In the Loupe
In the Loupe
I Went to the Biggest Jewelry Show in the World!
Michael recounts his journey through the JCK Las Vegas jewelry show, discusses notable jewelry trends, and the value of in-person industry relationships. He also buys some jewelry that comes... blessed. Pretty neat!
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Welcome to In the Loop, and my main goal was to meet as many vendors and partners as I could and start working on developing individual relationships with them, which I feel like I was able to. But along the way I had a lot of fun, ate a lot of steaks, a lot of Italian food, and I just had a great time. Las Vegas is not exactly my cup of tea, but it is kind of intoxicating to go for a short while and I think I really got my fill of it and had a great time. If you went, maybe you'll sympathize and understand some of the things I talk about, and if you didn't go, well, maybe you can live a little bit vicariously through me. All that to be said, please enjoy my trip to JCK Las Vegas. Enjoy.
Speaker 3:Vegas Enjoy. This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the jewelry industry's favorite website platform and digital growth agency. Our mission reaches way beyond technology. With decades of experience and long-lasting industry relationships, punchmark enables jewelry businesses to flourish in any marketplace. We consider our clients our friends, as many of them have been friends way before becoming clients. Punchmark's own success comes from the fact that we have a much deeper need and obligation to help our friends succeed. Whether you're looking for better e-commerce performance, business growth or campaigns that drive traffic and sales, punchmark's website and marketing services were made just for you. It's never too late to transform your business and stitch together your digital and physical worlds in a way that achieves tremendous growth and results. Schedule a guided demo today at punchmarkcom. Slash go.
Speaker 1:And now back to the show show. Well, it's the morning of day one. Yesterday was day zero a lot of travel. I woke up at 4 am, eastern time, and kept on going until just about a full 24 hours. It was a long day.
Speaker 1:We had an amazing dinner at Carmine's. Carmine's is like this Italian place. They do family style serving, so everybody you know takes a little bit puts on their plate. Super good, we had a whole bunch of clients out with us and I don't know. Just really really a fun time.
Speaker 1:And then we went to this place called Electra, which is right in the center of one of the casinos. It's kind of like where all the jewelers hang out. So it's kind of cool. You go in there and Tommy and Jason recognize 50% of the people. So yeah, today I think we're going to take an Uber at about 9 am here, which feels a little bit late for me, but whatever, we're going to get there and I think we don't have much of a setup. All we have to do is just show up, make sure that the computers are working.
Speaker 1:But Vegas is just it's a strange thing, it's. The place is so just defies every law imaginable. You know, it's like right in the middle of a desert. It's bumping until two in the morning, four in the morning, it doesn't matter. I gambled a little bit last night, didn't end up winning. Played some roulette, it was fun, but uh, man, it's easy just to lose. It is, but it was fun. So time to go sell some websites. Hopefully we get just. I just want to get one then we're not scum. That's all I think about man walking in the show show floor and it is bustling. There's like nine million people. It's super cool, awesome. Can I grab one as well? Thank you so much. Oh, super cool. I just got one, an effy, uh tote bag, and it's super nice. Whoa, these things must have cost a lot of money to make. Holy smokes. Yo, these are sick. Thank you, just time. Scan my badge. And now I gotta find where our booth is, because I don't remember.
Speaker 3:Just a beeline that way, yeah, and then it's exactly where it is. That's right, thank you.
Speaker 1:One thing I've been thinking about a lot as I've gotten back from JCK is almost just the scale of JCK, and when I come back, a lot of times my friends ask me that are not in the jewelry industry hey, how was the jewelry show? And I sometimes don't even know how to describe it to them. Oh, like you know, did you see any big diamonds? It's like yes, I saw the biggest diamonds you ever even conceived. Oh, did you see anything that you really wanted? Yes, I saw so much jewelry I would have loved to have had. Did you buy anything? Yeah, I bought a little bit of jewelry, but it's hard to convey the scale to people and I think that's one of those things that you can hear me talking about. Oh, we got to find out where we are. For me to go to the bathroom, which I was doing quite a bit, because you're living in a desert for Vegas, you're just pumping a desert, for, you know, vegas, you're just pumping water into your body so that you can try to stave off dehydration. If I'm going to the bathroom every hour, it took like 10 minutes round trip to walk all the way to to the bathroom and then you have to like go up and it's just that there are thousands of booths and there's thousands of people walking around and I almost struggle to really kind of convey just how overwhelming and how insane JCK really is.
