I arrived yesterday in Salt Lake City, UT for the 25th year for the Summer Outdoor Retailer show where thousands of outdoor industry companies are here to showcase their new products to eager retailers from around the country. This is the main stage for Timex’s line of outdoor and sports watches including Expedition and the Ironman line.

As the Manager of Events and Sponsorships, I am responsible for overseeing every operation that goes in to making our show happen from the overall look and setup of the booth to staff shirts. Luckily we have an outside vendor that handled all of our shipping and actual booth set up for this show so my main task is to make sure everything is here and in one piece and be ready to handle any issues that may arise.

Yesterday when I arrived, I went down to the show and met Jamie with Access who is handling our booth set up and interrupted him while he was gluing back together one of our video/watch display towers that had been damaged in shipping. I said to Jamie, “If that’s the worst thing that we have to deal with for the entire show, then I’ll take it”.

If you have ever worked a trade show or any type of off site event, you will know that no matter how prepared you are, something is always bound to go wrong so it comes down to a matter of how good you are at making it work.

So far, Salt Lake seems to be a pretty quiet city and shows very little signs that they hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics. The town sits at around 4,000 feet and the views of the mountains are breathtaking. Yesterday I strolled by Temple Square in the heart of downtown, which is home to the Tabernacle Choir, the Salt Lake Temple and lush and lavish gardens. If you are ever in Salt Lake you need to take a tour, it’s beautiful!

Down to the front desk I go where 18 boxes are waiting for me to transport to the convention center to put my finishing touches on the booth and get ready for the first day of the show tomorrow.

(PS, no burrito yet but I’m scoping out the scene!)