On March 25th we attended the Nightclub and Bar Show in Las Vegas. This was our first time exhibiting in Las Vegas and we were excited to bring our line of portable bars to the convention. A lot of the big names in the industry attend this event such as the show’s host, Jon Taffer from Spike’s Bar Rescue!
Unlike our last trade show where we had no idea what to expect, Alasdair attended the NCB show last year so we had some idea of what the show was going to be like. The Nightclub and Bar Show is the leading event in “bar and nightclub management techniques.”
The NCB show is notorious for their parties and events, it is Vegas after all. Each night there was a different party to attend at the various popular Vegas nightclubs with Ludacris performing at the opening party.
Here’s a shot of the massive opening party at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.
The show isn’t all fun and games, there is some serious learning to be done here. The event is a great place to see new and innovative products and learn from some of the best industry professionals. With workshops on how to deliver great customer experiences, hiring and training new employees, and strategies for pricing and costs behind the bar, there is a lot gain for your business. We particularly enjoyed the common mistakes people make when designing a bar. It was a nice reminder that our bars
Adam Carolla chose our Portable Bars
We first linked up with Adam last year when we sent him a custom Standard Bar for his Mangria brand. We re-connected with his team for the Nightclub and Bar Show and they loved our new Flash Bar so much that they chose to use it for their booth display. We supplied them with custom branding for their popular drink, Mangria, as well as two Standard Bars.
Adam was even featured on CNBC with our bars in the background. Don’t worry, we are hunting that footage down!
Here’s a shot of the Flash Bar with Mangria signage:
Portable Bar Co at the NCB Show
We flew in early on Saturday to set up for the show. Keeping the same strategy from the Rental Show, we served smoothies to the convention guests, but we made a goof. We forgot to get ice scoopers for the smoothies on the first day. Goes to show that no matter how much you planing you do, something will slip through the cracks. Overall, no one seemed to mind as the real attention grabbers were our portable bars.
On display we had our Flash Bar, Professional Bar, Standard Bar, and Compact Bar. People were really digging the modularity of the Flash Bar and the fully featured, portable Professional Bar. The entire show was a blast. We met some awesome people in the nightclub, bar, and restaurant industry. We introduced our line of portable bars and heard consumer feedback as well as made some sales. We even took the opportunity to make a new video for our Standard Bar since it has gone through a few upgrades. We’ll be releasing that video soon.
We spoke with a lot of owners and managers planning on using the new bars they picked up at the show on the patio during the summer and for special events and catering year around.
Here are some more photos from Nightclub and Bar 2014:
What’s next?
We aren’t sure what the next trade show we will be exhibiting at but we’ve learned a lot and met some great people at the past two shows. It’s been very rewarding to get out and meet industry professionals and hear their feedback on our products.