Year after year, the industry’s not-to-be-missed conference attracts tens of thousands of retail real estate leaders, shopping center executives and investors. ICSC’s RECon is a “must-attend” event that analysts and executives look forward to for months.
If you’re new, it can seem overwhelming at first. Even when it’s your tenth time attending, the sheer number of opportunities to learn and connect makes prioritizing a challenge. This is especially true when you’re a participant and a sponsor.
That’s why, for this year’s conference, we’ve decided to do things a bit differently. Rather than spending the bulk of time at the Marketplace Mall, members of the eSite Analytics team will be attending, absorbing and participating to get as much out of RECon 2016 as possible. So, without further ado, we’re sharing the approach we plan to take at this year’s conference in hopes it’ll help other registrants plan and prioritize.
1. Plan your sessions
From a lunch with international phenom Bobbi Brown to a keynote address with the CEO who grew Zappos sales to over $1 billion annually, RECon is the place to glean insights from global leaders. Preselecting the ones most relevant to your current needs will help ensure you can go back and formalize your company’s own growth strategies for 2016 and beyond.
2. Use the ICSC mobile app to decide who you want to meet
If you want to do a little recon before you go to RECon, try replacing one of your favorite daily downtime activities with a perusal of ICSC’s mobile app. You can save the sessions you want to attend, see who else is going, view the floor plan and connect with other ICSC members. Start creating a “hit list” of the companies and individuals you want to meet with—and why. Then put together a list of questions you’d most like to get answers to, and start reaching out to those who can help answer them.
3. Map out the best times to visit Shake Shack.
At least, that’s what we’ll be doing. Lines at every restaurant in this fast-growing burger chain tend to snake out the door, so this is one meal that’s worth planning ahead.
4. Schedule your appointments
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from RECons of years past, it’s that schedules fill up fast. After all, there are more than 30,000 attendees—and every single one will be there to network. One year, the time slots for our own one-on-one retail analytics demos booked up nearly two full months before the conference start date. Start blocking off time now so you don’t risk missing important opportunities.
What about you? What ideas do you have for making RECon 2016 the best experience yet? Let us know at @eSiteAnalytics.
Are you headed to RECon 2016? Fill out the form below so we can get in touch and arrange a time to meet! We’ll walk you through our 360° retail analytics tool, TrailBlazer™, and show you how companies like Le Creuset and The Container Store are using it to grow faster, more efficiently and more profitably.