Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/654213
istration is required for this offsite event, but participation is free to RE- Con badge holders. Other high-profile speakers will help keep motivation high through the conference. Gary Friedman, chairman and CEO of Restoration Hardware, takes the stage at 12:30 p.m. on Monday. Before joining Res- toration Hardware in 2001, Fried- man held various posts at Williams- Sonoma for 13 years. He also worked for 11 years at Gap Inc., becoming the youngest manager, district man- ager and regional manager in the company's history. At 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, attendees will hear from Bobbi Brown, founder and chief c r e a t i v e o f f i c e r o f B o b b i B r o w n Cosmetics. "We have a really eclec- tic and diverse group of speakers this year," said Jesse Tron, an ICSC spokesman. ICSC moved RECon's keynote presentations and education sessions to the Westgate Hotel last year, to make room for the Specialty Retail Entrepreneur Expo & Conference (SPREE), alongside the Marketplace Mall, in the Convention Center's North Hall. SPREE, now in its 12th year, is the world's largest trade show for the cart, kiosk and temporary-re- tail subsector. It became part of RE- Con last year. "SPREE-RECon 2015 was tremendously successful," said Patricia Norins, ICSC's vice presi- dent of publications and specialty retail, and publisher of SCT. "The show truly benefited from being part of RECon, because we had so many permanent retailers who came to the show to explore the possibility of opening a pop-up. We were intro- ducing thousands of new people to specialty leasing who hadn't really explored all of the benefits before." Sharing between the conferences worked both ways, Norins says, as returning SPREE participants gained access to the Marketplace Mall. "It was a phenomenal learning opportu- nity for the whole industry." With some 200 SPREE exhibitors on tap for this year, organizers have scheduled about a dozen educational sessions for Monday and Tuesday on the SPREE floor. The topics include "How Food Is Changing the Face of Specialty Retail." Other SPREE ses- sions will address mall communica- tions, trends in automated retailing and vending, and ways to expand property use beyond retail. A RECon badge gains the bearer admission to SPREE and to the Mar- ketplace Mall. Admission is also free to RECon's opening reception, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Sunday at a new venue: XS Nightclub at Encore. Preregistration is required for the U.S. MAXI Awards (at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday), which recognize best prac- tices in retail marketing, new-media strategies and much more. S C T A p r i l 2 0 1 6 / S C T 55