I just got back from the annual ICSC ReCon (Also know as the shopping center convention) in LAs Vegas. It's funny when I tell people that I'm heading to Vegas for a convention, the typical response is "Oh, that should be fun" or "Don't party too much". As much as I would like for this to be a "fun" trip, it's pretty much all business. Sure, there are cocktail parties that clients throw, and a fair amount of rubbing elbows aka networking, but for the most part this convention is a grind. In past years I had noticed that I was sore each time I returned from Vegas. From my feet to my back, I had some aches. This year I decided to wear a pedometer to see how many miles I walked while at this event. Starting from the time we left the hotel Sunday afternoon for our first event until getting back to the hotel after the last dinner Tuesday night we walked alot. The final reading was 28.98 miles in 48 hours. Okay, so that's extraordinarily slow for a marathon but that's a lot of mileage in business attire. All the tread put on these tires aside, it was another sucessful event.
The overall tone of the convention was tempered compared to years past, but the attendance did not suffer as nearly 50,000 people attended. As with everything going on in the business world, there are plenty of retailers that are either slowing down with regrad to expansion, or simply putting things on hold for 2008/2009. Still, there are plenty of retailers that are chasing deals, just not with the veracity of years past.
See ya next year Vegas!
0 comments:
Post a Comment