Today, IRDC is a Man

It’s always hard to believe that we’re about to head off to IRDC. It’s also hard to believe that’s the thirteenth time I’m saying that.

This year, IRDC turns 13. In Jewish tradition, IRDC is about to become a man. (We will have the party; we won’t have the reading from the Torah.) And I feel like the proud father.

When I came to VMSD in 2000, I came with the strong belief that this industry needed an event of this kind. GlobalShop was great for finding suppliers and reconnecting with the industry. But the industry also yearned for more.

What I had learned from my years at DDI was that store planners, store designers, visual merchandisers, construction and operations people functioned in silos back home. Nobody else at HQ really knew what you did, or placed a great deal of value in it as long as new stores were opened on time and under budget, and sales prospered.

However “you guys” get that done, just do it.

But when “you guys” get together in the same room, suddenly you’re surrounded by people who understand and value the process, who know and have experienced the challenges of just getting it done, every time.

You all speak the same language, have the same problems and, this being the way this small industry is, most of you have all known each other for years anyway, worked together and sat at the same planning tables.

So why not an event at which you all spend three days in a nice venue, learning, interacting, networking, eating and drinking, sharing war stories?

The key, though, would have to be the learning part – it had to be sophisticated, useful, applicable, motivational, inspirational, reinforcing, something you brought back home with the conviction you’d been helped and you couldn’t afford to miss this event the following year.

The birth of it all wasn’t promising. A month before our launch in Orlando, terrorists flew into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. People were afraid to fly. Companies put embargos on employee travel. We had day after day of cancelled conference registrations.

Then an anthrax scare shut down  Disney World, of all places, for several days.

And Peter Glen, who was going to deliver his special brand of personality to the entire event, passed away. If you’re looking for omens to tell you to forget it, you have a trifecta. Macbeth’s witches.

But we persisted, and so did a core group of you. And we persisted yet again through hurricane scares that almost wiped out two straight IRDCs in Miami Beach in 2002 and 2003. Both storms veered up the Atlantic Coast on the very eve of the conference and we had gorgeous weather. Maybe the omens were turning in our favor.

Over the years, the industry gained confidence that this was a worthwhile event, and attendance grew.

So here we go again, to spectacular Vancouver, to celebrate what we hope is a turn upwards in the industry; to celebrate what this year is truly, more than ever, an international conference; to celebrate new brands, new concepts, new technology; to celebrate Starbucks as our Retailer of the Year – and to celebrate each other.

Mazel tov. And l’chaim! See you in Vancouver.