CHA Show in Hot-lanta (Atlanta)

We've just returned from exhibiting at the CHA Show. The CHA Show was formally known as the HIA Show and is a giant National convention for the Art and Craft industries. Typically it travels to different cities every year and this year it took place in HOT-lanta Georgia.

The CHA Show featured companies who manufacture and sell art materials, scrapbooking supplies, decorative painting and stenciling, and general crafts. Robert Paschal from ARTtalk.com, who was one of the directors of the educational classes at the show, said that the CHA Show is the 70th largest tradeshow in the country! The show is 4 days long and you would need to walk briskly or flat out run to cover the entire show in 4 days, it is that big. Since it is trade only there aren't usually huge crowds of people.

The show took up two entire halls at the Georgia Convention Center. We were in the larger hall while the smaller hall had the new exhibitors area and the majority of scrapbooking suppliers. Unfortantely, this was the cause for what turned out to be a very slow show. You see, scrapbooking is on fire and has been for the last couple of years. It seems like everyone who attends the show is in some way affiliated with scrapbooking. When coupled with the new exhibitors in the same hall it set the stage for everyone to spend time in that area for the entire show. It was as if our hall, the bigger of the two with probably twice the number of exhibitors, didn't exist. To make matters worse the show halls were separated by a chasm of space making it a very long walk, up and down escalators, to go from one hall to the other. I later discovered a short-cut between halls, but since the areas weren't marked well it was probably hard for the buyers to make their way our way.

We still made the most of the show though. We brought one of our customer service people to the show, Joanna Chan. Since it was her first show, it was probably better that it was a little slow. This way she could learn at a smooth and more leisurely pace. We also saw a few key customers and were able to spend quality time with our sales reps. And of course we had time for our Sales Manager, Brooke Cedros, to show us some cheap bar tricks too. She's very good with using props.