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Blog posts from January, 2013

Spring is in the Air!
Stormy Weather

In Toronto, January 30 is typically the coldest day of the year. Not this year. This year, it was a spring-like 14C outside, and aside from the rain, beautiful. And while the rest of the country may not be enjoying our spring-like weather (it was -29C with a feels like of -44C in Saskatchewan where my mom lives), Spring is just around the corner.

This beautiful weather got me thinking about outdoor weddings and outdoor events. If you have been putting together outdoor weddings for a while, you know all about Wedding-Style Event Chairs. And if your new in the business, you've probably seen them in weddings and events that they show on TV. It's a very beautiful, very simple chair that brides and wedding planners love. This bright, white, chair is easy to set-up and take down and stacks well making storage a breeze.

 

NES Reliable Resin Folding Chairs

Here at National Event Supply, we sell our NES Reliable White Resin Folding Chair. As the name states, it's made out of resin, or plastic. It's white all the way through, so that scratches aren't visible. With the resin chair, you don't have to worry about repainting scratches like you do with the wood chair. The resin also makes the chairs perfect for outdoor use. The resin contains an additive that protects the chairs from yellowing due to UV rays, and the resin easily wipes dry if the are accidently left out in the rain. The chairs aren't just beautiful, they're incredibly strong. In a previous blog, we did a stress test to show just how strong they were. They would be an incredible addition to your inventory.

 

Spring is a time of rebirth and this spring, we hope to introduce a bunch new products. From new products to new product categories, we'll be rolling new items out as we finalize deals with our factories. We hope to be announcing some of these products later in February after The Rental Show in Las Vegas. If you're at the show, we hope you'll stop by booth 4072 and talk to Dennis and the rest of the NES Trade Show Team about all of our products. If you can't make it to the show, why not request one of our catalogues?

Stormy image courtesy of Maggie Smith / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

BC Foodservice Expo 2013

The National Event Supply Trade Show Team were out in Vancouver again this weeked for the BC Foodservice Expo. We spent Saturday morning setting up the booth and then spent the afternoon exploring the city of Vancouver. We decided to go to Granville Island to check out the sights and experience more of Vancouver than their gorgeous convention centre. Granville Island in the middle of the city and there are tons of great restaurants to go to, a public market, a number of art galleries, the Emily Carr University of Art & Design as well as a number of other artisan studios. You can also visit an active micro brewery, The Granville Island Brewery. Granville Island has incredible views of the surrounding cityscape and there are yachts of every shape and size at water’s edge all around the island. It was quite busy for a cool, cloudy, winter day and I could only imagine how busy it would be in the summertime.

Pitcher of Granville Island Brewery LagerAfter strolling around for a while, we decided to go to Bridges Restaurant for lunch and enjoyed the Dine Out promotion. This two week program offers special lunch and dinner menus at a reduced price. For $20 I enjoyed a mixed garden salad, salmon on a bed of fettuccini and for dessert a Oreo Cookie Gelato. Jonathan had the same salad and dessert as I had, but had a Pulled Pork sandwich. Since we had such a busy morning setting our booth up for the BC Foodservice Expo we also decided to enjoy a pitcher of Granville Island Lager. You can tell by the smile on Jonathan’s face it was going down very well! We would both give the restaurant a 5 out for 5 for the lunches we were served. Service was great as well.

The BC Foodservice expo opened on Sunday at 11:00am with great fanfare and lots of activity around the BC Chefs Hot Competition. Our booth was in a great position with big Hospitality foodservice distributor Sysco across the aisle from us and Dudson China just around the corner at the end of the next aisle. We had great traffic for most of the day with Nahar from Discount Party Rentals coming from Abbotsford to take a look at our Quadrato Dinnerware, our Maria 18/10 Cutlery, and our wood folding tables. He was particularly pleased to hear we are now stocking a wide range of our wood and plastic folding tables and our plastic folding chairs and white resin folding chairs in Vancouver.

NES Trade Show Team Hard at Work

Later in the day we met with Charlie Huang of Peaceful Restaurant. Charlie was excited to discover how cost effective it is to buy square dinnerware like our Quadrato dinnerware from National Event Supply and discussed the possibility of working with NES to develop custom branded plates for his restaurant. While speaking with Charlie we found our that he was the only Chinese restaurant to appear on Diners, Drive-in & Dives with host Guy Fieri. Here’s the link to the show episode of Charlie appearing on Diners, Drive-ins & Dives.

All in all, we had a great time at the BC Foodservice Expo, and can hardly wait to get back to Vancouver again next year. If you couldn't make it to the show and you're interested in one of our catalogues, please fill out this form and we'd be happy to send you out a copy!

3 Things to See at the BC Foodservice Expo

This is the fourth year that we've exhibited at the BC Foodservice Expo. In past years we've seen a lot of cool things and met a lot of interesting people. This year we've been looking through the exhibitor list, the seminars, and other events that are being held and have picked out the three that we're most excited by.

Steaming Cup of CoffeeThe first thing that we're going to want to visit is the Coffee Roasters section located right beside the BC Chef's Association Hot Chefs Competition stage. Our Trade Show team is passionate about their coffee and I know they're going to want to explore that area and learn all that they can about the art of roasting coffee as well as sample the brews available. If you're passionate about your coffee, I'd highly recommend visiting the exhibitors and learning how good coffee can be. And if you need larger coffee mugs to serve your customers their morning caffeine jolt, we have you covered with coffee cups in 10oz, 16oz, and 20oz sizes. We also have cappuccino bowls.