Speaker 1:I think any jewelry show, whether that's IJO or RJO or even the Atlanta AJS, they really are just so overwhelming. But JCK in particular the fact that Punchmark is located downstairs in the tech and essentials section. So we're down there in Edge Village right next to the Edge and Edge Retail Academy and some of the other Punchmark partners like Podium and ClientBook and I for Fraud, a couple of those people, and we are in the smallest area and it made me laugh that like we weren't even on the same floor as all of the other jewelry. Uh, like the real jewelry stuff was on the main floor and is just so vast and I walked around with hope a couple of days and it was really cool getting to see stuff and I only think I saw like 1%, maybe not even 1%. And that's not even mentioning the fact that there's also the luxury show, which I also went and checked out too. Luxury is just like the fact that there's a whole different section, the fact that you can't get into it. It's just so bizarre to me and it's almost like it defies reality and defies logic. I don't know. I don't know if you ever feel that experience or if you've been going to trade shows for so many years that you just can't, that it doesn't really impact you. Or maybe you're a retailer and that's kind of exactly what you want. But as a vendor I can say, man, it is so big. All right, we started day two, day three overall, but day two, and it was super fun. Yesterday we went to a place called Toca Madera Super fancy steakhouse, really nice. They have like fire dancers and like live guitarists while you eat steaks and it's very Vegas-y. But now we're back on the show floor.
Speaker 1:We had a good day yesterday. It was super slow for like the first hour and a half and I was like, oh my God, what if it's slow the entire time? And then, like you know, then everyone shows up and then you're slammed for the entire day. One thing I always find funny about jewelry shows is lunch is always like so hit or miss. It's like here we are eating the most fanciest, nicest dinners and stuff, and then lunch is always like I don't know, like a weird, like burrito wrap or like a flatbread pizza or something. It's like trade shows are just weird places. Time doesn't really make any sense, food doesn't really make any sense. You just kind of exist for four days. But yeah, hopefully we have another good day. We just got to the spot. We're all set up. I feel bad. Some people have to set up even earlier. So, yeah, hopefully we still have a couple more sites. All right, I'm with Hope. Last night was super fun.
Speaker 4:Super fun. Socomadero is the best.
Speaker 1:And yesterday we were pretty busy at the booth all day, but we didn't actually get a chance to walk around very much, and I think that this time I'm going to try my hardest to get upstairs and walk around. Also, there's so much jewelry upstairs. I thought that there was jewelry downstairs and it's only like it's all tech mainly. So upstairs is all jewelry and it's even.
Speaker 4:It's so sparkly it's going to be really hard not to buy everything that I see.
Speaker 1:It will be easy for me because I would just run out of money rather quickly, as by the first store, but it's very cool. Yeah, I think it'll be a good start to the day. So we're walking around in the middle of day two and we just walked through the Plum Club section. Really pretty, very cool. They have such a nice carpet. I'm obsessed with their carpet. I'm with Jason. Hello, jason hates us. Yeah, some really cool stuff out here.
Speaker 1:So I want to elaborate just a little bit more about the Plum Club section. So the Plum Club is this group of vendors that's jewelry vendors that are I don't know kind of work together. We actually do their website for them, which is this virtual show floor, kind of cool. But what's really neat about the Plum Club is that they have this carpet and I man I've talked about it so many times, I almost feel silly talking about it, but it's so funny that the carpet is so it's a great advertising tool Because when you walk in there I think that there's less reverberation and I think it kind of captures like a lot of the noise, so it's like a little bit quieter. I think it's a little bit like better temperature in there. It's not as hot and the whole thing is just like a very different feeling space. I also thought that about luxury, the luxury show. It kind of felt very much like a separate spot. We have a lot of our premium vendors are members of the Plum Club, like Ospy and Color Merchants and Imperial Pearls and Benchmark and Rembrandt Charms, and I got a chance to walk around and try to shake hands with as many of them as I could.
