What Happened in Vegas Should NOT stay in Vegas!

Last week was my first experience representing CRAFT at a major tradeshow, ACRE Las Vegas, and I must say, I am so impressed!

Just before the show opened, our organization produced its second CRAFT: The Summit, an educational conference with four superbly qualified speakers.  Truly, several of them were spellbinding and everyone in the room raved about the day.  Marketing to Gen Y and Millenials - check!  Consumer trends - check!  Visual merchandising - check!  And Storytelling - my goodness, everyone left that room convinced they absolutely needed to develop and tell their story!

Kudos to the volunteer committee who worked all year to pull this off!  Chairman Donna Milstein is joined by Cari Luchau, Fern Solomon, Cynthia Webb and yours truly, with expert coordination from Nancy Vince and Karen Purvis from ACRE.

Now if you were not in Vegas, listen up!  There is going to be another fabulous Summit at the ACRE Northeast show, August 15 and you don't want to miss it.  You can attend the ACRE show, spend Friday until mid-afternoon at CRAFT: The Summit, and then take a shuttle into New York for the evening and New York NOW opening Saturday.  Perfect!

One last word about the show, ACRE Las Vegas was a beautiful show with stunning craft and a great atmosphere.  Our CRAFT booth was busy, we signed up several new members and promoted American Craft Week, too.  One observation after the Summit, is that we, CRAFT, need to improve telling our story, so I plan to make marketing our organization at tradeshows a priority for the coming year.

We hope to see you at the Summit in New Jersey - check it out at www.craftthesummit.com.  Really, it's much too wonderful to leave in Vegas!