Weekend in the Big City: Vancouver Gift Expo
October 1, 2010 at 6:49 am 1 comment
I can now officially say that I have done my first, (of many) tradeshows for Honey Candles®- and it was an amazing learning experience. In order to do the show I convinced my fiancé Steve to drive the truck and join me for a few days in Vancouver, which was not a tough sell! After a full day of driving to Vancouver from Kaslo, (approximately 8.5 hours,) we had the evening to take in the big city. Saturday morning bright and early we went to the Expo grounds to set up our booth. 7 hours later we created a masterpiece! Now for any one who has never done a trade show before let me fill you in on all the intricate details:
- Booth backdrop. This is a 2-man job that is not user friendly.
- Flooring. It took me back to my childhood days of large foam puzzles.
- Shelves, tables and signage. It doesn’t matter how many times you measure the shelves are never straight.
- Product. As you all know, beeswax blooms, an indicator of the wax’s purity and is cherished by many candle connoisseurs. Many people prefer the polished look so to meet that expectation we rubbed a soft nylon with some olive oil on the candles to diminish the bloom.
- Display. Candles are small and fragile- it takes a lot of candles to fill a 10 by 10 booth. This took quite a bit of time to be an eye catcher.
Sunday was the first day of the Gift Expo and it went very well! I met some of our current retailers, made many new contacts across British Columbia and we came back with a handful of new retailers! I was very impressed to see how many retailers were educated on the benefits of beeswax and how they were excited to bring in a natural and locally made product. The best seller by far was the natural pillars.
The second day of the show was much slower, but that was to be expected since it was a Monday. After 8 hours of the show we powered through a 3-hour take down.
I want to thank all of our retailers who made it out to the show, and I want to welcome all our new retailers into the Honey Candles® family.
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1.
Anastazia | October 1, 2010 at 7:00 am
Sounds AWESOME, wish I could’ve been there! (& not jsut cuz I miss vancouver!) I LOVE these candles, & when people learn about the lead in many regular candle wicks, & the things put into the air by the dyed & frangrance-filled ones, these ones aren’t a luxury, they’re a NECESSITY if you use candles! Thanks for the informative post! I’ll repost this comment on your Facebook link to this…)
~Anastazia~