Speaker 1:It's the start of day three. We are walking the extensive way all the way to the essentials and tech section, the Edge Village, past the different lasers and whatnot. I'm joined by Andy. How are you doing today, andy? I'm doing well. How are you and where are you with? I'm joined by Andy. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:today, andy, I'm doing well. How are you and where are you with? I'm with Barani and Color Merchants.
Speaker 1:Very cool and you've been having a good show so far. What's the traffic been like? It's been an amazing show, absolutely.
Speaker 2:We've done very, very well here and I'm extremely pleased with the work that's been put in.
Speaker 1:But you guys were getting up to some really fun stuff. Last night. What were you guys doing? Absolutely, we went to go see Deadmau5. That's amazing. I've always wanted to see him. Tonight is going to be the Snoop Dogg concert and Jason Derulo. I'm very excited, jason Derulo Ha no, I think it'll be good, but it doesn't start until 9, so it's going to be kind of a little bit of a later start. But what are you guys?
Speaker 2:doing for dinner? Anything fun. We have a salesman dinner and we just kind of, you know, at the end of the show we just all like to just talk and, you know, have a nice dinner together before we start off into the wild of the second half of the year?
Speaker 1:Oh gosh, but do you guys discuss what sold well, what doesn't sell well? Is that kind of the point of it? Or what the sentiments of the customer are? What are you guys discussing?
Speaker 2:mainly so. Honestly, it's just about communication. It's how can we support you? These are all independent salespeople and we just want to be there for their support. I'm not going to tell a salesman that's been on the road for 40 years how to do his job. I just want to let him know that, because I am the sales manager, I'm going to be your support. So when I communicate to him that I want to help you, and when that comes is basically they're bringing in a line of four different lines because he just spoke to me to support, I'm going to be the first one out of the bag. Oh, very cool.
Speaker 1:So you guys have Color Merchants and Burdani under one house, essentially, absolutely, are sales reps. Are they specific to one or are they both typically?
Speaker 2:So Color Merchants is the parent company and when Allison came on board she didn't want to be pigeonholed into color, so she created Bravani. So we can expand the line to diamond fashion, our dashing diamond line, and a lot of real pretty designs. Because of that it's awesome.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, andy, I appreciate your time.
Speaker 2:No, thank you very much, I appreciate you Cheers.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's been a long, long third day. I am a little bit more cooked than I normally am at this stage. It's right about to be 5 o'clock, so we got another hour. We're also going to do a panel that I'm going to try to get to so I can record a little bit of the audio. But yeah, just, it's been a long day. I feel like I was getting beat up and I think that also some of the people dipped a little bit early. So I got a chance to meet all of the, or a whole bunch of the premium vendors that work with Punchmark, and a lot of them are in the Plum Club. So it's cool. I just went in there and, you know, walked around a lot and you got to shake a lot of hands and put some faces with some names and, man, there's some awesome, awesome jewelry. I really I'm not going to mention any names because I'm not going to be paid to be sponsored by them, but there's some really beautiful jewelry out there that I'm hoping maybe I might buy something on the last day, tomorrow. But JCK, man, it's exhausting, it's tiring, but it really is one of a kind. All right, everybody, we're going to take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1:The second set of jewelry shows are back and everyone at Punchmark wants to see you at IGO Indianapolis and RGO Schaumburg. We've got some great deals on the table as well. Retailers get 15% off your design by making an appointment, or save 30% by bundling any of Punchmark's digital marketing plans at the show. Clients cash in on your loyalty and get 5% off your upgrade for every year you've been a Punchmark client. That's up to 80% off the pre-financed price for our most loyal customers. 80% off, that's like pretty much free. Or clients can sign up for one of our more comprehensive digital marketing plans and get their new theme actually for free. Wow, it's a hell of a deal. Anyways, make your appointment at punchmarkcom, slash appointments and now back to the show. And we're back, and you know what I decided I'm gonna start doing something new when I go to these jewelry shows and hopefully I go to a couple more now that I've, uh, started leading the vendor program at punch mark.
