To most people that aren’t in the industry buying season sounds like an incredibly fun thing. Traveling from city to city, meeting reps from some of your favourite brands and who can forget being wined and dined at some great restaurants along the way. Though on the surface this all maybe true there is definitely a lot more to the experience, which is why we’re inviting you to join us for the next 96 hrs as we navigate the buyings scene here in NYC, jumping from trade show to trade show and one buying appointments to another.

Day 1: Began at 4am for our team on Thursday, January 23rd, as we prepped to leave Toronto to catch our 7:30am flight. We arrived in NYC at 10:30am that same morning just in time to catch the last few hours of both the Liberty Fairs and Project trade shows (mind you we may have had more time if it didn’t take us over 2 hrs just to get to our destination, guess we really shouldn’t complain about our Toronto traffic). With over 400 brands to see and only about 5hrs on hand you can imagine the pandemonium. Fortunately, Melissa had a clear idea of the brands she wanted to connect with which definitely allowed us to be really efficient with our limited time. From there we hopped in yet another cab to head across town for our first official buying appointment which was with our good friends at Circle Of Gentlemen. We arrived at 5pm and didn’t stop working till almost 8pm at which point we realized that running on coffee the whole day wasn’t enough and that we actually needed to EAT. After concluding our meeting we headed for a quick bite and to prepare ourselves for Day 2. For those keeping count, Day 1 = 16hr, well that was easy!?

DAY 2 RECAP – DAY 3 RECAP – DAY 4 RECAP