Second on our list of things to see is the Winery and Microbrewery Section located right beside the seminar stage. Who wouldn't want to visit booths where you can sample some of BC's finest wines. And no one on the Trade Show team is going to say no to trying an interesting microbrew. If there's one thing the trade show team like more than good coffee, it's an ice cold beer. And if you happen to be looking for something to serve the wine in, we have our Serenity Crystal Stemware, our Copa Glass Stemware, and our Eclisse Glass Stemware. We also have beer glasses available in our Eclisse Line.

The Chairman-Iron Chef AmericaFinally, we highly recommend checking out the BC Chef of the Year Roasted Competition, The BC Chinese Chef of the Year Competition and the Hot Competition! Junior Chef Challenge. I have to admit that I spent an inordinate amount of time watching the Food Network over the Christmas Holidays (12 hour Iron Chef America Marathon? Don't mind if I do!). This is just like the Food Network, only live! We've been lucky of the past couple of years and our booth has been right next to the stage so we've been able to see a lot of the competition. If you need a break from visiting booths and are interested in seeing top chefs' techniques and meal ideas, this is an incredible way to spend some time.

If you're at the show, we hope you'll stop by our booth (138 & 140) and take a look at our products. We'll be showing off Polar White which is an incredible dinnerware line which we've just introduced. In addition, we'll have our other dinnerware and flatware lines available for viewing. Hope to see you at the show!

Coffee Cup Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

NES at the CRA Ontario Tabletop Show

This Saturday we were exhibiting at the Canadian Rental Association's Ontario Tabletop show which was held at the Nottawasaga Inn & Resort in Aliston, Ontario. While the show was held in a tabletop format we were still able to show off a number of our latest new product lines. We presented our new Wing Bowls (which have been hard to keep in stock), our latest dinnerware line, Polar White, as well as our Serenity Crystal stemware and Eclisse Glass stemware. Combined with our Tabletop and Table & Chair catalogues resulted in a full showing for our booth.

Bill and I were busy throughout the day meeting with a number of our customers including Mike from Happening Party Rentals, Collingwood and Christian from Totally Covered Events, Aliston each stopping by to check out our new Crystal Stemware and discuss some of the attributes of our NES Reliable Line of Plastic Folding Tables. We wrapped up the show with a long chat with Paul from Location Equipment Supply, Toronto about our extensive NES Reliable line of Plastic Folding Tables and Chairs including our NES Reliable 6ft Fold in Half Tables.

After the show everyone headed into the banquet hall at the Nottawasaga Inn Resort where we enjoyed a cocktail (or two) before sitting down for a superb dinner. We were served a Butternut Squash soup with a maple glazed breaded topping, a mixed greens salad with radicchio and spiced walnuts and for the finale we enjoyed Pan-seared pork tenderloin with a peach mango & chipotle glaze, with wild & white rice pilaf. The entire meal from start to finish was simply delicious.

Panel Game

To wrap up the evening we were entertained by Hart Entertainment with ‘Game Show Mania’, a quiz show where many of us were invited to be participants in the quiz based show. Contestants are asked simple well known everyday questions and raced to hit their buttons to be the first to answer. In the picture above we see Colin Wilson with his daughter Lauren (World of Rentals, Kingston), Paul Potvin (Location Equipment Supply, Toronto and CRA Ontario 2nd Vice President), Mike Maltby (Ingersoll Rentals and CRA Ontario President) and Gary Webb (LB White, Tampa). Paul and Gary were finalists in the contest with Paul becoming the eventual winner of the grand prize, half of the 50/50 pot that had been collected throughout the evening.

After the game show, Mike Maltby presented some awards including the Image Award to Hank from Tim’s Party Centre, Bowmanville and the Rental Store of the year was presented to Paul at Location Equipment Supply, Toronto. Wacker Nuesen were presented with the Ontario CRA Supplier of the year Award. Jeff Campbell the incoming CRA National President spoke briefly and noted the Canadian Rental Association was sponsoring a PR program that is available to all Members and Associate Members of the CRA. Since Jeff is being appointed CRA National President next month at 2013 Rental Show in Las Vegas, the PR firm used this as an opportunity to spread the news in Jeff’s local St. Thomas community. Jeff is now a celebrity throughout the community and has seen a nice jump in visits to his store, St. Thomas Rent-All.

Hank from Tim's Party Centre Paul from Location Equipment Supply
Hank from Tim's Party Centre Paul from Location Equipment Supply

Our Next Trade Show has us heading back out to the west coast for the BC Foodservice Expo on January 27 and 28, 2013. If you aren't going to be able to see us at a show, why not request our catalogue to see what we have in stock!

How Strong are Tall Plastic Folding Cocktail Tables?

Bag of QuestionsIt's been a little over a month since we posted our last stress test video blog on our NES Reliable Square Plastic Folding Card Table. It's taken us a little time to get back into the swing of things, but we have a new stress test video—this time starring our Tall NES Reliable Round Plastic Folding Cocktail Tables. We love this high top table and are frequently asked just how much weight it will hold—so now it is time to find out! How much weight will it take to cause the high top table to collapse? Will Dennis make our Resin Chiavari Chair Collapse when he stands on it holding a 20kg bag of road salt?? Can I come up with a third question that's halfway reasonable??? Apparently not, but you should watch the video and find out just what it takes to break a Tall NES Reliable Round Plastic Folding Cocktail Table!

Now that you've see just how strong our NES Reliable Round Plastic Folding Cocktail Tables are, if you have any questions about them, please feel free to contact one of our incredible sales reps. They'd be happy to answer any questions you might have about our Cocktail tables or any of our other fine products!

Image courtesy of Grant Cochrane / FreeDigitalPhotos.net