How To Prepare For High Point Market

It’s that time of year! High-Point Market is quickly approaching and I’ve been hearing whispers of everyone’s plans. It’s getting exciting!

While I will not be attending this year, I wanted to put together a little guide so that you feel prepared if you’re going!

About High-Point

Let’s start with the basics. What is High-Point and when is it? 

High-Point Market is when designers all gather together in one location, to network, learn about all of the new fantastic products and vendors, and attend trainings and other fun and educational things!

The dates for this event are October 15th through the 20th. 

Some designers choose to stay the whole time and some stay for a shorter amount of time. This is all up to you, there is no right or wrong. 

I do suggest staying through the whole event just so you can make sure to squeeze all of the goodness out of each day, meet as many vendors as possible and learn a bunch of wonderful things that you can take back home with you. 

Prep

So how should you prep for High-Point?

If you haven’t started preparing, it is definitely time.  

Hotels book up quickly for this event. Don’t forget you can also check sites like airbnb and vrbo. If you’re unable to find a place, I suggest reaching out to fellow designers that are attending and see if there is room in any of the places that they are staying. 

It’s also time to book that flight, baby! Get on it fast. 

Don’t forget transportation. Make sure you have transportation to and from the airport, and to and from the market. I suggest renting a car. You can also call the hotel you are staying at and see if there is some sort of shuttle option. This could help out a lot and you could maybe avoid the price of a rental, depending on where you are staying and what is offered. 

You can find more info for transportation and hotels by clicking here. Check out the “planning your trip” section of the highpoint website for all sorts of fun goodies when it comes to planning this trip. 

Planning

I suggest planning out your entire trip from start to finish. Yes, we’re talking about planning again! If you are not a planner, don’t stress. Just having a loose idea of what you want to do each day will help tremendously.

I would start by choosing which events you would like to attend and adding them to your calendar. This should be your first step. You can find a complete list of events here.

Once those are scheduled, I would make a list of all of the showrooms you would like to visit. Think about what products you’ve been having a hard time sourcing for your clients and then check out the complete exhibitor list here. I suggest organizing your list by floor and maybe selecting which floors you would like to go to each day. 

Another suggestion is to do all of the showrooms you absolutely have to or want to visit on the first day. That way you can spend the rest of the time with a little more casual of a schedule. 

Here’s a map of the event center. 

Find your friends

If you want to be a lone wolf, that is totally fine! I prefer to experience these kinds of events with friends, so if you can get a group together to peruse some of the showrooms with you, that would be great! This is another great way to learn. More people in your group + more knowledge to share and more fun to be had. 

Opening accounts/placing orders

If you’re planning on opening accounts and/or placing orders, make sure you have all of the necessary paperwork for doing so. Call individual vendors beforehand to get all the details on what you may need to start an account with them. 

Register

Don’t forget to register! 

You can do that here.

As of now, there is an indoor mask mandate in effect for Guilford County. I’m not sure if that will change before the event starts, so make sure to have a couple on hand. 

One final note: The high-point website has a planning tool to help you with all sorts of things. You can find that here.

Have fun!

XX, Danae