Jun 2, 2009

Summer 2009 Edition of the Seattle Gift Show

Seattle, Washington — From August 22 – 25 Seattle is the city of good shopping, good ideas and even better deals. That’s because the summer edition of the semi-annualSeattle Gift Show will bring nearly 500 exhibiting companies and 8,000 retail buyers to the Washington State Convention & Trade Center, promising to keep you sleepless in Seattle as you navigate the aisles sourcing the best in everything the Northwest has to offer. With Seattle ranking 13th among the 362 markets nationwide in terms of effective buying income this is not a show anyone can afford to miss!

“The Pacific Northwest is well known for progressive attitudes and innovative movements and the Seattle Gift Show is a reflection of this,” says Jenay Root, Manager of the Seattle Gift Show. “Due to uncertain times and an ever-changing marketplace, finding new ways to strengthen your business is more critical than ever. The Seattle Gift Show provides a cost effective way to source thousands of gift, home and lifestyle products from suppliers who are eager to help retailers succeed.”

With an eye towards the value-added component, this summer’s Seattle Gift Show will be providing free educational and professional training seminars designed to help exhibitors and retailers alike improve their skills in an increasingly competitive environment.

This year’s schedule includes seminars conducted by two of the industry’s most-popular and sought-after speakers. Lynn Switanowski-Barrett, Founder of the Creative Business Consulting Group, will bring us up to speed on the ever-morphing cyber-society with her lectures Are you Blogging, Facebooking, Twittering and Flikring your Way to New Customers? and its companion talk Social Networking 201: Yapping on Yelp, Babbling on Blogs, Finding Fans on Facebook for your business — Now what? Linda Cahan, Visual Expert, will talk about staying relevant and necessary to your customers and finding creative ways to renovate your store on a limited budget.

“Lynn and Linda are both internationally known experts who have an intuitive understanding of what our exhibitors and retailers need,” says Root. “Just as important, they anticipate the questions that everyone will be asking to keep up-to-speed with evolving market trends.”

In addition, this year features a professional training in public relations and promotion by David Perry, whose award-winning firm has handled such events as the running of the Olympic Torch. Entitled PR 101: Promotion in the Digital Age, the seminar will dovetail with the Show’s new on-floor “Seattle Live” Media and Video Center designed to give exhibitors and attendees hands-on advice throughout the show and provide a vehicle whereby interested participants can video-tape their own “live from the show” testimonials and post them to such sites as YouTube and Faebook

“Our goal is to bring together buyers and retailers but also to forge relationships between the media – traditional and new – and our show attendees,” says Root. “David will not only offer practical advice throughout his seminar, but through our new on-floor ‘Seattle Live’ video studio, distribute real-time reports from the Show to the blogosphere and traditional press as well.”

Understanding that all work and no play make Jack a dull buyer, show attendees will get the opportunity to root for the home team, the Seattle Mariners, as they take on the Oakland A’s at Safeco Field in a special “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” event on Monday, August 24th.

The semi-annual Seattle Gift Show is managed by GLM, a dmg world media business and will take place August 22 — 25, 2009 at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center. Exhibitors seeking information should contact show manager Jenay Root at (213) 430-2311 orjroot@glmshows.com. Attendee information may be obtained by contacting GLM Customer Relations at (800) 272-SHOW (7469) or (603) 665.7524. Visit www.seattlegift.com for more detailed information about the show.