{RECAP} MY ICES 2013 ADVENTURES IN LEXINGTON, KY

It all started with a sketch over a year ago…..

After many months of discussing and planning, KRAFT Jet-Puffed and The Marshmallow Studio would be at the International Cake Exploration Societe (ICES) convention being held in Lexington, Kentucky. It would be my first time at ICES and my first time representing JET-PUFFED at a trade event. As you can imagine, I was excited!!!

We were welcomed by a beautiful fountain at our hotel right across from the Lexington Center.

We arrived a day early so we (my mom and I) decided to get acquainted with this cute little downtown.

Thursday, August 8, 2013 Time to set up and get this show on the road…

It takes a village to put a show of this magnitude together.

Every year several sugar artist collaborate to make a “larger than life” edible showpiece to commemorate the show’s theme.

This year it was all about horses. Check out this AMAZING horse and jokey.

Your wouldn’t believe the amount of people and time it takes to make something like this. They did a fabulous job!!

The gorgeous red roses were unbelievably perfect.

It’s all about the details…

Next, there were two maps for the attendees to pin where they were from. A world map and a USA map. There were people from everywhere here . It’s cool to see how sugar can bring such a diverse crowd together.

And the only pin from Las Vegas, NV was mine 🙂

We finally arrived at our booth. Time to set-up.

From sketch to reality:

Three of our apothecary glass jars broke but we were able to still make the display work. Everyone loved the marshmallow cupcakes on the front cake pedestal. Can’t tell you how many times I heard people say, “I didn’t even know all those different types of marshmallows existed!” I assure you all, we are working hard to get these all more accessible to you. If you want a particular marshmallow at your nearest store and they don’t have it, PLEASE ask your store manager to order it. They don’t know there is a demand for them unless people ask for them.

Here’s a close up of our display dummy cake. Happy pennant bunting hanging through the sky leading to three pinwheels. All decorations are marshmallows, royal icing and colored sugar.

My booth neighbors were awesome : Grex and LorAnn Oils

I even had a chance to play with their awesome airbrush and attend a quick class right on their booth.

Over 100 awesome vendors filled the vendor room including some fabulous and BIG names like:

1. Wilton

I thought this cake was pretty cool.

2. NY Cake

3. CK Products

4. AmeriColor

I’m specially loving their new aerosol spray food colors. They are amazing!

5. A-J Winbeckler

6. PME

7. Bakery Crafts

8. LUCKS

9. Satin Ice

10. Cal Java

and many many many more

There were also numerous sugar artist doing demos at booths and talented big names mingling around.

Here are a few of my favorite:

Mike’s Amazing Cakes talking with my friend Ana,

Nick Lodge showing off his skills.

Jennifer from Heavenly Cake Pops demoing her Cake Roller to an attendee.

The legendary Mrs. Kerry Vincent and I

The original sugar artist and Hall of Fame inductee, Marithe de Alvarado with my mom

I had the pleasure of meeting Frank, a KRAFT retiree who was excited to see us at ICES.

This tiny seven-year-old sugar artist will be teaching next year. It’s never too early or too late to follow your passion. I must say, I think he ate most of my marshmallows I brought to give out as samples.

We had the opportunity to attend the Shop Owners breakfast and listen in on the Copyright Infridgement session from LUCKS and DecoPac. It was very interesting!!