ABC Show: Day 1

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How’s that for a catchy title?  Well, when you’ve walked a billion miles in circles in one day, creativity flies out the window.  Many thanks to the faithful on the east side of the country who have stayed up to catch the latest news (or who have insomnia and just need something to read, lol).

I’ll start with the Evenflo Symphony.  It’s a 3-in-1 seat, 5-100 lbs.  But wait!  That’s 5-35 lbs. rear-facing, 20-40 lbs. forward-facing with the harness.  The booster can be used 30-100 lbs., but I see no reason to start using the booster at 30 lbs. unless you have an unusually tall-torsoed child who outgrows the harness by height.  The harness is permanently attached, so it’s pretty much spot-clean only.  The cover can be removed without having to unhook the harness–it unvelcroes from the front and peels off.  Very nice!  The harness is also the same infinite slide harness adjustment used on the Triumph Advance: it adjusts with the red tabs over the child’s shoulders so it’s always a perfect fit.  The harness tightness adjuster is an a-lock adjuster with an adjuster strap between the child’s knees, like you’ll find on any front adjusting car seat.  OK, that’s the standard stuff.  What’s so special about the Symphony?  Why it’s the LATCH system.  Notice that I call it a system.  “System” implies that it’s more, that it’s cool.  And it is.  When you attach the LATCH connectors to the vehicle LATCH anchors and press down on the car seat, it’s installed.  Voilà, that’s it.  The system is closest to the SafeGuard Child Seat in installation.  It is currently in stores (Babies R Us was mentioned) and retails for $199.99.

   

Another Evenflo seat that looked pretty cool won’t be introduced until early next year.  It’s called the Big Kid Amp.  It’s essentially a backless Big Kid booster, but in 3 super bright, super shiny colors (magenta, red, and blue, if my memory serves me correctly), and will retail for $24.99.  No pictures for this one since it’s not on the market yet.  Inside narrowest dimensions are 11″w x 16.5″d.

We do have lots and lots and lots of pictures: Darren was whipping out his phone camera at every opportunity.  Unfortunately, we had a bit of a technical difficulty this evening uploading them, so the Symphony pictures are all you get 🙁 .  One funny is what happened when we immediately walked into the doors of the show.  We were no more than 3′ inside when we got out our cameras to take a picture of the floor.  On the lower level of the show, the doors are about 10 stair steps higher than the show floor, so it’s a nice vantage point to see the miles (literally) of booths.  Darren is wearing a Media pass and I am wearing a Buyer pass.  The only people allowed to take pictures are Media and this rule is strictly followed.  I kid you not when I say I had no sooner taken out my camera when a show worker walked up and told me I couldn’t take a picture (Of all the booths!  We weren’t even near any products!), but Darren could.  So as she watched, I handed him my camera and he took the picture for me.  LOL!

We did visit other booths, really we did.  Like I said, we have lots of pictures.  I’m trying to decide if I want to talk about what we saw without including the pictures.  Hmmm.  Let’s see.  The Strada booster was at Chicco.  They’re still working on tweaking it to Chicco’s high standards, so they’re looking at 2nd qtr. of 2009.  We went by Mia Moda and talked with a rep who’s a tech, but we’ll go back tomorrow for a more in-depth discussion.  We swung by Britax, of course.  Some new covers there (One that I like in particular, lol.  I’ll let you think on that one for a while.), and a new seat called the Advocate, but I’m sure you’ve heard of that by now ;).  We also stopped by the CARES Harness booth.  That’s the FAA-approved harness for use on planes.  We talked to the owners of the company and the inventor.  Oh, did I not mention the Clek oobr?  Yep, lots of pictures of that great seat.  Including some of the inside of the seat and of an actual kid in the seat.  She was so cute 🙂 .  They have a great fabric on the oobr called Crypton that is fantastic at repelling water.  Just wait–you’ll have to see it to believe it.  There’s also a cute story behind how Clek got its name.

But for now, I’m wiped and I’m sure you just want to see the pictures I do have to show you.  Stay tuned for fun tomorrow :D.

15 Comments

  1. CPSDarren September 18, 2008
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