These shows come every six months, part of clothing week in Vegas, so this is the third setup that I have seen since starting work here. It is interesting watching a big empty concrete room turn into an exhibit space. On Monday they were marking the floors, Tuesday was installation of electrical to each booth area, Wednesday was installation of carpets, stanchions and draperies in addition to the start of move in for shipping crates. Thursday was the finishing of crate move in and the start of booth setup by participants, which will be completed Friday in time for show opening on Saturday. It looks like the same booths are in the same locations – I guess when a company likes a location on the show floor they continually reserve the same space.
On the corner in about the middle today is a very large crate with the label ‘Panties Plus’. This company has been in the same corner location all three shows. Yes, the crate is a big wooden box about four by four feet ten feet long. It is crammed with pretty colored woman’s panties. Usually there are two crates, so the other one should show up soon. The first time I saw these I wondered who would be manning the booth, and whether or not we would enjoy models. Unfortunately there are no models downstairs at the lower priced show. But many booths upstairs have models; some even have painted ladies (as seen last time). That reminds me – have to go upstairs on opening day and check it out.
Anyway, back to Panties Plus (say it again Joe) – as a total surprise the booth is manned by orthodox Jewish men. Yes; yarmulkes, black clothes, long hair and beards. For some reason it seems very amusing to me to see a booth full of colorful panties with these guys in front describing their wares. I guess a lot of lower cost garments are made in Israel, there are quite a few booths in this show manned by men in yarmulkes, and it is one of the few shows where food service puts out kosher meals. I think the only other show where kosher is served is the big jewelry one.
A few weeks ago we had the large gift show here. In many ways it is very similar to the clothing show down there now; it seems aimed at providing items that you don’t really need at cheap prices. Here it’s really thin glittery silkscreened T shirts and socks with the logo of your favorite sports team. For the gift show it’s hand blown glass trinkets and plaster statues and fountains and all kinds of stuff that you find in the little shops in the back of the mall that you wonder how they survive selling those things. And most of their stuff also arrives in wooden crates. But clothes can all be thrown in (sorry, nicely folded) to a crate and shipped off, the gift stuff has to be wrapped and packed so that it does not break. This results in lots of packing materials left strewn around after show closing and packing.
Well, it keeps our housekeeping department well staffed and busy, as well as providing for the dumpster rental company and trash truck drivers.
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