2020 Industry Summit Day One Recap: Panini Spotlight Shines Bright – Like many other conventions and tradeshows in the COVID-era, this year’s Industry Summit is taking place online as a virtual event. Hosted by Beckett Media, the annual B2B tradeshow for the hobby industry is an opportunity for store owners, dealers and breakers to meet with manufactures and service providers.
The event kicked-off with a presentation by keynote speaker, Mike Singletary. Sponsored by GTS Distribution, Singletary brought his well known passion and enthusiasm to give an uplifting motivational speech.
Other highlights from the first day of the conference included a conversation with Panini America CEO, Mark Warsop. He was also the recipient of the Industry Summit’s inaugural, Decade of Excellence Award. The candid conversation provided attendees an opportunity to really get to know Warsop on a personal level.
In addition, Panini America’s Kevin Haake (Director of Sales), D.J. Kazmierczak (Vice President of Sales/Product Development) and Courtney Heady (Direct Sales Executive) spoke with attendees about some new initiatives and changes to programs and production schedule updates.
Kids Crate Program – A new, hobby direct program, designed to drive youth traffic to brick-and-mortar stores. See some additional details below.
NBA Product Release Schedule – An initial and always subject to change list of NBA products and their tentative release dates are as follows.
In addition, Panini announced that they would be scaling pack “pack” promotions like Black Friday and Cyber Monday due to continuing constrains related to COVID.
Other highlights included a keynote speech by Miami Marlins manger, Trey Hillman. Hosted by Ray Schulte of Schulte Sports Marketing, their was a lot of talk about the resurgent presence of baseball in Miami.
Other presentations were given by eBay with some detailed metrics about the category’s explosive growth.
In addition to mainstage activities, the day was filled with various breakout sessions including those focused on shop owners and breakers. Open networking sessions and a virtual tradeshow floor also provided plenty of engagement opportunities with manufactures and service providers.
A partial list of booth exhibitors included:
- Onyx Authenticated
- Fanatics
- Beckett Shield
- Super 7
- Leaf Trading Cards
- BAS/BGS
- UltraPro
- smALL Stars
- Authentic Street Signs
- Steel City Collectibles
- and many more . . .
Look for a recap of Day Two tomorrow.
- Hot in the Shop, Week of April 22, 2024 – Eclectic Mix - April 22, 2024
- Go GTS Weekly: Keeping the Pulse of #TheHobby – April 19, 2024 - April 19, 2024
- Box Break: 2023 Panini Limited NFL Football Cards - April 19, 2024