How to Survive a Trade Show the Sweet Leaf Way:
By Charla on Jul 2 Filed In Events, Sweet Leaf Tea Company News 1 Comment
Top 5 Tricks for Sweet Success at Fancy Food Show
Sweet Leaf Tea Booth at the Fancy Food Show in New York City
There’s nothing quite like a trade show. And I know because I’ve been to a few in my time. I earned my trade show stripes amongst the ultra-geeky, high-tech, software junkies who love to ask complex technical questions. Basically, it’s a slow death for a marketing gal. So, when I was asked to go to New York for a trade show I panicked—for like two seconds. I work at Sweet Leaf Tea now. Woo-hoo! Sign me up.
The other trade shows of the world could learn a little something from the Fancy Food Show in New York. Or, at least the way we do it. When it comes to surviving a trade show, here’s how to do it the Sweet Leaf Tea way.
1. Design a Sweet Booth
Our shipping crate is our main display. The crate shows up, we pop the latches, swing open the lid and wha-lah. It’s pure genius I tell ya. To top it all off, everything else we needed to spruce up our space was packed inside. Including our plot of faux-grass which makes life a bit easier on the footsies after wearing heels all night.
2. Quench Thirst
This one is a no brainer for us. Imagine walking around two gigantic halls nibbling on 250,000 worldly products for 7 hours. Some attendees looked like they had just crossed the Sahara when they stepped up to our booth. They came to us tongues hanging out and throats dry, but they left us refreshed and ready to complete their journey.
3. Make Foodie Friends
They have food and we have ice, cold tea. The trade opportunities were definitely in our favor. We made great friends with the crews from StonyField Farm (love that blueberry Greek Yogurt, FunniBonz BBQ (pulled pork with spicy sauce), Immaculate Baking Company (orange cranberry scones), and many more. Can’t imagine the pounds I would have gained working at one of their booths!
4. Take a Siesta
Not at the booth! But in order to survive the night, you better catch a few zees post show. If you can nap and wake-up to hit the city, you are a trade show pro. The Tea’m explored restaurants and lounges from Chelsea to SoHo and Meat Packing to Brooklyn! Check out the Buddha Bar and Diner next time you visit. (PS-The REAL test is getting up the next morning!)
5. The Wake-up Call
It never hurts to take precautionary measures, especially in New York. Your best bet is to schedule a wake-up call before and set your alarm before you leave for your evening activities. You may hate it when it goes off, but somewhere deep, deep inside you’ll be thankful that it did.
All and all, it was a great show. We met lots of good, thirsty people and even some of our fellow Tweetpeeps (@BevNETCraven, @BevNETcom, @newyorkhotel). It was fun NYC, but it sure feels good to be back in Austin. For the full play-by-play of the event check out my twitter stream at: http://twitter.com/SweetLeafCharla
Man, I’m not going to lie. I was supposed to attend last years event, but it was right when the company I worked for started tanking, so our trip was canceled RIGHT before I was laid-off. That being said, it’s always awesome to have the opportunity to live vicariously through someone else. All of the twitter updates made me SUPER jealous and hungry. Thanks for the post, Charla!