CHICAGO -- The Onion website and publication, which frequently skewers the convenience retailing industry with its faux news, went to the NACS Show this year for the "Taste Test Special Report," a real account of its A.V. Club correspondent's impressions of the NACS trade show. It's an outsider's edgy, irreverent look at one of the convenience industries biggest annual events, held in Chicago earlier this month.
It begins: "After I'd been at the National Association of Convenience Stores' annual convention for about five minutes, a dude dressed as Sasquatch threw a mousepad advertising [image-nocss] beef jerky at me. Also, several scantily clad women had already given me free candy and energy drinks. And you, imaginary reader, had the nerve to ask me 'Why would you want to go to a convention for the nation's convenience and petroleum retailers?' For this 'Taste Test Special Report,' of course. Also: Ain't no party like a convenience-store party, cuz a convenience-store party don't stop."
"Seriously, though, I had no idea this convention existed until a month ago. Though it wasn't quite the candy insanity of the All Candy Expo (also held in Chicago at McCormick Place), it was still pretty otherworldly. Thousands, maybe millions, of companies descended on the gigantic north and south halls, doing their best to sell the nation's gas stations and quik-stops their wares, from hot dogs to those hot-dog-roller things that keep them warm."
Click hereto read the complete, uncensored report.
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