September 23, 2017 Charlie Minato Blog,  Events & Festivals

InterTabac 2017: Day 1

Earlier this week, the InterTabac organizers sent out an email explaining there was construction at the Westfalenhallen, the site where the trade fair takes place.

And construction there is.

Once you are inside, you don’t really notice much of said construction, but the normal entrance and registration area I used in years past appears to be completely gone.

After entering through a much different hall, I was greeted with a large white booth—one belonging to Davidoff.

It’s certainly not the largest stand here at InterTabac, but Davidoff’s new stand is a noticeable upgrade in space from the area the company used to occupy when it was still distributed by Arnold André.

I spent much of the day as I often do in Dortmund, wandering from booth to booth and catching up with people. Unlike the IPCPR Convention & Trade Show, InterTabac is a place where I can have conversations longer than five minutes with people and I took advantage of that.

A few initial observations after the first day.

  • It’s hot — There have been InterTabacs where I recall it being warm, but it was uncomfortable by midday and it’s not because it’s particularly warm outside. I hope they do something to avoid this for the next two days.
  • Not a lot of new Americans — I didn’t see a lot of new companies on the manufacturing side, though there are quite a few new faces from companies that have already been here.
  • IPCPR is a big focus — I’ve had an inordinate amount of conversations with people regarding who the new head of the IPCPR organization might be as well as the future of the IPCPR Convention & Trade Show.

After the show ended I headed over to Cigar Journal’s awards show, which is a nice event and extremely well-attended by manufacturers. I then grabbed something to eat with a Bayern fan—watched them give up an equalizer to Wolfsburg—and then headed to InterTabac’s official party.

It was hosted in the arena area of the Westfalenhallen, which I’d never been inside. The event itself was nice and certainly larger than the last time I went a few years ago. I also had a few more beers than the last time I went.

InterTabac 2017
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Charlie Minato

I am an editor and co-founder of halfwheel.com/Rueda Media, LLC. I previously co-founded and published TheCigarFeed, one of the two predecessors of halfwheel. I have written about the cigar industry for more than a decade, covering everything from product launches to regulation to M&A. In addition, I handle a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff here at halfwheel. I enjoy playing tennis, watching boxing, falling asleep to the Le Mans 24, wearing sweatshirts year-round and eating gyros. echte liebe.

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