Speaker 1:Uh, I want to talk about the jewelry I was really excited for, and I think I'm going to try to do this without really mentioning too many brand names because, in the end, like I don't want people to feel excluded or whatever, but I sometimes feel like in jewelry shows like, sometimes people like they almost like kind of dodge the question of like the actual jewelry and a lot of it's about the relationships and like the people and like the marketing and the sales and the actual selling of jewelry. But sometimes I feel like we don't really talk enough about like the jewelry. You know what I mean. Like, oh, I love this style. Like this style is really kind of coming in. So I want to talk about some of the stuff that I saw also at JCK, just in general and that I got really inspired by, and I'm going to spend I think five minutes, six minutes, talking about some jewelry that I liked. You can skip this part if you don't like jewelry, but if you're listening, I assume you like jewelry.
Speaker 1:All right, first things first. Yo, I mentioned in the beginning of this episode but this Effie tote bag. I was blown away by the quality of it and you get it for free. So everybody was walking around with it and that's this really cool drawing of this panther walking down like New York City and I thought that was really cool. That was really well done. All right, what else? The jewelry.
Speaker 1:I spent a bunch of time at Brevani and I thought that their jewelry was really nice. I um, it feels like one of the few brands that I noticed. It felt like their jewelry looked like what is going to be popular in five months or six months, like around Christmas. It's not to say that all the others are old, but I feel like all of the a lot of the other brands that I had looked at, uh, jewelry was very like, established, like it's the classic stuff. But with what I liked about the Bravani stuff, it's like a lot of these, you know, colorful, beautiful stones, a lot of rubies, a lot of sapphires, with these kind of more elegant dainty settings. I thought that was really nice. Don't get me wrong, I like them, so I'm not just saying that, but I thought that that was worth shouting out.
Speaker 1:What else did I like as far as jewelry? I'm looking through my phone because I took a lot of photos of jewelry and sent it to some people. Ah, yes, here's one in particular. I walked by I don't even have the name of this location, but I got to see 24 karat pure gold I guess it is, and it was this one necklace it looked kind of like a rising sun, so it had all these rubies, like a half circle of rubies, with all these pieces coming out that were in this yellow, yellow gold Like I took a picture of it because the gold it almost looks orange. It was incredible and it had like a brooch, a bracelet or a bangle, I guess, and like a ring maybe, and they all kind of went together all with that yellow gold. And the guy was telling me that the gold for them to use, for them to make, and why it looks so yellow is because it's like 99.9 something percent pure gold. Kind of had me thinking like I wonder if it makes it like really soft, like if you have to worry about, like what if you bump it on like a table or if you like, I don't know, drop it or something that you drop, something that priceless. But this thing is, I'm sure, well, well into the six figures at cost. I'm sure it retails for probably in the millions. But it was really cool seeing it. I really liked it. I took a lot of pictures of it. That's the kind of thing that I send to my friends when I go to jewelry shows.
Speaker 1:Another one I went to this watch location and they had all like used and refurbished luxury watch names. They had all these luxury watches and I really liked them. I got to see all of the you know. I got to see my grail watch. A grail is kind of something that they refer to I'm sure you all know this but refer to as a watch. That is, you know, kind of your chase and for some reason I've always had there's one in particular. I won't mention it here because I'm increasingly being told to not mention watch names ever, so I'm not going to, but it was cool getting to see them. I talked to the guy for a while, asked what the prices were. They weren't that bad.
Speaker 1:I got to go to. I went to Inox and I really like their stuff. I also want to just throw this out there, man. It is a real. There's a real lack in openness of men's jewelry out there, man. I am just shocked at how little men's jewelry I saw on that show floor. Inox really stands out and they lean into it. They had like a bar at their booth and you got to give them a lot of respect for really going all in on it, but they were busy every single time I went. I literally only got a chance to talk to Sebastian for about one second. He's been on In the Loop before what else?
