NY Restaurant show

In this years walk and talk of the NY restaurant show we saw the following compared to previous years (By the way, we walk the entire show at least twice) :

1) Lots and lots of Bakery items. Similar to last year as far as the number of cookies, croissants, cakes and specialty sweets. The move towards individual high taste desserts has not changed at all.

2) This year, spirits and beer sections were interspersed vs. last year when they were in one section. It seemed like a lot more fun last year, but perhaps for the vendor it made more sense to diminish the party atmosphere helping them to speak with serious buyers. I think last year they were overwhelmed with dispensing.

3) We always see new vendors and entrepreneurs at trade shows who tell us, "we just started with this show." There seem to be many this year. Innovation never ends.

However we often scratch our heads with wonder as to why any person or company would begin sales, their first days, with a trade show. I suppose it works now and then, but we have seen less than 1% of these efforts ever succeed to come back in subsequent years. It seems that new trade show exhibitors expect too much. I have to imagine it might work this way in other industries, but not ours.

4) The show was rocking busy! Once again, the exposition company got the people there.