Blog posts tagged with 'crystal stemware'

I've finally had a chance to sit down and summarize our amazing week at The Rental Show 2013 which took place last week at the Sands Convention Center in gorgeous Las Vegas, Nevada.

Paris Hotel and Casino	Bellagio Hotel and Casino

Our trip began the day after a massive snow storm hit eastern Canada and the northeastern United States. Our home base in Toronto had more than 18 inches of snow while the Newark and New York City regions had 6 to 8 inches of the white stuff. While it wasn't snowing on Saturday, our departure was not exactly uneventful. Due to the massive storm, all of Friday's travellers were still in the airport waiting to depart. And planes that were normally in the air flying, were stuck on the ground under several inches of snow. After about five hours, which seemed like an eternity, our plane was finally brought to the gate and we departed snowy Toronto for sunny Las Vegas.

This year was our 8th year of exhibiting at the ARA Rental Show and we had our biggest booth ever. At 20ft x 30ft it was one of the larger booths in the Party and Special Event section of the show floor and we were right in the thick of the action. We were right beside Ben Shipper and his company EES (also known as Event Equipment Sales) from Chicago. Just a couple of booths away was another leader in our field, Palmer Snyder. Both of these companies are first class organizations that we are strive to emulate, both in the quality of our products and the level of our service that we offer. We spent all day Sunday setting up our booth so we could display all our products in the best light possible.

Ben Shipper visiting the NES Booth	Bill and Dennis Talking to Booth Visitors

During the 3 days of the Rental Show we saw many of our current customers and had the pleasure of meeting with many new people. Laura and Bruce from Allied Equipment Rental in Michigan were very pleased to see us again after missing last year’s Rental Show, and were interested in adding to their inventory of Tall Folding Cocktail Tables and Folding Counter Height Bar Chairs. We first met Bruce and Laura more than 2 years ago and they are seeing lots of customer interest in the NES Reliable Plastic Folding Tables and Chairs that they have in their inventory.

Early in this year’s show, a lot of customers told us about how impressed they were with the quality and durability of the products we have to offer. We have talked extensively about the weight capacity of our Resin Chiavari Chairs and regularly tell our Customers they will easily support 500lbs of weight. In December, we decided to put this claim to the ultimate test and placed more than 1,000lbs on one of our Silver Resin Chiavari chairs. The chair came through with flying colours. So we were very happy to have Brian from Handy Special Events in Saskatoon bring Shelby from Over the Top Tents & Events of Eagle River, Alaska to our booth to show him our Resin Chiavari chairs. Brian purchased our Gold Resin Chiavari chairs in the summer of 2011 and was so pleased with how they have performed for Handy Special Events, that he was selling our Resin Chiavari chairs to Shelby without any help from any of Bill, Diana, Jonathan or myself. What a great customer and product testimonial!

We also saw quite a few customers from California who were impressed with the quality of our new plywood folding tables. As many party rental customers know, California is a highly competitive market with many party rental suppliers in a race to provide the best and lowest possible price for their products. As they have aggressively reduced the sales prices for their products they have also been reducing the quality and durability of the products they sell such that many of them are no longer rental tough products.

With our bigger expanded booth we had a larger selection of our product lineup including all our newest table top items such as our Serenity Crystal Stemware, our Eclisse Wine Glasses, our new Polar White dinnerware line, our 3 different sized Wing Bowls and Sloped Bowls along with our tried and tested Quadrato and Ovali dinnerware lines. Having all of these products available gave our rental customers an excellent opportunity to check out what we have available and make decisions about adding these highly durable porcelain products to their inventory in the spring.

At times we were so busy in our booth, we had 2 or 3 customers waiting to speak with one of our 4 staff. It looks like we may need to seriously consider bringing another staff member for the 2014 Rental Show. If you weren't able to get to the show and you'd like to get a copy of our new catalogue, please fill out this form and we would be happy to send one out to you asap.

This is the fourth year that we've exhibited at the BC Foodservice Expo. In past years we've seen a lot of cool things and met a lot of interesting people. This year we've been looking through the exhibitor list, the seminars, and other events that are being held and have picked out the three that we're most excited by.

