My Trip to PLATFORM: Outrageous in Las Vegas
If you're wondering why my posts have been scarce these days, it's because I was off being fabulous at the 2013 Platform Show in Las Vegas. If you don't know anything about the show, it's part of a convention called Magic where various Fashion brands come to Vegas and display their newest lines for next season's retail. Platform refers solely (no pun intended) to the convention involving only shoe brands and is held at the Las Vegas Convention center. In other locations in Vegas there are other conventions withing Magic such as the ready-to-wear clothing section called Project. I spent most of my time at Platform because, well, I'm in the shoe business and I happen to love shoes! Anyway, before I get to the glitz and glam of this trip, let me go back to the beginning and start with the flight from hell I took to get there.
The Flight
Let me just say that I never LOVED to fly. I don't mind flying for the most part, but if I had the option to sprout a pair of wings and fly myself to Vegas, I would choose it over the cabin of recycled air, bad food, crying children, and the horrendous smell of body odor coming from the weirdos sitting next to me. From my experience, these things tend to come as a package with any flight. So as I was saying, I get to the airport and feeling drowsy as I usually do in the mornings, afternoons, and nights after a bender, and I go slowly through security until I reach the destination of my gate and took a nap. I woke to the sound of my flight being boarded and I pushed a few old people out of my way to make the front of the line and take my seat. I took another nap...until all hell broke loose.
It had seemed that so far my journey was a smooth one. However, as I was tired for the beginning of the flight, I hadn't noticed that in the window seat in front of me and the window seat behind me sat two children, two 2-year olds.
I woke up to the sound of screaming children 2 hours into my 6 hour flight. I was a bit annoyed, but I realize these things happen. I was trying to control my annoyance, when the little screaming child behind starts kicking the back of my chair. First off, the kid was only 2, but she had legs of steel because it felt like my chair was one of those massage chairs at the nail salon when you accidentally switch the mode to karate chop. I couldn't take the beating anymore so I turned around and (very passive aggressively) asked the child's mother if she was ok and mentioned that "in case you didnt know, she had been drilling into the back of my seat for a half hour now." Thinking this confrontation would end the kicking immediatly, I turned around, put headphones in, and tried to watch TV.
5 minutes later, I feel a pull on the left sleeve of my sweater. The little girl was now pulling my sweater from behind the chair and laughing. She got her nail stuck in the threads of my sweater and then began to slowly unravel my sleeve as she pulled away. I grabbed my sweater and turned back to her mother to say "excuse me, she is pulling my sweater!" and the mother (who was around my age and oblivious to the intolerability of her child) smiled and said "I think she likes you!" I was livid. I smiled and tried to resume the show I was watching, but seconds later, I feel a pull on my hair coming from the back window seat (of course). I quickly pull my hair from the child's grip and lean into the girl next to me away from the child. However, even after releasing my hair, I felt it being pulled. It is at this point where I realize the kid had stuck her lollipop in my hair and it was dangling from my head. I could have died, I was hot, bothered, annoyed, crankly, and now with a sticky lollipop stuck in my hair that took out half of my strands when I had to pull it out. I turn once again to the mother and say "your daughter just got a lollipop in my hair. I am trying to rest and it is hard with her pulling on me." The mother answered "yeah, she does that sometimes, I think its that she likes you." Then she turned and resumed talking to the man sitting next to her. I could feel myself boiling up with anger as I continued to swat away the sticky hands that kept trying to grab me.
..and if you think this flight was horrendous so far, you will not believe what happened next...
Another half hour goes by which makes us about 3 1/2 hours into the flight, when I feel something dripping on my arm. I don't have to look to know its the little girl sabotaging my flight again. I look to see what she had dripping on me and noticed she was drinking milk from a bottle and it smelled like it had curdled. I was sick, physically nauseas, and mentally close to a psychotic break. I say to the little girl "No I do not want that, that milk is dripping on me - give it to your mom." The child just smiles at me with a hint of pure evil gleaming in her eyes and throws the entire bottle onto my lap where the cap comes loose and the milks spills all over me. I yelled - not just a startled yell, but I yelled with the anger more powerful than the fire of a thousand suns. I whip my head around and stared at the child, then at the mother and say "I'm sorry, but I have had enough. Your child has been ruining my flight for 3 hours now and I understand that she's only a kid and probably antsy to get off this flight, but it is your job to control her from kicking my seat, pulling my hair, and spilling milk on me." The mother just laughed and said "ok, no problem!" But it was a problem. I went to the bathroom to try and wash the disgusting milk off me and splash water on my face. Just as I was approaching my seat I overhear the mother saying to her child, "Honey I'm sorry, mommy has no milk left, she left her pump in the suitcase." After hearing this it was if the world started spinning around me. All I could think of is the milk that had spilled all over me was breast milk. breast milk. Seriously WTF!? I turned around and ran into the bathroom because I was pretty sure I may be sick.
And that began my trip to Vegas....
The Hotel
Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas
After checking in to the Hard Rock Hotel, I rushed up to my room to shower the previous flight right off me and get going to the Platform show. Although my day of travel was horrendous, my experience at the Hard Rock proved that my day could only get better. When I checked in, the woman at the front desk asked me if I had planned on having a smoking room. I told her no, I needed non-smoking. This request worked in my favor because there were no non smoking rooms available in the standard rooms and she had to switch my room to a Suite free of charge! I went up to my room and opened the door to this:
...and this...
Oh, and this...
...my view...
Lastly, at night I got to see this..
So now that I am done bragging, I can tell you that I really only spent minimal time here because I was at the show, but all and all pretty suite huh?
The Show
I went to the Platform Show located at the Las Vegas Convention Center. It was AMAZING! I have never seen so many shoes in one place in my life!! The show was set up in this huge white room and white lighting which really made the colorful shoes on display stand out like eye candy. The show was set up so that there were numbered aisles split up by category (dress shoes, comfort, ect) and each aisle contained booths for each brand attending in which they would display their spring 2013 and fall 2013 styles.
Here are some images provided by the Platform Website
I attended the show as a buyer, which meant I would approach specific brands and ask if they would like to sell their product on our site, shoeline.com. Of course, this cant always be easy when your awkward like me, but I made it work- pheww! I did find myself wandering around the maze of booths and getting lost and turning around and then having to stop and map my way out. I got really lost on the lower level and I must have passed by one booth about 5 times, staring desperatly at my Platform map for a way out when I overheard one of the younger representative say to another "Dude, this girl is definitely lost..." I was embarassed, so I pretended to call someone on my phone to make it less awkward and ended up talking on the phone to no one in between meetings from that point on. Sometimes its better to pretend you have friends and an idea of where you are at these things, even if it means having a fake phone conversation with a made up person who happens to be really interested in what you do and also thinks your pretty damn awesome.
The second day was very busy. My boss and I were in meetings with clients all day. I got to stop by the booths of clients whose product we already sell and take a look at whats in store for the Spring and Fall 2013. It's really cool to be able to see the product before it is seen by the public, I can get a good idea of whats in style and can then get a head start on whats trending for next season and look better than everyone else - ha! One booth I really enjoyed was the Isola booth. They had the cutest pumps in all different styles and colors. Isola is a brand that I have fallen in love with on shoeline.com, here are some of their past styles:
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Unfortunately you can't see what they have for Spring 2013 until they make the line public, so keep checking shoeline.com to see the newest styles from Isola!
Shop Isola HERE
So that's my trip to Las Vegas for 2013 Platform. For more information on the MAGIC Marketplace, PLATFORM and any other shows hosted by MAGIC, Click HERE!