Each year as we walk about the IPCPR show, we like to give awards for what we feel are the best booths in terms of looks and telling the merchandising story. Last year it was pretty easy. We had not been to the ICPCR before, so everything was new & pretty exciting for us. This year, yeah, not so much. It was much harder to pick out the winners because, well, not a lot was new. Having said that, here’s our choices for who looked great & told a great story of what their product was all about:
Best Booth – Large Vendor – Miami Cigars
Miami Cigars had a beautiful, well organized booth with gorgeous displays. They really showed off their brand and told the story of their cigars well. In addition, they had all their swag – ashtrays, lighters, etc all beautifully displayed. They were gracious, cordial and genuinely interested in spending time with us, despite the fact that their booth was just packed everyday.
Best Booth – Large Vendor, Runner-Up – Alec Bradley
Alec Bradley’s booth looked great. I do not remember them looking so good last year. They had a large, round banner over the booth, that also had a circular inset. The cigars looked delicious & smelled heady. Their booth was also packed everyday. Great job!
Best Booth – Boutique Blends – Caldwell
Last year Caldwell just had some thrift shop stuff piled up, and then merchandised their cigars around them. They were trying to sell to the urban hipster style shop owner. It wasn’t very impressive, and although their cigars are good, really good actually, it didn’t really look that way. I guess they learned their lesson. This year they invested in large graphic posters for each blend, as well as a large booth. It really showed off their product better & told their story better. Kudos Robert Caldwell.
Best Booth – Boutique Blends, Runner-up – Mombacho Cigar
This wasn’t really a “brand”, but instead a collaboration of a group of small boutique blends. Unlike other collaboration brands like House of Emilio, Mombacho presented a cohesive story. Each cigar from the Hennessy flavored cigars to the collector’s edition art box cigars were displayed together. They did have separate displays of everything, but they also combined them together. The Art Box cigars also completely sold out, so they were doing something right!
Blends We Are Anxious To Try
This category, despite there being only 400 new blends this year (versus 1200 last year), is really an article unto itself. As such, we wrote that article. Click here to read it.
Best Booth Bunny – Villiger “La Capitana” Girl
Again, this year there were a lot of the same faces, even in the Booth Bunnies. There was also a noticeable lack of booth bunnies. Yes, the big guys had their girls there to attract the shop owners, but there were far fewer then last year in Las Vegas. It could be because of New Orleans, it could be because the lower attendance of the show (there was only about 600 retailers in attendance the first day versus last year when there was some 1000 retailers). Of the booth bunnies that we did see, I would say that the Villiger La Capitana Girl was the sweetest & most beautiful. Check out her pic, I’m sure you would agree.
Best Booth Bunny, Runner up – Swinger Golf Cart Girl
She was young, sweet, blonde and drove everyone from one end of the show to the other. The New Orleans Convention Center is really, really, really long. Ryan Gallimore of Swinger Cigar Co. had the brilliant idea of getting a golf cart & driving retailers from one end of the show to the other. With the approval of the show organizers, he got the cart, and hired Markie to drive people around. At one point, we wanted to get some lunch, so we walked all the way down to the end of the show, only to realize that the lunch booths were at the opposite side of the hall. Ugh! Thank God Markie (the Swinger Girl’s name) came along with the cart & drove us down to the other end. Although not the best driver in the world – almost comical to be honest – she tried hard & was really appreciated. Thanks Ryan from Swinger for providing the transportation & Markie for driving us around the first day!
