Lifestyle Enterprise hosts 400 guests in China
Furniture source shows new product at Forbidden City
Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, June 28, 2010
 Harold Hart, left, Hart Furniture, Siler City, N.C.; and Bill Daniels, Tricia Daniels and Amy Cooper of Furniture Fair, Cincinnati, prepare to enter Lifestyle Enterprise’s Forbidden City furniture show in Beijing. |
BEIJING — In a first for the industry and even for China, Lifestyle Enterprise wowed more than 400 retailers, distributors and other guests here with a rare exhibition at the Forbidden City - the historical emperor's palace here.
Lifestyle showed more than 60 new bedroom, living room and dining groups in the 15,000-square-foot Hall of Worship of Ancestors, the largest single room in the sprawling palace.
But Lifestyle Chairman William Hsieh and James Riddle, president of Lifestyle USA, insisted they weren't here so much to sell furniture as to thank many of the company's best customers for their support.
And they backed it up with an itinerary that was light on business and heavy on fun and immersion in Chinese culture - including organized tours of the Forbidden City and the nearby Temple of Heaven, a trip to the Silk Street market, a Chinese dinner theater production and a Peking duck dinner at a restaurant famous for the cuisine.
 Aime Fitzhugh, left, of Gardner-White Furniture, Warren Mich., joins Lifestyle Enterprise’s James Riddle and William Hsieh at a farewell party. |
On the third and final day of the event, guests hopped on buses at the Grand Hyatt in Beijing for a morning tour of the Great Wall of China.
"It has really been a once-in-a-lifetime experience," said LeAnn Carpenter, buyer for the two-store Freed's Home Furnishings in Dallas. She said the retailer will be buying several of the new groups shown, once she has reviewed everything from the trip with President Howard Freed. She added that the networking in China was a benefit to Freed's.
"We have had a lot of opportunities to learn a lot more from people not in our market, and frankly, it's been a total blast," she said.
"It's a shame we can't have more companies doing this kind of thing. It's been so negative for so long, someone needed to make it joyful."
Watch for more details and videos on the Forbidden City trip on furnituretoday.com and in the July 5 print issue.
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Lifestyle draws crowd to Forbidden City show
Jul 9, 2010
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