Make a Show…please

Toronto, Ontario’s jewel by the lake likes to think of itself as a world-class city….and in some cases it lives up to that image!

Major contributions supporting W-C status are TIFF, – international film festival; the CN tower a phallic symbol of some renown; the Skydome, a baseball palace;  and a vibrant, thriving downtown core….Toronto has all these things and more, what it doesn’t have is the desire to produce a Home Show worth attending.

Luckly it is teamed with the annual Bloom show a superb presentation that exudes class, creativity and consistency.  Year after year the Bloom show  “makes a show” while it’s pathetic cousin, The Home Show underscores the lethal combination of bad planning and terrible optics!  While the Bloom show arrives with a theme, this year, “Let’s GO to the movies, the Home Show arrives.

The Bloom Show theme is developed , coordinated  and presented by excellent workmanship, much planning and talented participants….The Home Show is not.

This year’s H-S theme is  banal and uninteresting.

“Everything connected to your home, ” –duh, really?  Wow.

What should we get excited about?  The scores of hot tubs scattered in different sections of the huge Enercare Centre, the unimaginative displays suggesting a warehouse of ordinary products supervised by the disinterested,  a paucity of products that excite the future, just no reason to think you are not at your local hardware, lumber yard or kitchen renovation centre–looking at products that you have seen a hundred times before!  The dullness of it all reflects poorly on its proclamation as, The National Home Show .  This tired excuse for a so-called National venture couldn’t draw a crowd in Saskatoon.  In fact yesterday, Tuesday, March 13 there were so few foot-sore attendees they closed the Food Court at 6PM,  dinnertime.  Officially the show closed at 8 o’clock!

Except for the glorious Canada Blooms show featuring floral designs by international artists they could have closed it’s twin, the National Home show at 3:30 when all the buses that brought in Bloom show enthusiasts left town.

The National Home Show is a poor reflection what a World Class city should expect from major contributors to the health and wealth of the huge homebuilding, furnishing and lighting industry.  This is a metropolis of 6-million people!

The NHS shows none of the imagination, showmanship and depth this city deserves.

Either fixit or close it.

You want to be inspired as you prepare to welcome another glorious Spring … become inspired at Canada Blooms and try and forget you had to pass through the decrepit Home Show to get to it.

And don’t get me started on that excuse for a Dream Home!