates of the Dusseldorf Show can’t be moved until a little later in the year. Erbel responded and said that the dates are dictated by the requests of its members, who are surveyed frequently. He also cited, “the moon phases” as a prominent reason because Easter and Carnivale don’t always fall at the same time each year. (And no, I was not under the influence of Amsterdam’s finest… .)<\/p>\n

Upon hearing this, Tim leaned over and told me, “If Matthew Cohn ever said that about the choice of ASI show dates, I would have him medicated.”<\/p>\n

As many of you know,\u00a0I am adventurous in many areas, but certainly not food. I am\u00a0THE\u00a0pickiest eater ever, and do not normally deviate from\u00a0filet mignon and pasta. My pal Jonathan Isaacson, however, has a singular talent for taking me to restaurants I would never normally go to (kicking,\u00a0bitching, and\u00a0screaming, I might add…).<\/p>\n

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Last night, he took me, his business colleague, Frederico to a Mongolian barbeque restaurant, where there was RAW KANGAROO<\/strong> served. Trust me,\u00a0if you travel overseas, trust Jonathan, he will take you to the\u00a0best places.<\/p>\n

So, stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog which will feature photos and reports of all the fun, sloppy and excessive behavior at Polyconcept’s\u00a0famed party on the boat it docks just for the show, where\u00a0I’m staying incidentally (and haven’t taken a\u00a0marinated tumbed into the Rhine with Tim’s luggage) thanks to the generosity of my pal, the\u00a0always suave Philippe Varniner,\u00a0number three on Counselor’s Power 50 list\u00a0this year with his Glimmer Twin, Michael Bernstein.<\/p>\n

And lest you think I only gush\u00a0with postive comments about the PSI Show\u00a0because it’s in Europe, there is one area where they need to take a page from our book in North America. They do not have shuttle buses and the\u00a0cab lines\u00a0are reminiscent of immigrants waiting to enter Ellis\u00a0Island. My advice?\u00a0Travel with Tim Andrews, who bribed a\u00a0cab driver to get us the hell back to the Radisson….<\/p>\n

More tomorrow!<\/p>\n

Cheers!!! : )<\/p>\n

Michele<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello Everyone — Welcome to my first blog. Now, when I travel to every show —\u00a0in the U.S. and abroad — you will be there with me, for the\u00a0good, the bad, the wacky and the (really) weird. I am\u00a0here in Dusseldorf at the PSI Show — Europe’s largest show — which today, the opening, saw […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9,10,8],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel","tag-dusseldorf","tag-europe","tag-psi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}