New York City Gift Fair
Wednesday the 4th of February
Last week, Candice, Priscilla & I headed into the cold of New York City to attend the annual New York International Gift Fair held at the Jacob Javits Convention Center. The event draws in large volumes of a variety of industry workers, from wedding planners to department store buyers. For those who may be unaware of what a gift fair consists of, thousands of international vendors rent out "booths" to market and sell their various products and services, typically at wholesale price in bulk quantities. Booth categories range from Homemade Crafts to Bath & Bedding to General Gifts. This year, the Javits Center housed over 3,000 exhibitors which were handpicked to serve more than 36,000 buyers.
As event planners, our primary focus was in the General Gifts section as we searched for fun trends in favors, gifts and décor items for our current and future clients. From 9:30am to 4:00pm, the three of us trekked down aisle after aisle, searching for ideas and meeting with some wonderful vendors. For an upcoming wedding, we researched straw baskets and fans, as well as some very cute table centerpiece umbrellas. For another wedding, we found the perfect table lamps to add to our centerpiece design!
We also of course browsed stationery booths for fabric, ribbon and specialty paper to add to our new design division inventory. We found some beautiful new papers that are sure to add a touch of personality to our clients invitations and decor pieces.
Of course as Candice is a crazy purse lover, we must admit that we also scoped out some personal goodies for ourselves and some amazing prices!
We found the gift fair to be a great place to spark design and décor ideas. The fair was full of unique and fun items that you may have never even thought of to incorporate in your event. We must have exclaimed 'oh we should do this!' or 'let's show (bride) this idea!' over and over again. Thankfully we had our notepads and cameras handy.
After a tiring but fun day, we headed home to start sharing some of the awesome new design trends and favor ideas we had found with the team and our clients.
To learn more about the gift show you can visit their website: www.nyigf.com.
Happy Planning!!!
Nicole
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