Our first European Show
We promised we'd ruminate about small business and how we do what we do so here goes.
For a long time now we've been planning to spread the CapaBunga word further afield than just the US and Canada. While we have a number of other countries carrying our product we felt it was high time we showed them off in Europe. Before the pandemic we looked into a show in Frankfurt, Germany but that was Feb of 2020 right before the world stopped. Ultimately we settled on a show we felt was best for us - Maison et Objets in Paris. It was 2years later than we had originally planned but let's face it who wouldn't want a trip to Paris? It does help that I can speak the language even though I may not know all the business terms I should.
After dropping our kid to college on the East Coast we were able to take a shorter flight to France than we would normally but here's where small business can be all consuming. We landed at 9am after an overnight flight, a little bleary eyed with our two boxes of samples and luggage, took a taxi to the show, another one to Ikea, another one back to the show with our props for the booth and by 3pm we had the booth built and had earned ourselves a disco nap before dinner and one day off in the City of Lights.
We managed 24K steps the next day and a very tasty dinner at Granite recommended to us by a Chef friend from San Francisco. Here's the original Thinker and the CapaBunga Thinker in the Rodin Museum and Sculpture Gardens.
The first day of the show was really fun - it was strange after doing so many US shows to realize very few of our neighbors spoke English so during lulls in traffic I had to squeeze my brain to converse in French. It was a larger show than we were used to - more like the size of the International Housewares Show in Chicago but bigger again. We were in the Cook & Share section which was only one of 8+sections and the traffic was steadier than we'd seen at recent US shows.
We met customers and potential distributors from Kuwait, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Scandinavia, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and many others besides. We had tasty baguettes every day for lunch and croissants for breakfast. We clocked at least 15K steps a day and generally just enjoyed the whole experience. And yes, I even got to feed my modern jewelry obsession by shopping on the last day.
Here's a quick video of our award winning tote in the booth. The Market Tote and the CapaBubbles were definitely a hit with the exhibitors and attendees.
The hard work of follow up is now on but we're excited to see our products find a new audience in Europe. Merci à Paris et à Maison et Objets!
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