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Sep
27
Interbike Expo Day 1 and Cross Vegas
By Rich Kelly, Filed Under Attendee News, Exhibitor News, Interbike
No time for photos tonight. I’m too tired after the long day (and night) to download the pictures off the camera and resize them and upload them tonight. I got some great ones, so I will definitely get to them.
Today was day one of the indoor tradeshow. We had the Bikes Belong-Interbike Koffee reception this morning. Gave away 1,000 stainless travel mugs (not disposable!) this morning. I hope someone saved one for me since I was in the Media Center for the beginning of programming there.
The first program each morning in Good Morning Interbike. We managed to line up all the guests for all 3 days ahead of time this year so I wouldn’t have to tackle people in the aisles and drag them over to booth 5175. This morning we had Sheldon Brown, Tim Rutledge of Redline Bicycles, and Mike Sinyard, founder and president of Specialized lined up. Mike was set to be the person who would open up the show with a countdown to the doors opening.
Everything’s all set with our Cycling.TV crew (all AWESOME guys, by the way) when 5 minutes till we go live, their distribution amp died. I didn’t know what one was, but now I do. Without one of them, the signal can’t get out to all the monitors we had throughout the show and lobby areas. We managed to get the live Internet stream working, but no one at the show could see us. Arrgh! We started the show late and did the show as normal with the countdown, but it lost it’s impact without the signal to the screens for retailers out in the lobby waiting to get in and in line getting their badges.
We go thigs straightened out about an hour later, but the damage was done. We still had a great day in the MC, but it wasn’t perfect.
Retailers showed up in droves and attendance numbers for the first day are up across the board over last year. And last year was up over the previous year. That made me fell better. Most importantly, the vibe was great. Lots of happy retailers and manufacturers.
Saw the usual cast of celebrities. Since I was walking around with James, a Cycling.TV cameraman, capturing video highlights of the show, I got to meet and interview a bunch of celebs including Dave Mirra, Magnus Backstedt, Nelson Vails, Stuart O’Grady, Alberto Contador and Gary Fisher, among others. All of them were really friendly and happy about being in town. Good people, these cyclists…
Other media companies’ programs in the Media Center had more celebs. I managed to catch Levi Leipheimer, Tom Danielson, and Steve Hegg on the couch in the MC.
Around 5pm I did a quick interview with the guys from BicycleRadio.com about how the show was going. They were camped out in the “lounge” area of the MC doing a special broadcast of their show. It’s different than the typical online bike shows. You should give Sean and the guys a listen.
It’s getting late. Wait a minute, it IS late (12:21am), so I have to wrap up. Before I go, I HAVE to mention Cross Vegas. Wow. What an event. The venue was in a soccer complex and was mostly hard grass fields with rolling hills and some paved paths. It was a really fast course. It seemed like half the Interbike attendees were out cheering on the racers and brought a party attitude. It was packed and everyone was having a great time. The guys at DBC that organized the race did, I think, a flawless job: great venue, great announcers (Richard Fries and Dave Towle), entertainment (Elvis held the lap cards and sang “Viva Cross Vegas” between the men’s and women’s races, and very strong fields of racers. A VERY welcome addition to Interbike week, if I may say so myself. Hats off to Chris and Brook and their team! And, I wan to add that an audience made up entirely of bike industry people makes for an electric atmosphere ate a bike race, let me tell you.
I guess against our better judgment, following the race, we decided to hit the famous Sinclair Imports party at the Mirage. It was a new venue at the Jet nightclub and was packed. It’s an invite only party that most of the Interbike celebrities show up to. The line was long, but our passes (we’re Interbike, after all) got us right in.
One surprise to most people at the party was the presence of a one Mario Cipollini. Not surprisingly, he was surrounded by a circle of women on the dance floor. He hasn’t made an appearance at the show yet, so this is the first sighting. I’ve been working with his partners at Max Lelli Bikes for a week or so on some promo stuff for him at the show, so I had the rare opportunity to act like a big shot and walk right up to his group and have them know who I was. I chatted with them for a bit about their time in the Media Center on Thursday morning and was introduced to Mario. “Hello, Rich. Nice to meet you.” he said. We’ll all get to see more of him tomorrow at about 9:30 for an interview in the MC and then in a presentation for his friend, and former pro himself, Max Lelli’s new bike line.
You should be able to catch it live on our website. If all goes well with our
technology, that is.
BTW, we have been having a slow go at encoding all our shows and highlight videos at the end of each day because of the busy schedule in the MC. The gear and crew have been focussed on recording and editing. Be patient because we got tons of great footage from the Demo and day one! It may be slow to get up, but it will be quality.
Cheers! See you on day two at the Sands!
