SAVANNAH, Ga. – The 10th Annual Closet Summit Conference & Vendor Expo was held October 25-27 in Historic Downtown Savannah, and it was historic.

Approximately 290 independent closet business owners, key staff, installers, and a supporting cast of industry vendors and suppliers made it the ‘Mother of All Summits.’ The previous record was at the 2019 Summit Conference in Atlanta, with 225 attendees.

First-time attendees, noted with a ‘Freshman’ red ribbon on their name badge, numbered 111, the most ever at a Summit. These were not rookies or entry-level participants, but mostly veteran closet business owners who had never before attended a Summit.

Showtime began Wednesday evening with 34 vendor booths and five Roving Ambassadors (vendors with no booth) displaying their goods and services to assist the Summiteers in building stronger and more successful independent closet companies.

Thursday’s itinerary was back-to-back round table discussion groups, with two sessions before lunch and two after, totaling 31 meetings. Some were pre-determined topics, such as ‘All Things Marketing’ and ‘All Things Sales/Designs,’ while in other sessions, the group decided on the themes themselves. Installation Jubilation, geared toward Installers, installation managers, and owners, saw 65 participants.

Thursday night, the Closeteers and vendors were transported via sight-seeing trolley buses to host company Closet & Cabinet Experts for a shop tour, machine demonstrations and treated to a good old fashioned Southern Style Low Country Boil (local shrimp, sausage, corn & potatoes) as well as smoked grilled chicken and pulled BBQ pork. The festivities ended with our traditional Annual National Championship Belt Sander Race, which this year was won by Canadian Crusher.

Friday’s schedule concluded the conference with a morning Discussion Panel and Q&A covering ‘Eliminating or Reducing Costly Go-Backs’ and, in the afternoon, ‘Embracing Available Technology & Business Strategies for Increasing Efficiencies and Profitability.’ These sessions were professionally recorded and will be available on the CIAMO (Closet Institute of America Members Only) website.

The Summit Conference is a yearly networking face-to-face event in October, with the 2024 location still to be determined. Before Savannah, previous summits were held in Greenville, SC, Atlanta, Austin, Washington DC, Salt Lake City, Orlando, and Charlotte.

For information about the CIA and/or future Closet Summits, contact [email protected] or go to www.closetinstitute.org.