When I left last year’s inaugural Shoptalk event in Las Vegas, I spent the next few weeks telling everyone and anyone who would listen how fantastic it was. How much of a breath of fresh air it was to a somewhat staid conference and expo model. I wrote two articles spouting about it just in this newsletter alone. And apparently I wasn’t alone.

Because of all the people I met and spoke with at this year’s Shoptalk a few weeks ago, I was the only one who had been there before. Granted, this year was only the second time the show has ever happened, but that should give you some kind of idea how much it’s grown. I met a LOT of people, and every one of them was brand new to the show. It’s become massive.

But was it as special?

I’ll start by saying I don’t hold any illusions as to what a conference and expo is about: it is a for profit business. And the folks at Shoptalk rapidly converted last year’s non-traditional expo hall (where “Main Street, ” the focal point of the expo floor, was devoid of booths and signage). That setup relegated all vendors – regardless of size – to the same sized table, and effectively stripped away the “my booth is bigger than your booth ” model that dominates the industry. It felt different, it led to great conversations, and the first thing I noticed this year is that it had been replaced by 2 – not one – but 2 giant expo halls filled with booths you’d see at any other show. Alas, the profit model wins.

That said, it doesn’t mean the show has jumped the shark, right?

Not necessarily. Because another thing I so enjoyed about last year’s show was the quality of the content. In fact, take a minute to read what I said at the time here.

This year, however, in order to access sessions, you had to walk through one of the two expo halls. I’ve never seen that before. It reminded me of a furniture store where they make you walk through every department before you can access the one you want. It wasn’t subtle.

And there were 4 real tracks of sessions running concurrently at all times (a 5^th was reserved for demos and announcements). Even with my partner Brian there with me the first day of the show – effectively doubling our ability to take in presentations – we were missing either half or 3/5ths of the content we wanted to see at all times. And I’m not talking about sessions we didn’t care about. Take, for example, a random time on Monday morning. Representatives from Swarovski and Walmart and were on a panel in one room, which at most shows, would be an easy decision to attend. But at the exact same time, room 2 had Lowe’s and Apple, Room 3 had an analyst-led interview about a topic near and dear to my heart, last-mile fulfillment, and room 4 was a session about key takeaways from the CES show that were specific to Brands and Retailers. I wanted to attend every one! In fact, I’ll likely spend more time reviewing sessions online that I wasn’t able to attend than I actually spent attending this show, and that is something that I don’t think many people say after an event.

Since the show, I’ve had a lot of follow-up conversations with vendors who exhibited. The net? Everyone was happy. The retailers in attendance were different, they’ve all said. How? They were younger, more experimental brands than you get at other shows. And when it was a more traditional retailer, they tended to send representatives who are more in touch with the need for institutional transformation than they typically send to shows.

And that brings me to my ultimate takeaway from Shoptalk. Despite its adoption of some of the less desirable traits of typical conferences, it still does them differently enough to feel special. I mean, it’s not every day you have to decide between 5 sessions you really want to see, right? And the discussions within those sessions were still provocative enough to warrant the time away from work.

In the coming weeks I’ll share findings from some of the individual sessions at the show. Maybe even some I got to attend live. But for now, I’d still recommend Shoptalk to anyone willing to spend a few days away from the office in hopes of learning some fresh ideas on how to transform their own retail efforts.