Our own Worldwide Wes, Wes Bates of Fujitsu America, recently attended the National Retail Federation (NRF) trade show in New York City. He files this report:
2011 is off and running! Here we are, not even a full month into the year and I am already putting the wraps on the first trade show. The National Retail Federation (NRF) trade show takes place every January in the grand city of New York at the Jacob K. Javits Center. This year marked the 100th annual NRF event.
For those of you who have never been, the Javits Center is a big beautiful glass convention and expo center located right on the Hudson River bank on the island of Manhattan. The 175,000 sq. ft. NRF EXPO is filled with more than 500 solution providers offering state of the art technologies and services.
The NRF trade show is described by promoters as “Retail’s BIG Show” and is an annual convention and expo of more than 18,500 engaged retail professionals from 74 countries. Retail’s BIG show features educational sessions covering the industry’s most relevant and forward looking topics as well as networking for every retail professional.
I was attending this show to promote my company’s involvement through social media efforts with our twitter program while obtaining video interviews of visiting clients. When conducting these interviews, I was sure to ask what people thought about the show and here are the most popular responses:
- All in one: A retailer can visit with more solution providers in these two days than what can be done through a year of traveling.
- Collaboration: Retailers and technology companies can meet to discuss the challenges each of them face in their markets as well as discuss solutions that have proven successful to tackle those hurdles.
- Glimpse the future: Retailers can see and hear about new technologies solution providers are developing to deal with current and future challenges.
This year marks my third NRF event and even though I have seen the attendance take a dip, I can tell you that retailers and technology providers still attest to the importance of this show. One of the reasons I take along my flip camera on my travels to these shows is to gather video interviews of retail CIOs and IT Directors offering testimony as to why they continue to attend NRF. I would highly recommend doing the same with your clients who attend shows like NRF. I find these testimonies to be a tremendous help when looking for extra persuasion and justification for your organization to budget for trade shows.
Well it looks like 2011 will be a busy year for everyone and the NRF show boasted an air of optimism sprinkled with opportunities in the retail industry. It may not have been on any agenda, but those feelings seemed to bring about a much needed calm which may have had more impact than anything else at the show. Retail’s BIG show is not the biggest show, but after 100 years, it certainly proves there is a need for this event today and certainly in the foreseeable future.
Thanks, Wes, for a very complete report.
Wesley Bates is the public relations manager for one of the top three information technology companies in the world. His duties include media and analyst relations. He graduated from Texas A&M University and then worked with the St. Joseph Health System in Bryan, and with Texas Health Resources before taking his current position. He currently serves as the Technology Director for the Dallas chapter of IABC.
TTSG
