Orlando Show Is Now Business Before Bling

I won’t be attending this week’s PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, but I usually try to go every three or few years.

Gregg Schubert, our head professional, goes every year. He goes down for Canadian PGA meetings, so if there’s anything we’re looking for, he can take care of it.

I’ll never forget my first show in Orlando. It was back in the late ‘90s and I was an assistant associate at Cottonwood. At the time, it was like a big Disneyland, just all-out everything. I was like a deer in the headlights when I walked through that front door at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando.

I’d only been in the business five or six years at the time and all I had seen was the Alberta show, which is a great buying show, but you walk into the Orlando show and nothing can compare you for it the first time you see it.

My last visit was three years ago and I still think I got as much out of it and perhaps even more because the hype was gone and it was just learning about whatever products you were searching for, but without all the fluff stuff from my first experience.

That first time I went, you would see Greg Norman at one booth, Fred Couples at another, Annika Sorenstam over there – it was wild. When I went three years ago, I still saw a bit of that, but it didn’t seem as loud and blingy as it was before.

It’s more business now. What I liked about it the last time was there were education seminars. The PGA of America has some wonderful education tools.

The Canadian night is always good and you can spend time networking with people from across the country. It’s a good time of year because people are just getting their operations going again, they’re sharing ideas, so the networking opportunities are definitely there.

Also, I went to the demo day the last time I went and learned a ton that day. That alone was worth it for me.

A lot of people out here plan trips around the show. A lot of them have families, so they go to the show and go to Disney as well. The only problem is that it’s a tough place to get to from here.

I think it’s still a good show. Would you ever give up the opportunity to learn more?

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