The first thing that we're going to want to visit is the Coffee Roasters section located right beside the BC Chef's Association Hot Chefs Competition stage. Our Trade Show team is passionate about their coffee and I know they're going to want to explore that area and learn all that they can about the art of roasting coffee as well as sample the brews available. If you're passionate about your coffee, I'd highly recommend visiting the exhibitors and learning how good coffee can be. And if you need larger coffee mugs to serve your customers their morning caffeine jolt, we have you covered with coffee cups in 10oz, 16oz, and 20oz sizes. We also have cappuccino bowls.

Second on our list of things to see is the Winery and Microbrewery Section located right beside the seminar stage. Who wouldn't want to visit booths where you can sample some of BC's finest wines. And no one on the Trade Show team is going to say no to trying an interesting microbrew. If there's one thing the trade show team like more than good coffee, it's an ice cold beer. And if you happen to be looking for something to serve the wine in, we have our Serenity Crystal Stemware, our Copa Glass Stemware, and our Eclisse Glass Stemware. We also have beer glasses available in our Eclisse Line.

Finally, we highly recommend checking out the BC Chef of the Year Roasted Competition, The BC Chinese Chef of the Year Competition and the Hot Competition! Junior Chef Challenge. I have to admit that I spent an inordinate amount of time watching the Food Network over the Christmas Holidays (12 hour Iron Chef America Marathon? Don't mind if I do!). This is just like the Food Network, only live! We've been lucky of the past couple of years and our booth has been right next to the stage so we've been able to see a lot of the competition. If you need a break from visiting booths and are interested in seeing top chefs' techniques and meal ideas, this is an incredible way to spend some time.

If you're at the show, we hope you'll stop by our booth (138 & 140) and take a look at our products. We'll be showing off Polar White which is an incredible dinnerware line which we've just introduced. In addition, we'll have our other dinnerware and flatware lines available for viewing. Hope to see you at the show!

Coffee Cup Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This Saturday we were exhibiting at the Canadian Rental Association's Ontario Tabletop show which was held at the Nottawasaga Inn & Resort in Aliston, Ontario. While the show was held in a tabletop format we were still able to show off a number of our latest new product lines. We presented our new Wing Bowls (which have been hard to keep in stock), our latest dinnerware line, Polar White, as well as our Serenity Crystal stemware and Eclisse Glass stemware. Combined with our Tabletop and Table & Chair catalogues resulted in a full showing for our booth.

Bill and I were busy throughout the day meeting with a number of our customers including Mike from Happening Party Rentals, Collingwood and Christian from Totally Covered Events, Aliston each stopping by to check out our new Crystal Stemware and discuss some of the attributes of our NES Reliable Line of Plastic Folding Tables. We wrapped up the show with a long chat with Paul from Location Equipment Supply, Toronto about our extensive NES Reliable line of Plastic Folding Tables and Chairs including our NES Reliable 6ft Fold in Half Tables.

After the show everyone headed into the banquet hall at the Nottawasaga Inn Resort where we enjoyed a cocktail (or two) before sitting down for a superb dinner. We were served a Butternut Squash soup with a maple glazed breaded topping, a mixed greens salad with radicchio and spiced walnuts and for the finale we enjoyed Pan-seared pork tenderloin with a peach mango & chipotle glaze, with wild & white rice pilaf. The entire meal from start to finish was simply delicious.

To wrap up the evening we were entertained by Hart Entertainment with ‘Game Show Mania’, a quiz show where many of us were invited to be participants in the quiz based show. Contestants are asked simple well known everyday questions and raced to hit their buttons to be the first to answer. In the picture above we see Colin Wilson with his daughter Lauren (World of Rentals, Kingston), Paul Potvin (Location Equipment Supply, Toronto and CRA Ontario 2nd Vice President), Mike Maltby (Ingersoll Rentals and CRA Ontario President) and Gary Webb (LB White, Tampa). Paul and Gary were finalists in the contest with Paul becoming the eventual winner of the grand prize, half of the 50/50 pot that had been collected throughout the evening.

