An appeal to the IPCPR
After three days of walking the floor at this years IPCPR, I am compelled to report and comment on some of the booths that just should not have been at the show. I am not taking about cigars, pipes, and tobacco. I am talking about items like, Special Gem bracelets to make you stronger, hookahs that have nothing to do with cigars and pipes, cigarette products and e-cigs, cellphone cases, teeth whitener, and the list goes on. These products have a place in some other convention but not the one for our industry. I may sound crude here but many of these booths took away from the experience. Can you imagine the cigar booth next to the strawberry hookah booth? How does your cigar taste, what flavors and scent are you getting? Well, let me see, strawberry – seriously? Or how about walking around the floor and being pestered by some lady trying to sell her secret gem stone bracelets that make you stronger. Yea, right. Not only was she peddling it, but she was very disruptive in her approach , stopping people on a cigar mission interfering with the day. Just imagine being in a office heading to a meeting and having some one stop you on the way just throwing things in your hands and saying things like, hey you want your teeth whiter, or hey check this cell phone screen protector out.
Ihope the ICPCR understand this, and is smart enough to put a stop to it next year in New Orleans. Other wise we will be subject to voodoo magic potions next.
We have included pictures of many of these vendors in the following gallery. You be the judge. If the IPCPR wants to have more attendance don’t enlist these type of vendors. Make it smaller if need be, and the vendors, retailers, and media will have a better experience.
James (Boston Jimmie) Vita
Publisher/Editor
I’m with you on everything except the Hookah, I think they have a place as they fall into the pipe category and do use tobacco. Although I was not at the show this year, I’ve noticed the same things over the past several years, I question items like walking sticks, hats, shaving gear, however if tobacconists choose to carry these sorts of items, it makes sense for the vendors of such items to display them at the show. They need to do a better job of arranging the layout of the show floor in my opinion.
My 25th IPCPR, 18th with Garo Habano Cigars (formerly RTDA, until the association got frightened by the word “tobacco”) and definitely the strangest. Why did Starbuzz Hooka tobacco get better placement than General Cigar? Or Altadis? Or Fuente, Padron, Oliva, Graycliff, or Miami Cigar & Co(la Aurora)? I had to direct retailers to our booth by cell phone when they came in; they found us mainly because we were adjacent to Cigrs & Spirits Mag’s “Spirit Garden (anyone breathing can find free booze) if there’s a repeat of this in New Orleans next year, a lot of us will just attend NATO and not pay to subsidize “new” businesses.
There is a valid point to be raised with this. A lot of cigar shops also stock various “guy stuff”. There are certain items that fit in nicely to the mix, like flasks, chess sets or straight razors. There is some logic to having the e-cigs and vapor present; hookah isn’t much of a stretch. There is a building demand for that type of product in my shop. Massage chairs and gemstones are such an outlier, it may not even be necessary for IPCPR to police the problem. I’d have to guess that those vendors did so poorly they won’t bother to come back.
Solid points Mike. I appreciate your views.