I’m such a little kid. I couldn’t wait to post this picture I took on Wednesday night because I thought it was so funny. It’s from the restaurant that Mindy (Pool Tradeshow head honcho) took us to. The place is called Fatty’s. Note the card at the bottom of the sign which details their dress code. If you can’t read it, it says “No dolman sleeves, PLEASE”. See this sketch of a dolman sleeve if you don’t know what those are.

The food (all vegetarian or vegan) was great, as was the ambiance and the service. Being accustomed to sorting through the “vegetarian options” at typical restaurants such as cherry tomato and iceberg lettuce salads, pasta with red sauce and veggie burgers (if they even have that), it was real treat to have an entire menu to pick from. I’m used to spending most of my menu reading time sorting through ingrediant listings and quizing the waitress on the base of broths but none of that was necessary. Great choice Mindy!

We had a good showing at the seminar, about 75 people showed up. First up was Melanie Wood from Advanstar Communications. Advanstar owns the major tradeshows in the industry such as MAGIC Marketplace, MAGIC, WWWDMAGIC, MAGIC Kids, Sourcing at MAGIC, PROJECT and lastly, POOL. so, if anyone can tell you how to make it at market, it’d be Advanstar. She was a dynamic speaker and very effective in reaching the audience. If you’re interested in her presentation, I’ll see if I can get permission to reprint her cheat sheet. I wrote all over mine, maybe someone has a clean copy to scan? Here’s a picture of Melanie.

And here’s a picture of Mindy who has been either working with Pool or running it since day one.

The Pool tradeshow offices aren’t really office space, it’s a converted warehouse with a big overhead door. More loft than anything else with a lot of space to host parties and events. Very non corporate in keeping with their roots, an interesting space. Pool also provided lunch on site (also vegetarian friendly), very nicely done, buffet style. Tommy (below) says that all the consumables such as plates, napkins and silverware were either recycled or potato based. Have you ever eaten with a potato fork? It feels as sturdy as plastic but looks a little off, translucentish.

After Melanie was done, I went up and gave an operations perspective on getting to market, mostly Q & A. I didn’t have handouts thinking I’d email everyone some supporting documents from Fashion-Incubator. I’ve decided to post that here because it could be a cheat sheet for our newest visitors too.

There were a few people there who knew of the blog. I was thrilled to finally meet a virtual friend of mine -Michelle- I’ve been wanting to interview her for a long time; she’s a jewelry designer. Her line is Delicate Raymond. She has a lot of interesting stories to tell.

That’s a picture of Michelle above. I regret that more people didn’t come up and introduce themselves. Those that chose to, went to dinner at Fatty’s Wednesday night. Getting back to that dinner, here’s a picture of those of us who went:

Left to right is Julie (sorry, forgot your last name) who’s a pattern maker looking for a better opportunity; she wants a position where she can get some mentoring and guidance from a more experienced pattern maker. Next is Heather (Picara baby carriers), then Mindy, me, Melanie and lastly, Andrea Baker who came down to help out. Here’s a photo of just our crowd, left to right is Andrea, Julie and Heather.

Jumping ahead, on Thursday, I met with Eddie who couldn’t make it to the seminar (he lives in San Diego). He is producing a line of eco products called Wholesum. He took me to his favorite vegetarian restaurant in LA and then the airport. Eddie is a very interesting guy with a background in industrial psych and marketing. Currently, he’s self employed in IT and SEO. He’ll be an interesting addition to the forum. Here’s his picture.

This brings me up to the present. I was glad to get home. Today I’m a little crispy since I didn’t get home till 1:00 AM. On my way out the door this morning, I was happy to see these guys again (below). If you’re new around here, you don’t know that I like to take pictures of the barn swallows that have a mud nest on my porch. There are five babies! I don’t think the fire marshall would approve, this brooding pair is over the occupancy rating of this nest by two. I didn’t think there’d still be five when I got back. Attrition will be visiting soon enough. We mourn and bury them. ~sigh~ such is life.