After the game show, Mike Maltby presented some awards including the Image Award to Hank from Tim’s Party Centre, Bowmanville and the Rental Store of the year was presented to Paul at Location Equipment Supply, Toronto. Wacker Nuesen were presented with the Ontario CRA Supplier of the year Award. Jeff Campbell the incoming CRA National President spoke briefly and noted the Canadian Rental Association was sponsoring a PR program that is available to all Members and Associate Members of the CRA. Since Jeff is being appointed CRA National President next month at 2013 Rental Show in Las Vegas, the PR firm used this as an opportunity to spread the news in Jeff’s local St. Thomas community. Jeff is now a celebrity throughout the community and has seen a nice jump in visits to his store, St. Thomas Rent-All.

Hank from Tim's Party Centre	Paul from Location Equipment Supply

Our Next Trade Show has us heading back out to the west coast for the BC Foodservice Expo on January 27 and 28, 2013. If you aren't going to be able to see us at a show, why not request our catalogue to see what we have in stock!

The National Event Supply trade show team just got back from BC where we were exhibiting at the CRA BC Regional show which took place at the Cloverdale Rodeo Show Barn. The show took place over two days running from 4pm to 9pm on Friday and from 10am to 3pm on Saturday. We had a substantially larger booth than last year which took Jonathan, Tony and myself a good part of the day to get set up. This year the show had a section of the hall set aside exclusively for the Party and Event side of the rental business, a rare occurrence for a regional show like this.

In the Party and Events section, Impact Canopies showed off their Sky Flags and Branded pop-up tents, LB White and Patron Heaters had a section dedicated to tent heaters, Wacker Nueson displayed one of their Generators and AE Sales had their Granite Industries Staging Solution. We rounded out the Party and Event section with a large display including our porcelain dinnerware, cutlery, glassware, chiavari chairs, black and white resin folding chairs, bistro chairs, and of course our always popular plastic folding tables, wood folding tables, and plastic folding chairs. With the expanded booth we were able to show most of our lines of porcelain including our always popular Quadrato Square dishes, our Ovali dish line and our new Polar White dinnerware line. We were also able to show a number of new items including several sizes of wing bowls, sloped bowls, and cappuccino cups. Based on the feedback we received, many of the attendees were pleased with our wide range of rental ready products.

 

After dinner there were a few brief speeches from Jeff Campbell who is the incoming CRA National President (of St. Thomas Rent-All) and Paul Kenyon, the ARA Region 10 representative (Absolute Tent and Event Rentals). As always the BC Regional CRA put together a fantastic event that is always great to be a part of. We look forward to seeing many of them at the show next year as well as at The Rental Show in Las Vegas in February.

 

We’re back in Vancouver in less than 2 weeks for the BC Foodservice Expo which will be taking place at the Vancouver Convention Centre. But before we head back west, we’re doing the CRA Ontario Tabletop Show which takes place January 19, 2013 at the Nottawasaga Resort in Alliston, Ontario. We are looking forward to seeing our Ontario Rental customers and relaxing with a beer after the show.

It's just five days until Christmas (or one day until the end of the world) and we're still going strong here at National Event Supply. I've gotten my oval platter for the turkey and some Serenity Champagne Flutes for the Christmas Morning Brunch; presents have been bought and delivered (but not yet wrapped); and the baking is under control (for the most part).

On the work front we've sent postcards to our BC Rental customers inviting them to come see us at the BC Rental Show, Stephanie is putting the finishing touches on our new catalogue, Jonathan is putting together trade show booths, and Dennis is making sure we'll have enough product for the spring. We're all working on making sure that 2013 will be the best year ever, but before the calendar flips over, we're all going to take a quick break to recharge our batteries.

With that in mind, National Event Supply will be closed from 5:00pm December 21, 2012 until 9:00am January 2, 2013. In this season of good will, we wish you and your family best wishes of the season and hope that you have a happy and healthy new year! And if the world ends on the 21st it was great doing business with you.

Top Image courtesy of Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net