So today there was this wellness convention taking place here in Vancouver and my mom really wanted to go since it was the last day apparently. And yup, guess I was the one available to tag along. I thought it would be interesting to see anyways too as health and wellness is one thing that people will probably continue be spend money on despite the economy issues. I went armed with my Canon G7 too so everyone one else can see what it was like.
It took place at the convention centre here in Vancouver which is usually where most events takes place:
The admission price itself was $12.50 for each adult and so I guess that adds the motivation to really see everything to not waste money. For the most part it was a typical convention with companies having their own booths to promote their products as well as seminars. There were quite a few people there too which should also be an indicator on how well this industry will do.
Some of the prices seemed rather expensive for certain services. For example, there were things such as “Hormone Level†and “Blood Test Analysis†available for a fee which usually started at about $30 dollars. I would think things like a blood test should be done in a more traditional way which would be covered under your medical plan.
There were some really quirky offerings too I thought as I suppose this event normally attracts a lot of people who are into alternative therapy. I have no idea what this was though:
I think the guy was literally blowing through a tube that caused vibration or something as it was connected to the lady’s head. Interesting thing to spend money on.
As well, there were some booths that kind of confused me in terms of the whole health and wellness theme. Example, this jewelry exhibit for one thing:
So the key to staying healthy is to buy expensive jewelry huh? Of course, the crowd was predominately women.
There were a lot of food and drink samples too and one thing is for certain…..people that live purely on say an organic diet or insist in getting their food from “green†vendors sure have to pay the price financially. There were things like small pouch bags (like the ones you would put your camera in) that literally were like $60 with the reason being is that they used green materials and techniques to produce them.
I’m not sure why, but my mom asked me to sample so many of the products too to see if they were good or not. I never had so many different variety of yogurts and juices in one event. I sure felt like a little kid again. Think the only food I didn’t sample was the free dog food that she took for my brother’s Chihuahua…….
There were sure a lot of cosmetic procedures that were being conducted in this convention too such as teeth whitening services and what appeared to be eyebrow transplants or something like that (Ouch?). What was interesting about those was that they were there not so much to get customers from a user end but rather they were looking for businesses to partner up with or people who want to start their own business.
You know, in general that is actually a great idea for people I’d say at this point in time especially if you lost a job. One thing I always say is that when business or the economy starts going bad that means big opportunity as well. Example, your big competitors now can be way smaller or the competition is not as fierce due to the downturn. So this in sense can give you the opportunity of everyone being on the same playing field to earn the big dollars and capturing the necessary market share.
Here were some funny moments/photos of the day. At first I didn’t know what this was as I just saw these three lady figures in some kind of booth (Turns out to be a sauna booth of some sort). I actually thought they were like mannequins or something as all three of their heads were down and so you couldn’t see their faces and they sure looked squished in there. I decided to take a picture as it looked interesting and then the lady on the left “woke up†and realized she was on camera. Funny reaction.
The girl in the centre was oblivious and was being a bit goofy until she fully opened her eyes. She then had that laughing/gasping look of “Oh my god…did you take a picture of that?â€. 😆
There was also this playground or mini daycare I guess you can call it in the room too. I guess this little girl was forced to come based on that expression huh? Either that or the girl is in one unique meditation position.
Was kind of a “different†convention experience for me I guess you can say since I normally only go to more high tech or business oriented conventions. Got to take home some product samplings afterwards.
I might actually look into some of the those business opportunity ideas too as some of them seemed like a good idea.