The Kitchen

Chicago seems to have been the city of conventions in the last few weeks, hosting both BlogHer and YearlyKos, as well as a somewhat less heralded Dr. Dobbs Journal event (of interest to me given my previous life as a computer programmer) that I noticed while traipsing through the lobbby to set up our booth. But the IFT is far older than all of those, and probably dwarfed them as well, packing over 25,000 attendees into the cavernous hangar of the McCormick place. Here's my report.

Day 1 - Sunday
Neurotic to avoid the stop-and-go traffic I'd witnessed while setting up the booth on Thursday, I left the house at 9:30 AM to get to the loding on Sunday morning, even going so far as to skip the extra-large French Vanilla Dunkin' Donuts coffee which I had treated myself to for breakfast in the week preceding. 9:30 probably sounds late, but bear in mind that I had to boil up a few pots of pasta and turn them into a lightly seasoned pasta salad. As it turned out, traffic is considerably sparser on Sunday and so I got to the floor around 10:00, even after parking. Plenty of time to pick up a Starbucks and chat with the booth staff next door before the show opened at 11:00.

I was tethered to the booth until the rest of our staff flew in later that afternoon, so the most interesting thing I saw was right across the aisle. The company exhibiting there produces automated machinery, so they had rigged up some kind of Rube Goldberg style machine, replete with polished steel tubes and funnels and a great spout which spat out globs of blue gel at metered intervals. I wish I'd brought a camera, since it seemed everyone else at the show did. They got an insane amount of rubberneckers just stopping by to see what the ruckus was ("It's big! It's loud! It shoots blue gel!").

Did I mention at was loud? And that it never stopped, for hours straight? By the end of the day we were plotting sabotage ("we" being me and Nat from the booth next door).

Day 2 - Monday
Sabotage turned out to be unnecessary, since the show really picked up by day 2, and you could barely hear the infernal noise over the tidal wave of people. This was probably the most important day for us business-wise, as we accumulated a sheaf of business cards that would have made Michael Ovitz jealous if he worked in food. I'd name drop, but I think your imagination could fill in just as well. This is what makes a show like this worthwhile.

Day 3 - Tuesday
Not as exciting as Monday, but still lots of good contacts. I love the Hollywood-style episode, where this unassuming guy comes over from some company you never heard of, and then you check it out online that night and it turns out he represents some mega-corporation which (by three levels of grand-children businesses) happens to own the largest pasta company in the world. For instance.

Today I also got to go swag hunting. Decent stuff - hand sanitizers, pedometers, and (of course) oodles of food. I didn't win any of the drawings (and I really wanted that Einstein action figure!)

I also got to check out the other booths on the last. Even with an occassional belly dancer and Valkyrie, the IFT is unlikely to compete with the glory days of E3. But E3 consciously tried to pile on the booth babes (wait, bad choice of words...), and that overemphasis on flashy extravangance over actual business no doubt contributed to its ultimate meltdown last year. At the IFT the surreality seems to arrive in a more organic fashion. Consider one company with an ingredient which is supposed to promote sounder sleep. So how did they decide to illustrate this? By putting out an actual bed, staffed by an actor and actress in pajamas. It's riveting. They're just lying on the bed in the middle of a brightly lit convention, surrounded by 25,000 loud people gawking and occasionally snapping pictures. I can't imagine anything more awkward, although someone mercifully provided them with eyeshades.

On the other hand, no one faults you for sleeping on the job. ;)

Finally back in Miami. The show was great! But exhausting. More details soon.

It is a little know fact that Chicago is located in France. Behold the near-verbatim transcripts:

"Oh, the grocery buyer? He's on vacation for a few weeks."

"Sorry, he's out until August."

"On a trip until the 1st."

"I think he's coming back on the 6th."

"Hey, what did you expect in July?" (someone actually said that)

If I wasn't primarily here for the trade show, I'd be pretty annoyed by now. Not to say that wasn't annoying too. Unlike at the convention center in Orlando, where we could just leave the car out front and cart all our stuff to the expo floor, there was nowhere to park at the McCormick Place.

Fortunately, a Hyatt employee named Darryl took pity on me, and had his guys carry my boxes over into the package room. After I parked my car a few blocks away, I then made a few trips to get it from there to the expo floor. They even lent me a handtruck. I'd probably still be wandering about the hotel if it weren't for their help. Thanks again Darryl!

Heading to the Windy City today for the aforementioned IFT expo. I assume it to be identical to its portrayal on Broadway.

Hopefully I'll also be able to get us into some stores in the Chicago area, and will post those soon.

Also, Richard Gere's autograph.