Speaker 1:I saw some jewelry on the strip, like in the casinos. That I thought was really nice too, which is, you know, one of the few times I ever really liked, you know, going out and seeing jewelry not at independent well, I think they're independent jewelers, but not at jewelers that I would know. It's very different. One thing I noticed about Vegas was they were doing a lot of selling jewelry with powers. If you will like jewelry that is like amethyst. Oh, this will prevent you from getting a hangover, and this thing is made with red cord and red cord will give you strength and stuff like that. That's what I noticed about a lot of Vegas jewelry. I have a little story later on about where I bought my necklace from and I thought they had a funny story. Anyways, if that's your gig, I don't mind it. Enjoy yourself with your with your powers. It's not really for I don't mind it. Enjoy yourself with your, uh, with your powers. Uh, it's not really for me. It doesn't really do anything for me. But, um, I don't know if that helps you make sales. Good for you. I saw a lot of stuff with the opals and I really liked that. I thought that opals they just are so different. I also think that opals because, like the flex of color sometimes, I think they can be paired with literally anything. I saw a lot of opals with silver, which I thought was really nice and they're a pretty attainable price point. So I thought that that was really cool.
Speaker 1:A lot of sapphire jewelry. I think that sapphire it sort of feels like the non-diamond jewelry that is, at least to me, the most popular and like the most, like ready to wear. So that was pretty cool. I also talked to some jewelers about like men's jewelry and I talked to them about, like you know, what do they wear, what styles do they wear? And a lot of the men that are jewelry store owners that I talked to, they all had funny stories about buying their these pieces over the counter. One of our clients that we had dinner with quite a bit was showing me this ring and it said, had the F word on it and it was engraved, but it was like all solid gold and he bought it over the counter for, like you know, scrap price and he was like, oh, I like that and he kept it and other things like you know, corded gold and people are selling it in for scrap and they just, you know, buy it for essentially scrap price and then they get a nice piece of jewelry out of it. But a lot of the men I noticed that's how they were getting their jewelry was just over the counter purchases, which I thought was kind of cool. If I owned a jewelry store, that's probably what I would do as well.
Speaker 1:But overall I thought that jewelry is an interesting space point right now. I think with the, it was all about lab-grown diamonds for a spell and now with the entry of you know, kind of uncertain times when it comes to the economy, I think that that opens the door to a few different things, that is, lower price point items. So, like I was mentioning about, like you know, opals or alternatives, stones and things like that. I saw a lot of citrines. Um, I also think it opens up the door to pure gold jewelry where, like, people are buying gold as like a almost like an investment, or like a wearable investment, you might even say. I thought that that was kind of interesting and I'm excited to see where it goes. I still really like jewelry.
Speaker 1:As a tech guy who, you know, works fully remote, at a certain point sometimes it feels like I'm kind of removed from the jewelry industry. And then I go to one of these shows and it does kind of get me a little, a little jazzed up. So I thought that was fun. I wish that. I wish that we talked more about jewelry and, like you know the jewelry you might say. So I think that was fun. So at the end of one of the days, uh Ross was a member of a panel and he was talking about what's working in marketing and e-commerce and jewelry and it was a really cool conversation.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, it was super loud. The end of the day is kind of a weird vibe, because some people are packing up, some people are coming and going. It's mainly just the vendors hanging out. I really liked the panel. I also walked around afterwards and I got a chance to look at some of the different boots and stuff like that, but I didn't have very much usable audio from it, but it was cool. I hope that we do more panels.
Speaker 5:Well, we're on the showcase stage at JCK 2025. And we're ending on an amazing note. No, of course, saving the best for last year once we're working in marketing for retail and online commerce in 2025. I'm giving it over to jen colin williams of jen colin williams communications my name is ross packroom.
Speaker 3:I am ceo of powder benchmark. We are a jewelry website platform and marketing hc specifically for the jewelry industry. I've been in the industry about 30 years.
Speaker 1:So we're walking it's the last day of the show and we just decided to walk into the luxury show and it is so cool. It's very I don't know how do you even describe like the difference. It's just like a different vibe in. Here 's a little bit more.
