Wrapping up dinner at an Italian restaurant in Chicago on day one of the NACS Show, my colleague and I were interrupted by a grinning man taking a photo of his dinner companions sitting at the adjacent table. “I apologize for us being loud,” he said. “This is the first time we’ve seen each other in two years!” No apology was needed, of course. It was good tonic for a pandemic-weary soul to hear laughter and see joy on so many faces.
A month or two ahead of last month’s NACS Show, a well-meaning person asked me why NACS would even consider hosting the event, given the pandemic, a labor shortage and economic uncertainty. To me the “why” was obvious, but her concerns forced me to do some soul searching. Watch and see what happens, I assured her. You’ll see why the convenience and fuel retailing industry needs the NACS Show more than ever this year.
Everywhere I ventured at McCormick Place during Show week, I saw people who truly seemed glad to be on-site, connecting and reconnecting with their colleagues, listening attentively during the education and general sessions (and shedding a few tears during the general sessions) and discovering what supplier companies have been up to since we last gathered in 2019 in Atlanta. Many posted their reflections on social media under the hashtags NACSShow and WeGotThis. “Amazing,” fantastic,” “extra special,” “electric,” “excited” are some of the adjectives Show-goers used to describe the week.
Art Sebastian, vice president, digital experience, at Casey’s shared his key takeaways in a thoughtful LinkedIn post. Art and I were classmates at the NACS Executive Leadership Program at Cornell University this past July, and I was happy to sneak in a quick hello after his panel presented the “Modern Strategies for Customer Engagement and Loyalty” education session. (A shoutout to fellow classmates Mike Broughal of Meijer Inc. and Rodolfo Castillo of AMPM Centro America, with whom I was delighted to reconnect with at the NACS Show.)
“It was great to see so many people from our industry,” Sebastian wrote on LinkedIn, saying that he was humbled, inspired, encouraged and excited by the week. “I shook hundreds of hands and hugged just as many people. Relationships are still a central part of our industry and business in general. It takes a village to tackle challenges and constantly think about creative ways to serve consumers.”
Standup interviews are always fun, and Rose Johnson and Lauren Brooks of the NACS Media team fanned out across McCormick Place to ask Show-goers about what they’d hoped to discover for our cover story. Meanwhile, Frank Beard and Al Hebert aka, the Gas Station Gourmet, reprised their “Nice vs. Vice” take on their must-sees and eats from the expo halls—Gen Z Water and chicken cracklins, anyone?
Take some time with this month’s issue to recap your experience at the NACS Show—or see what you missed. And put a hold on your calendars for next October. Vegas is going to be epic.
Cheers, my friends!
