For those of you who know me, you know I like to tell it like it is. I want to let everyone on IdeaTango know how the 2008 InventBay Expo went last weekend.

Here are some people I talked to that will say a lot about the show:

• Bonnie Griffin-Kaake, executive director of the UIA, past president: “We’ve signed up more people to be a part of the UIA at this show, than ANY other show we’ve done.”
• Beth from the Big Idea Group who was on hand reviewing over 60 exhibitors’ products over the weekend: “The products we saw were of better quality than we’ve ever seen at our road shows.” They put on road shows across the country dozens of times per year, so to say that our show had better products says a lot about all of you.
• When asked if they were happy they came and plan on coming back next year, both Brian Gates of Design My Idea and Billy Carmen from Product News Channel said something to the equivalent of “definitely.”

Overall, I’d say that the best thing about the show was the amount of exposure people with products could get. We had:

• The Tonight Show with Jay Leno filming for their Pitch to America segment,
• the Emmy Award winning PBS TV Show Everyday Edisons filming,
• a new Discovery Channel show Pitch Men filming - Billy Mays (from Oxy Clean and Mighty Putty),
• Big Idea Group reviewing products,
• Product News Channel reviewing products and filming.

These opportunities gave inventors their chance to be in spotlight, and more importantly, a chance to hone their pitch for media and investors.

Overall, there were about 100 inventor exhibitors and 25 commercial exhibitors. We had roughly 1,000 attendees made up of investors, product scouts, curious inventors, and manufacturers. Considering it was our first year, we were very happy with the results. I spoke to someone who runs these types of shows and they said the first show is usually not near as good as ours - that’s a true compliment.

I was very pleased to see a couple individuals there that I weren’t sure would make it. Gary Sullivan from All Star Marketing was there looking for products. Stephen Key, a partner of IdeaTango, was there scoping out the scene. We had several individuals who worked as QVC reps, including Kim Babjak and Jan Mink. Billy Mays, who most people recognize from a number of infomercials like OxyClean and Mighty Putty, was there with the Discovery Channel. Of course there were numerous others that I met and didn’t meet, but had heard about the show one way or another.

Thanks to all IdeaTango members who supported us there, either by being an exhibitor like Tiger Taco, or just attending to hear some fantastic speakers. We received tons of very positive feedback, and some great ideas on how we can improve for next year.

Bryan Daigle