After an informal vote, the major crowd pleaser turned out to be time spent at a PEZ Convention. Y’all heard me right, the frontrunner was a convention. And I did A TON of stuff.
Want to know why I think it was the greatest hit? The people behind the Pez. Yup, the vendors catapulted the event into my heart. I'm a lifer now. As in PEZ4LYFE.
Here’s a breakdown of this unusual and intriguing event:
The convention was held at an Embassy Suites Hotel in Troy. Nothing weird about that, nope. However, the convention took place inside individual suites, as in rooms of the vendors. I found that odd and I actually was like: I think we should leave. I’m gonna be real: It felt not right. But I pushed past the strange feeling and entered a room.
The displays were rad and I asked the vendors questions as we checked out all the displays. The individual set-ups were awesome, and there was a ton of unique artifacts from Pez collections around the globe.
As we meandered through about 20 suites, I spoke to a ton of collectors and learned a massive amount about Pez. It was kinda like a history of Pez lesson and the vendors were clearly into their craft. And although my sister was the Pez collector growing up, and I’m solely into Pez simply from a spectator point of view- I found it to be a supremely interesting event.
We all picked out our favorites and the collectors were so friendly, it turned out to be one of the most fun events we attended all day- a day which included hunting for mastodon bones, a party in the park at City Sculpture and some time spent poolside.