PCA 2023: Day 1 Recap

Day 1 is in the books, and by the time you’ll be reading this, we’ll be out covering more booths on Day 2. (Editor’s Note: Brian is going to be covering booths at 6 a.m. local time? I respect the hustle. — Charlie Minato.) I’m afraid I don’t have an exciting new accessory or wild new collaboration to write about, but much as I’ve done in the past, every bullet point is somewhat based on a feeling.

I did get to walk the majority of the floor today, unlike the rest of the staff, who should have mostly stayed in their daily quadrant. The reason being is I shoot all of the booth walkthrough videos, which we need to be done ASAP on Day 1 so we can include them in our booth posts. This does allow me to see a little bit more of a big picture than if I were to be stuck covering only booths in my daily quadrant. So, here is my overall take after a full show walkthrough.

• PCA Seems to be Tracking Towards a Return to Yesteryear — I think we can all agree that after PCA 2020 was canceled, then a scaled-back and under-attended 2021, we were finally reaching some semblance of normalcy when 2022 rolled around. I wrote about it in my recap last year, both under attendance and how the show felt. This year feels like we’ve taken another big step back toward how things were several years ago. Booths are returning to larger footprints again, people you expect to see are here, and many companies have new products to show off. This is certainly not to say that everything is perfect and there isn’t more room to improve. There is still a difference between IPCPR 2016 and PCA 2023, but personally, I think it appears we’re heading in the right direction.
• Attendance is…what now? — Every year, it’s the same questions and comments, such as How has the show floor looked to you? or It sure looks less busy than normal, what do you think? though this year, not one single person asked me that until mid-afternoon.

  It was at that point that I realized attendance this year has not been remarkable one way or the other. It wasn’t roll a bowling ball down the aisle empty, but it also wasn’t Arturo Fuente & Padrón collaboration announcement kind of busy either.

• People Seem Less Enthused — Different people will approach social situations in different ways, so I don’t think I’m referring to somebody who might be predisposed to dourness. What I mean, though, is many people seem tired and maybe slightly disinterested. That’s the kind of attitude you get on Day 4 of the trade show is much different than the attitude you would get on Day 1; people are tired, hungover, and ready to go home.

  That’s the feeling I was getting today, except this is Day 1. I really don’t know what it is, but it is a stark contrast between people’s attitudes in 2021 and 2022 that were just happy to be here and to see people again.