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CigarFest '06 - The Poconos Will Never Be the Same |
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Last year, 1,500 herfers had rained down on the PA Expo Center for CigarFest '05, swarming over its 60,000 square
feet of floor space. In preparing for this year's CigarFest, although we were anxious to make improvements, I
thought that with the Expo Center we had found a permanent home for our annual monster herf. But after contacting
them about plans for '06, it became clear we were persona non grata. The conversation went something like this:
Apparently for months afterwards, cigar smoke was embedded in every nook and cranny of that place from the debauchery that had unfolded the prior April. So needless to say the hunt was on for a new venue for '06. My overarching goal was simple: let's "wow" every attendee. So we sought out a venue that had room accommodations on premises and enough exhibition space to house a mega-herf of this magnitude. After all, CigarFest brings every major cigar maker out of the woodwork, not to mention all manner of other madness from micro-brews and fine spirits to live music, pig roast, models galore, huge raffle prizes and more. We settled on the Split Rock Resort in the Pocono mountains. Our first question on the first visit was about ventilation, the reply: "No problem!" Great, tell me more. "Well, we have a wonderful system and the air changes on the show floor every 10 minutes." I tell them that lots of cigars will be smoked that day. "Well, we have a beer and wine show here every year and people smoke cigars, it's no problem." I'm thinking, these people have no idea! 1,500+ of us cigar nuts herfing the day away like animals. But I left it at that, relieved we found a suitable location. We plan this thing for months and months. Hell, an event like this is not what we do for a living. We sell cigars: that means we visit factories, beat down suppliers for deals, come up with new and clever ways to sell you the same old stuff, dump spam in your inbox, drop junk mail in your mail slot, ship thousands of orders out the door each day....and repeat as needed, early and often. That stuff we know how to do. CigarFest, on the other hand, is different. But we pour our hearts and souls into it every year. At CI, we like to do things right. This year we were determined more than ever to outdo prior years - that meant more stuff to give out, more features, shorter lines, a bigger, badder, better show, and therefore more smiles from you. After all, we yearn only for your approval....we have issues. But we covered all the bases and anxiously awaited the first weekend in May for CigarFest '06. Once that week arrived, the event is rolling. At that point, it takes on a life of its own and all we can do is try to guide it along. So as the cigar makers pour into town Thursday the excitement began to build to a fever pitch. In fact, a Penant-run type of atmosphere pervaded the CI crew. Come Friday we're in full swing, Nick Perdomo is conducting a behemoth of a rolling event at our retail store in Bethlehem, while customers start arriving that evening at Split Rock, joining the CI staff and all the cigar makers for an impromptu gathering at a sports bar there the night before the big day. The gathering that night is chock full of cigar guys, including Rocky Patel, Carlos Diez, Mike Cusano, Christian Eiroa, Jon Drew, Kaizad Hansotia, Alan Rubin, Ernesto Padilla, Nestor Plasencia Jr., Charlie Torano and more. At one point late in the night, one stunned Fester steps back from the bar, surveys the "cigar celebrity" filled scene, turns to me and likens it to the Super-Friends Hall of Justice. Oddly, I know what he means. Most of these guys are from Miami and can do nothing but think of the movie Deliverance as they drive in to the Pocono resort. I tell them: South Beach this ain't, gents....but it ain't Brokeback Mountain either. Saturday rolls around and those lucky enough to get a ticket to the "Pre-Fest Brunch" before it sold out got to join the cigar makers for a nearly 2 hour breakfast in a small, intimate setting. Sitting at the tables, stories abound of deer and bear sightings just outside their rooms the night before, leaving cigar makers wide-eyed as if they had seen dinosaurs (naturally they think nothing of the giant scorpions I see regularly in Central America when I'm visiting their factories). As the doors to the Fest itself swing wide in the early afternoon, herfers hailing from parts unknown - 48 states in all were represented! - stream in and this sucker is officially underway. Attendees are greeted with a boatload of stuff at the door, including a humidor teeming with cigars. Cigars are being handed out, event posters and magazines too, brews and spirits are flowing, the band is rockin', and the models are mingling. Numerous CigarFest-only special edition samplers are available at the store booth. Raffles are run throughout the event. As it turned out, there was a roughly 1-in-150 chance of winning a prize of some kind, which ranged from boxes of cigars to a gi-normous 5000-cigar capacity humidor. Later in the event, I'll never forget a great scene: for a brief few minutes there was near silence as 1,500 sets of eyes turned skyward facing the big screen for the Kentucky Derby. The moment the 'fastest 2 minutes in sports' ended, it was noise and madness - like the NYSE floor - as the big raffle prize was set to be announced. A ticket for the customized 5 Vegas Harley-Davidson motorcycle was about to be drawn. Ticket-holders enjoyed a roughly 1-in-500 chance of winning....not bad! The winner was ecstatic and it couldn't have been a better ending. All told the event raised over $10,000 for LifePath, the non-profit that CI likes to support, Festers left feeling like this was the best 75 bucks they ever spent, cigar makers felt like this was the best group of customers they'd ever met, and we left feeling drained but satisfied....but already thinking about next year! Thanks to our great staff of employees for all your hard work and for smiling the whole way through - my hat is off to you. Thanks to the cigar makers, who are the heart and soul of the industry, hard working and fine folks that we consider friends and partners. And thanks most of all to our customers, it is you who allow us to be here and have this kind of fun right along with you. See you in '07! - Keith |
