Updated: IGC East has new location, name

 

PHILADELPHIA – The IGC Show has just signed a multi-year contract with the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center at Oaks, Pennsylvania, as the new hub for IGC East. 

 

IGC Show organizers also announced a new focus for the East event, which will be held August 2-4, 2016. The offerings will now target the special interests of Eastern IGC retailers with regionally relevant keynotes, educational conference sessions and peer-to-peer networking opportunities, including Tuesday evening’s concert. To more precisely convey this Eastern niche focus, the event is taking on a new name:  EIGC – The Eastern Show for IGCs

 

“After carefully considering the post-show surveys from our 2015 Baltimore IGC Show this past summer, we determined there was a sufficient level of concern among both attendees and exhibitors about the location,” IGC Show Co-founder Jeff Morey said in a press release. “So when we were presented with the opportunity to relocate our East show to the Greater Philly Expo Center, we said, ‘We owe it to our loyal supporters to check it out.’

 

“As we weighed the decision to relocate our East show, the safety and stability of the Greater Philly Expo Center’s suburban location was the first key advantage that stood out. This centrally located facility is easy to get to from virtually anywhere in the East."

 

Morey said in a phone interview that the "positive buzz" he got initially when moving to Baltimore quickly faded.

 

"People just did not feel safe in Baltimore. As much as we were very committed to staying in Baltimore -- it was a very tough deicison to make because we had planned to stay there indefinitely -- but we had to swallow hard and say apparently this was not meant to be," he says. "We were quite excited about it ... that diminished pretty quickly after a few months with the riots that broke out in the city last spring."

 

With the new focus and name, Morey says he hopes that it's clear that this is a specialized show for retailers in the East, adding that only about 12 percent of attendees at Chicago's show were from the East Coast. Retail attendee and vendor numbers at past IGC East shows, which averaged 3,000 and 525 respectively, have been about half of what they see in Chicago, Morey says.  

 

"I feel there is a niche for an eastern show," he says. "We are trying to suggest with that name and make clear that this is not, I think to some degree we erred in saying this is the IGC Show with two locations and you decide [which to atttend,] as if it was kind of like McDonald's with two locations or something. But that’s really not the case. It is an eastern addition of the IGC show, and we are trying to make it eastern in nature." Meaning the keynotes and education are meant to be targeted for that segment of the country. 

 

This will be IGC East's third location, but Morey hopes to make Philadelphia a permanent home for at least the next 15 years. Once that's established, he has sights on launching an IGC West.

 

"I like a good project, and we’re going to work hard on making East work. Once we get that fully established, the West Coast show is very much on my agenda. I want to do it before it’s all over with," he said, adding that the goal would be to host it in San Diego. "That would probably be in February of some year. I can’t name the year. It all depends on the timeline and on when East establishes itself."

 

For more information, visit www.IGCshow.com.