Speaker 4:I don't know a very different vibe. Yeah, it is very exclusive, very low-key, yeah, unwelcoming if you're a vendor yeah, we got turned down from all the private rooms.
Speaker 1:We wanted to just go in and see um gabriel and co's uh display but they rejected us at all turns and that is totally okay, but, alas, all right. So I just bought some jewelry at K and Out, karma and Luck it's in. Are we in the Venetian right now? It's kind of late on Sunday and we couldn't get into the Snoop Dogg concert. The line was too long and we just went and bought a piece of jewelry and, honestly, that was the coolest experience and like very different. And so we like went in and they have like all this, like stuff that's like all about protection and like like different, what attributes?
Speaker 1:yeah and we were like looking at, I tried on a bunch of stuff. Honestly, this stuff is very much my style and we go and I like tried on like a couple things and the lady was super helpful. But what's so funny is so like we go to buy I buy this you know necklace, and then she puts it in this bag and like the bag is really nice I'm looking at it right now. It's got this great illustration on it and it's in like another, like little box, and it's not even like that big of an expense. I like it's like a you know 100 bucks. And and then she's like, oh, would you like me to bless it for you? And I was like, absolutely, so we take it and she puts it in what is that bowl called singing, a singing bowl.
Speaker 1:So we go and put in a singing bowl, she puts it in there and she, like you know, hits it with like this, like gong or whatever it's called. She hits it and it's, like you know, makes this nice noise and she like said like a little I don't know prayer over it or something, and it kind of makes me feel kind of cool about it. It's like more like yo, let's go. It's so funny, but like, talk about like a cool experience. Is that worth like an extra? Because, like, realistically, probably could have just walked into JCK the largest jewelry show in the frigging northern hemisphere and found something very similar to it and bought it for like half the price. But I get this cool bag and she blessed it, she blessed it and she hit the singing bowl a couple of times. She did.
Speaker 1:You know, and I just won this money playing blackjack at dinner. Perfect, there we go. Very cool, 10 out of 10. Experience Very Vegas.
Speaker 4:Choose on what do I need to do?
Speaker 1:No, Ah, man, hey, it's the last day, so that's the important part, and we're at Brevani again. Hope he is looking around. What did you guys get up to last night? Did you guys go to Snoop Dogg?
Speaker 4:Snoop Bo-double-G. He was DJ mostly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he definitely dialed it in from the show that we thought we were getting. Yeah, we dialed it in from the show that we thought we were getting, yeah.
Speaker 1:Did you see Jason Derulo? He was the headliner. He was the headliner.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's surprising, which I thought was going to be totally opposite. And then I thought like he was going to, I thought that like Snoop was going to do his DJ thing, then Jason was going to do his thing, and then they were going to do out and perform a couple songs. But I think it all had to do with and I think that's why he wasn't performing is because he was like let me just DJ this shit.
Speaker 2:He definitely dialed it in.
Speaker 4:Oh, it was dialed in. Listen if I can't do me then you're not going to get that yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know. We tried to get in and the line was impressive.
Speaker 2:I will say that we were in line for the way back of the line and we were only in line for maybe 10 or 15 minutes. It moved quick so it definitely turned people away, I think. But we were outside from the beginning of the hotel and we were like we're not, you know, from like beginning of the hotel and we're like we're not going to get in. For hours it moved.
Speaker 4:That's what happened to me last year, so I turned around and didn't go.
Speaker 2:But again, you know we're going to go all the way. Wait in line to go see Snoop and then you get DJ Snoop.
Speaker 4:I'm pretty sure I listened to that on my Pandora this morning. It was very similar to what happened last night.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 4:Less humid 200 degrees.
Speaker 1:It was. Yeah, it's definitely really hot. That was the other part is we're standing outside and it was super hot, yeah, and like it was so hot and humid, Like it felt humid.
Speaker 4:It wasn't like the dry nice desert Barluka.
