After two years of empty show floors and hotel rooms, McCormick Place gears up for the return of conventions to Chicago
When the Inspired Home Show returned to McCormick Place earlier this month after a three-year pandemic hiatus, the annual housewares show was the smallest in recent memory, and among the most significant in its 80-year history.
Navigating mask mandates, vaccine cards, the waning omicron variant and an increasingly remote business world, the Inspired Home Show made Chicago a convention city again.
The first major trade show to cancel at McCormick Place as the pandemic hit in March 2020, the Inspired Home Show was also the first to welcome visitors back to the city’s convention center two years later, drawing 20,000 visitors over three days. While attendance was down about 60% from 2019, organizers were both pleased and relieved to pull the show off, a symbolic bookend to the COVID-19 convention crash.
“This feels a lot better than being the first one to cancel,” said Leana Salamah, a spokeswoman for the Rosemont-based International Housewares Association, which puts on the annual show. “Being back and even being the first ones out of the gate to do that just
