PCA 2023: Day 0 Recap

Or should it be Day 0 Preview? I’m not really going to recap Day 0.

Greetings from Las Vegas. It’s that time of year again: the time when halfwheel is posting nearly 100 times in a single week because of the annual PCA Convention & Trade Show. (Though that time of year won’t be this time of year for at least the next two years, more on that below.)

It’s been a very busy week on halfwheel and the most important day of the week (Saturday) is just getting started. We’re back here in Las Vegas for the 2023 PCA Convention & Trade Show, the cigar industry’s most important event. For many readers of this site, it’s probably the most exciting time of the year: there are more new products being announced this week than in most two-month stretches of the year, and we have some pretty cool contests.

Each day, one of our writers writes one of these daily blogs, talking about what they’ve seen or what they’re hearing or what they’re thinking about, etc. So in that spirit, here’s my eve-of-the-tradeshow thoughts.

• What I’ve Seen: A Very Long Line to Get Into the Opening Party — Credit to the Premium Cigar Association for still being able to get hundreds of people to show up to the opening party. When I was walking back from the trade show floor this evening, the line had extended to the point right before the steps lead you to the Venetian box office.

  In fairness, this isn’t the first year I’ve noticed this line to be very long, but it’s somewhat crazy to see that many people queueing up for this opening party. I guess free drinks and cigars will do that.

• What I’ve Heard: A Lot of Talk About New Orleans in 2025 — During the second podcast that Brooks Whittington and I did leading up to the trade show, I mentioned this phenomenon that seems to happen at this trade show every year: we talk about the next trade show. In this case, the talk wasn’t about the next trade show, it was about the next next trade show. On Thursday, it seemed the most popular topic was that PCA 2025 would occur in New Orleans in early April. On Friday, the PCA made it official: PCA 2025 takes place April 11-14 in New Orleans.

  If nothing else, I’d prefer we stay in Vegas for convenience, but if we aren’t going to be in Vegas, New Orleans sounds great. I do wonder how seriously Tampa was considered.

• What I’m Thinking About: How Many People are Going to Lie to Me By Telling Me This Was Their Company’s Best Trade Show Ever? — Everything I’ve heard is that April and May were slower months for the larger players in the business. That comes after a slower Q1 in terms of imports. It’s possible that a company could sell fewer cigars and generate more in sales dollars (hello price increases), but I’m going to be quite skeptical about established companies telling me how this was the greatest trade show they’ve ever had. It’s a phrase that gets uttered to me dozens of times each trade show, and I’m increasingly unsure if it’s even a good thing.

  Furthermore, I don’t know the point of bragging about how you sold even more products at a discount. Regardless, I’m going to be confused when I hear this line repeated to me throughout the next few days. The cigar industry is, by all accounts, in a better place than it was in 2019, but the vibe is not the same as 2021 or even last year. It’s a bit more normal.

To our readers, I hope you enjoy these next few days. Of all the things we do here at halfwheel, I think our trade show coverage is my favorite. It’s a true team effort—this is the 10th year that Brian, Brooks, Patrick and I are doing it together—and one that none of us take lightly. It’s a lot of work, but we feel like if we are going to cover this thing, we might as well do as best we can. When all is said and done, that should mean posts covering what was in the booths of more than 150 companies, four days of contests, daily blogs like these, live interviews and more.