Speaker 1:Barluka still barluka and losing money. What goes better? Well, we just kind of finished up the the last day, just got back to the airbnb, had a really good time. It was, um, kind of like a quicker day. I always laugh that the last day kind of seems like it actually is the one of the more successful ones. But, um, afterwards, hope and I went, uh, shopping and we went to a whole bunch of the you know the shops, as they say, it has like um, you know, we went to all the Gucci and Prada and you know Givenchy, you Prada, and you know Givenchy, you know Givenchy, I guess it is um, all the different shops and it was really cool and Hope bought some nice stuff and I bought some sneakers because I love them and they are Jordan fours, in case you're curious and uh, yeah, I think that we're actually going to call it kind of early. It's only 11 PM and, uh, we just got back to the Airbnb, so we're just gonna probably that's going to be where we call it kind of early. It's only 11 pm and we just got back to the Airbnb, so we're just going to probably that's going to be where we call it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, vegas is a weird place. That's what I'll say. I think it's very much the antithesis of everything I really like, but I still kind of really like Vegas a little bit. I don't know. There's something like enchanting about it. Well, everybody, that's the trip to JCK, las Vegas and full disclosure.
Speaker 1:This episode is recorded a few weeks later and I've had a little bit of time to think about my time in the desert and what did I think about it. Well, one thing I'll say is I'm kind of re-inspired about jewelry again and it's kind of funny to think about how we do a lot of talking about the story of the jewelry and a lot about, like, who sells you the jewelry and how to sell more jewelry, and sometimes I feel like I just kind of don't talk about the jewelry as much. And you know what I think I'm going to try to do that a little bit more on In the Loop. I really like jewelry. I think it's fun. I notice it on everybody now you know more than I did eight years ago when I first started.
Speaker 1:I think that Vegas is very much again the antithesis of who I am and also how I sort of see my relationship with, like, nature and the environment and things like that I live in a place, the Adirondacks, that are known for having this kind of closer relationship between humans and the environment, and when you go out to Vegas it's dry and it just defies logic. You are in the desert, you are in this place that if humans had had their choice, they would not have settled it. While we were there it was 108 degrees true temp. True temp. That's insane, 108 degrees. But then I also kind of thought about how earlier this winter I had some friends visiting and they were pretty incredulous that on the day that they arrived it was negative 37 degrees Fahrenheit true temp. And you know what. Maybe it's just different strokes for different folks, and I can kind of appreciate that.
Speaker 1:Um, I really liked getting a chance to see people face to face and kind of put a face with a name. Sometimes, when you know I work fully remote, I'm pretty removed from things and it kind of feels like these people are just another email address or they're just another company that we work with. But when you go out and you shake their hands you realize that pretty much everybody's really nice, really nice. And what's really cool also is that jewelry is such a personal and relationship driven business that pretty much everybody that's there are excellent at that. I always joke about, you know, iq and EQ EQ just being about like emotional, like abilities and stuff like that, and I really think that people that go to jewelry shows a lot of times have really high EQ and they know how to work a room. They know how to shake hands and smile and be great, and I thought it was really cool getting to see people be good at their craft.
Speaker 1:I think that I also realized that when you approach a different city, even if it's Las Vegas, and you get a chance to kind of be re-inspired about things, I got re-inspired about food. I had some incredible meals in Las Vegas. I mean it's. Some people say that Las Vegas is the center of food in the entire world because of the fact that there's no like central culture there. You know it's just how good and like incredible of an experience can you make it. And I can confidently say that every single thing I ate in Las Vegas was excellent, with the exception of the trade show lunch food man. That stuff was not good but I got inspired and I had some cool steaks. I met some really cool people and if I met you, thanks so much. It was really cool, but I think that's where I'll end it. Maybe I'll see you at JCK Las Vegas in 2026.
Speaker 1:Cheers, see you out there. Bye, all right, everybody. That's the end of the show. Thanks so much for listening. This episode was brought to you by Punchmark and produced and hosted by me, michael Burpo. A very special thank you, as always, goes out to our editor, paul Suarez, for making sense of my GarageBand file. There's a lot of clips. I appreciate you. The music is by Ross Cockrum. Don't forget to rate the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. If this is your first time listening to In the Loop, maybe share this with your friends or subscribe. We make a new episode every Tuesday. Cheers, see you out there. Bye, thank you.
