Since my trip to China was canceled, I just booked a trip back to Michigan. Allison and I will both be flying into Flint on Thursday night, May 1, and flying back to Wisconsin Sunday evening, May 4. So if any readers of the blog want to catch up with us while we are home, let us know so we can plan on something.
This past Friday, Allison and I went to one of the most important industry shows in our industry - KBIS (pronounced kay-bis). KBIS (Kitchen and Bath Industry Show) is held in Chicago every other year, and Kohler got some charter buses to haul us down for the day. I was pretty interested in going. Being my first show in this particular industry, I was really curious how to this show compared to the auto show in Detroit. To make a long story short, KBIS fell pretty short of the glitz and glam of the auto show. Personally, I didn't think the exhibits called enough attention to the new products that the companies were offering. However, it was really cool that Kohler was the big dog at the show. All of the lanyards with people's ticket/ID to get into the show had KOHLER printed all over them. Kohler easily had the largest and nicest display at the show. They even had a stage with Cirque de Soliel-esque performers! Unfortunately, another big difference was that no cameras were allowed in McCormick Place (where the show was held). That's one of the things I really liked about the auto show - getting up close to some really cool vehicles and taking all kinds of pictures. I don't understand why cameras weren't allowed, but I certainly saw plenty of people taking pictures. Oh well - I should have been a rebel and brought my camera. While we were there, we saw Ty Pennington from Extreme Home Makeover filming some scene at KBIS. My guess it was probably some kind of promo for KBIS.
All that said, the show kinda paled in comparison to the beloved auto show in Detroit, but it was interesting to see the Kitchen & Bath Industry in action. Hopefully in the coming years, I'll have plenty of products debuting at this show.
Hey I would love to be able to get together with you guys while your here in Michigan but due to me going back to midnights until July I don't think I will be able to.
ReplyDeletehey by the way I found a race that I have just started training for not sure if you guys are interested but here is the website check it out and let me know because I think Autumn and I are going to do it. The race is in Chicago on October 18th so plenty of time to get ready for it. http://www.menshealthurbanathlon.com/