NCB Show Recap – Part 1

Last week I had an awesome, but exhausting, experience at the annual Nightclub & Bar Show (convention and trade show) in the always fun city of Las Vegas!

Along for the ride? My “Director of Awesomeness” / “Right Hand Man (Who Doesn’t Get Paid)”. That would be my boyfriend – Nick. (He was on vacation from work and never passes up a chance to go lose some money in Vegas, which as a result, paid for our $200/night hotel – yay!)

I will recap some of the more enjoyable conference education sessions I attended (and provide a “how not to” on the one disaster of a session I attended) later here on the blog… but today, I wanted to start recapping my last day of trade show – checking out the show floor!

My Director of Awesomeness joined me at the show on Wednesday for a day of checking out the newest brands, services, and the like – all slingin’ their goods to the nightclub and bar trades. The unofficial motto is “work hard, play hard”… and honestly, that totally fit the bill. I was barely able to stand by the time we got to about the 150th vendor, but I promised myself I was going to make it all the way across the show floor to visit my friends from South Carolina at the Firefly Vodka booth – (Hi, Matt!).

So without further ado, here are the brands that I liked the most from the show. (This is not to say there weren’t tons of other great vendors, but as you can imagine, many were geared toward security, lights & sound, other bar operations, etc. — all things that a marketer and event planner can appreciate — but don’t really have much to do with my day-to-day work.)

Know Your Market
GoCruso.com
I met these folks after seeing about 20 other booths and since we didn’t receive a tote bag on the way into our show, and I neglected to bring a bigger bag myself, my hands were FULL. (Nick’s, too.) I was amazed that this was the first, and the only, vendor to provide eco-friendly tote bags (actually, any tote bags at all). I saw them from across the way and made a beeline for them. Genius! Just because they had the foresight to bring bags, they have my vote.

GoCruso.com is creating a “social networking site for the food service industry”. They had a really impressive booth and staff, so I’m pretty surprised that the site isn’t up yet – as of when I’m writing this post.

Let’s Party
Spirit Foodservice
Festive straws and stirrers to work any event’s theme! (Private label/custom products available!)

HookaLime
Never let the rind spoil a good Corona! These guys were smart enough to send show-goers home with samples… I’ll be sure to try it out next time we’re at the beach.

Scaled-Down Bowling
Nick LOVED this vendor. (There were two that stood out that he really liked – one of which will stay a secret for just a tad longer as one of my clients is going to be introducing it to the local market soon, and I don’t want to spoil the surprise!)

BottleStar
A cute and inexpensive way to add lighted-pours to bottles. Fun holiday décor, no? Could also be fun way to add spunk to a dark bar.

TweetWall Live
Display buzz, tweets, mentions, and more. What I really love about this company? They charge an affordable one-time fee — no monthly recurring fees!

Ok, that’s enough review for right now. Tune in later this week for my second round of favorites!