What Everybody Will Really Be Talking About at NeoCon This Year | 05/13/2026

Dear Stephen,

I loved your tips for attending #Salone, and although I did not go, friends of mine who did go told me your advice was great. So now I want to ask you to tell me about #NeoCon and #DesignDays. What are your tips?

I work at a dealer, and it is my favorite time of year because I get to go to NeoCon and Design Days in Chicago. When the major manufacturer we represent moved out of The Mart to Fulton Market, it took me a while to navigate getting to that showroom location since we often meet clients there, while still meeting other clients at all the ancillary lines we sell.

Many of those lines, important to us, are still in The Mart. Finally, this year I think I will have the rhythm down. I do not love it, but I make it work and now I enjoy the entire city. It’s the new normal for our industry.

I love where we stay. We stay at the Trump Hotel, and it is a beautiful hotel, so luxurious and convenient to The Mart, but a hike to Fulton Market. I will be entertaining clients, both designers and end users, in Chicago, and have major presentations and walkthroughs, both at The Mart and Fulton Market.

So, like I said, what are your tips for this show and enjoying #Chicago?

Signed,
Jonesing for Chicago!

Dear Jonesing,

NeoCon and Design Days never gets old for those of us that love the contract furniture industry. I have been going for years, and honestly, there are still moments when I walk into The Mart and get the same feeling that I had the first time I went, when I worked for a dealer myself.

And yes, I am with you on going from The Mart to Fulton Market, and I am finally, finally used to trekking back and forth between the two. It is just part of the new rhythm of the shows now.

By the way, I love that hotel too where you stay. I have stayed there myself, although it was booked this year. Speaking of hotels, reminds me that my favorite thing to ask people when I see them at NeoCon is always: “Where are you staying?”

I never know why, but somehow that becomes the conversation everybody has. Then immediately people volunteer how many NeoCon’s they have attended like it is a badge of honor. “This is my 22nd NeoCon.” “My 15th.” “My first.” Right?

What many younger people in the industry do not realize is that NeoCon started in 1969, inside what was once the largest commercial building in the world, The Merchandise Mart. Back then the entire contract furniture industry really did fit under one roof. The manufacturers, dealers, reps, designers, everybody.

Years ago, you could spend your entire day inside The Mart and feel like you saw the whole industry. Now between NeoCon and Design Days, the show has spread across Chicago itself. #FultonMarket changed everything.

Old industrial buildings, warehouses, meatpacking spaces suddenly transformed into some of the most beautiful showrooms in the industry. It no longer feels like just a trade show. It feels like the furniture industry has temporarily taken over an entire city.

This year will feel different because NeoCon opens Saturday, June 6th instead of the traditional Monday opening, and honestly, I think it is smart. The industry outgrew the old schedule years ago. Between The Mart and Fulton Market, people were already trying to stretch four days into seven anyway.

Starting Saturday spreads things out a little and gives people more time to enjoy Chicago instead of sprinting through it exhausted. I am getting there on Saturday myself, and while this absolutely makes the week more expensive, I also think it will make it more fun.

Chicago in June is hard to beat. I love New York because it is my city, but New York is one of those places people either love or hate. Trust me, my clients tell me both. Chicago is different. Everybody likes Chicago. It feels cleaner, friendlier, easier to navigate.

During NeoCon and Design Days the whole city starts to feel like it belongs to the furniture industry. Everywhere you go you run into somebody you know. Restaurants become extensions of the showrooms. Hotel lobbies become networking events. Starbucks lines become a place to talk about the show and gossip.

My first piece of advice is the same advice I gave for Salone. Make restaurant reservations now. Right now. Not two weeks before. Not when you land. Now. Because your clients will remember the dinner almost more than the showroom visit.

Chicago is one of the great food cities in America, and this is not the week to eat badly. Get the steak. Eat Italian. Find the hidden neighborhood places. And yes, have the deep-dish pizza at least once even if half the people in Chicago pretend they do not eat it.

And for the record, if somebody takes me for a proper chicken Vesuvio or an Italian beef sandwich done the right way, I am happy. And no, before anybody writes me, I know that is not “real” Italian food, but somehow Chicago made both of those things part of its identity and honestly they are great.

