Neo Con is the largest commercial interior design trade show in North America. It is a three day event that connects Architects, designers, buyers, sellers and specifiers with what is current in commercial design whether that be the workplace, Healthcare, Hospitality, Retail, Education, Government or Public Spaces.
Neo Con has been held each year at the Merchandise Mart in downtown Chicago since 1969. This building was built in the 1930's and has 4,000,000sq ft of space for commercial design showrooms, residential interior design showrooms and office spaces and is a monumental, beautiful piece of architecture.
I believe this is a cat run for humans!
This year Neo Con attracted 50,000 attendees and I jumped at the opportunity to attend when we, the designers at State Street Interiors, were invited to attend with our local Daltile vendor.
The day started very early as we met at Daltile gallery in Davenport. We were greeted by the friendly faces of Daltile, Davenport Showroom manager Andrea Louton, Des Moines manager Dan Drey and Amanda Balhorn, Architectural rep from Nebraska.
We set out for Chi town in a GreyHound like bus with our first stop being the Daltile gallery just a block from the Merchandise Mart.
We saw some really inspiring tile boards, mosaic walls, the latest and greatest in floor and wall tile as well as a gorgeous Chevron styled tile wall.
We had the arguous task of choosing which street food truck we would eat from and believe me there were no wrong choices!
After lunch, we headed to the Merchandise Mart to join all the excitement with Neo Con.
Every floor you went to was shoulder to shoulder.
Above is the 3Form gallery
Aceray commercial furniture
Look, it's a Stikwood wall! My favorite
Then, it was time! I needed my fix of lux residential. So I headed up to the 14th floor where two of my favorite, CAI and Holly Hunt, showrooms are located. With every showroom we oooohhhhh and awwwww! As we walked into CAI we ran into two of our own local outside designers Davia Gallup and Wynn Schafer so we jumped in on the tour of the showroom with them.
Oh that light fixture...the trend I was picking up on is large scale and a lot of nature inspired design
The sweet side table is an ebony petrified wood and the Palecek chair is gorgeous curved wood and bamboo.
The manager of CAI Demonstrates the expandable table by Freemarc, so easy to extend
I love the guilded Theodore Alexander chest against the dramatic metallic wall covering. All of these pieces that caught my eyes, I realized, we have them right here at our finger tips. Our designers at State Street Interiors can help you with all of those special pieces you're thinking of for your space.
We ended our beautiful day in Chi town with a lovely reception at The Hampton Social where we all enjoyed a cocktail and Margarita pizza while listening to a local musician and debriefing about the exciting things we saw and get to do as interior designers.
The day was an absolute joy and feast for the eyes! Thank you to Daltile for sponsoring, I look forward to next years Neo Con.
