I was told when I started at CK Products in January that I would probably be attending ICES. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was in Reno, and as someone who doesn’t get vacation time until 2013, I was all about it.
Within the past seven months, I’ve learned that ICES stands for the International Cake Exploration Societe. The convention celebrates cake decorating and sugar art and all the people who do it- whether professionals or people who just do it for fun.
We arrived in Reno on Thursday, and headed directly to the showroom where we would set up the CK Products booth. We wouldn’t sell anything over the weekend, but we did want to show off our awesome products. It took us a few hours to set everything up, surrounded by booths like PME Arts & Crafts and Wilton, who were all busy working on their own booths.
The next day was our first day in the booth. It was quite an experience to meet so many of our customers, and to hear them talk about how much they love CK Products! It was also exciting to meet a lot of people who aren’t customers, but are very interested in becoming one. I met cake decorators from California, New Zealand, Florida, Argentina, Puerto Rico, France, and more! People literally come from all over the world to the ICES convention each year.
The number one conversation we had with customers was about our Pantastic Pans– plastic pans you can bake in. People didn’t believe that you can actually bake in a plastic pan, but you can! They were in love with the stiletto shoe pan and super pumped about the owl pan that should be out sometime within the next week.
When the booth wasn’t busy, my boss told me to go check out the cake room. I was amazed at the beautiful works of art that lined the rows of the cake room. There were tall cakes, short cakes, birthday cakes, wedding cakes, children’s cakes, etc. etc. You could find a beautifully decorated cake for almost any occasion!
To see more cakes, check out the ICES album on our Facebook page.
The rest of the weekend was kind of a blur. We enjoyed our stay at the amazing Grand Sierra Resort, ate well, and met wonderful people who share a love of baking and cake decorating. We also, hopefully, picked up a few new customers along the way!
To everyone who was there, it was a pleasure meeting you, and I look forward to seeing you in Lexington, Kentucky next year for ICES 2013! As for those who didn’t make it, hopefully you will go next year- it’s a great experience for any cake decorator. The classes, speakers, demonstrations and socializing with others will enrich your passion for cake!
Can you really bake in a plastic pan?