You have heard this from me before but wear comfortable shoes because you are going to walk far more than you think. The difference between Salone and NeoCon is that in #Milan you wander beautifully. In Chicago you power walk with purpose.

Fulton Market especially. One minute somebody tells you a showroom is “right there” and twenty minutes later you are still walking past restaurants and converted warehouses trying to figure out where the entrance is. I have the worst sense of direction imaginable, the worst, and even with #GPS on my phone I still get lost.

Ubers are my weakness getting over to Fulton Market, but often hard to get and wildly expensive. Usually, I use one to get over there, then take my chances the rest of the day.

And here is my practical tip. Take the train from the airport. Seriously. People waste a fortune sitting in traffic to and from O’Hare during NeoCon week. Chicago has one of the easiest airport train systems in America. Learn it. Use it. Save the money for dinner. Look up the right stop to get off the train, in advance.

One of my own tricks for the show is that I pack lighter every year. I used to bring so many clothes only to discover I wore the same thing almost every day anyway. At some point the way you dress becomes your brand.

Then after I check into my hotel, I locate a store for bottled water and Gatorade for my hotel room, because by day three people start looking like they have been trapped inside #TheMart since Memorial Day. Then the next thing I need to know is how close my hotel is to a Starbucks for the next morning.

Dress for summer but be ready for rain and wind because Chicago weather changes quickly in June. You can start the morning in sunshine and end the evening hanging onto your umbrella like you are in a tornado warning.

Speaking of umbrellas, I cannot wait to see the Tuuci umbrella display inside The Mart entrance across from Kinzie Chophouse. Somehow when I see that umbrella display, I know NeoCon has officially started.

Now let’s talk about the show and the showrooms. If your showroom is in The Mart, get yourself to Fulton Market. If your showroom is in Fulton Market, get yourself to The Mart. Too many people stay inside their own bubble and miss half the industry.

The Mart still has that giant “everybody under one roof” feeling that makes NeoCon special. You can see an entire cross-section of the industry in one elevator ride. Fulton Market is different. More spread out. More architecture and branding driven. You roam more. You discover things accidentally. Honestly, that is part of the fun now that I am used to it.

And manufacturers, please, I am begging you. Make it easy to get into your showroom. If you want to scan badges, fine, I understand, but then hire people who know how to scan badges quickly and politely. Nothing kills momentum faster than standing in line outside a showroom while somebody struggles with technology that should have worked an hour ago.

And what about the tote bags? Every year people complain about them and every year everybody still takes them anyway. The first company that comes up with great swag will become legendary in this industry.

And before I leave Chicago, I always bring back Frango Mints. I do not care how many expensive dinners I have had that week. That little green box still somehow says Chicago to me.

My real tip for the show is not so much about how to work the show, but how to work the show for yourself. You are your own brand at NeoCon and Design Days, so market yourself accordingly.

The real talk this year at Design Days and NeoCon is all about #HNI’s acquisition of Steelcase, just six months ago. So, everybody I speak to wants to walk through the #Steelcase showroom. Just to read the room. Everyone says they want to see the people more than the furniture.

Then they want to visit the other HNI and Steelcase brands like #Allsteel, #HON, #AMQ, HBF, #Kimball and Smith System, all the HNI subsidiaries that are part of the show.

Will it feel like a #celebration at those places of this great big new family of brands? Or will it feel like everybody is pretending not to think the exact same thing?

At every one of those showrooms, people will smile. Everybody will say the right things about opportunity, growth, synergy, and the future. But underneath all of it, people will still quietly be looking around those beautiful showrooms wondering the same thing.

Will the same people be standing in those same showrooms next year?

Signed,
Stephen

Stephen Viscusi is the founder of www.viscusigroup.com, an executive search firm that specializes in the interior furnishings industry. Hires made through The Viscusi Group are guaranteed a one-year free replacement. Please share your story or comment on this article and send your workplace questions to stephen@viscusigroup.com. Or give us a call at (212) 979-5700 ext. 101.

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