TNNA Summer Show 2014 - NKK Wholesale

On May 1st, we trekked to Indianapolis from Raleigh for the 2014 Summer Show. It was a long drive 11+ hours with stops. 5x8 trailer in tow. This had been our 10th or 11th TNNA Summer show. Settting up the booth took most of a day as it always does. As we are both in our 60's now, it gets a little harder each year to make this trip but we do it.

Our daughter, Lisa Shroyer, (editor of Knits) was at the show plus many people we know. It is always great to see them all. That is the best part of the show.

We introduced the Knit Blocker™ product that we designed for Knitter's Pride. It was a big success at the show and many, many orders were placed with Knitter's Pride's distributors.

Overall, the show seemed slow and had about 20% less attendees and fewer exhibitors than normal. Most shops were not buying it seemed and our sales looked more like 2006 than 2014.

Meanwhile, orders were flowing into our office back home from around the World. I believe we had more orders come in while we were gone than we received at the show! That used to happen when we attended the West Coast show years ago (we stopped attending that show a long time ago due to poor shop attendance).

Indianapolis, while farther away from our home than Columbus, turned out to be an interesting city, however. Although we felt that this venue probably contributed to the lower number of attendees because of the longer distance from the East, it really wasn't a bad venue.

On the long drive home, we concluded that this would be our last trade show. Trade shows are a thing of the past and are dying a slow death in many industries. In the months ahead we hope to develop a modern day solution which will appeal to many manufacturers, shops, and consumers. No travel required.

In the meantime, view our booth on the right from the 2014 TNNA show.

Bob Shroyer