WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- I love making this trip every year, but loathe that this one coincided with today's Light Up Night taking place back home.
If only because this promises to be the most seismic moment yet for our Downtown HQ/shop, with tens of thousands expected to descend, as always, on the Golden Triangle. And with Fifth Avenue and Market Square playing prominent roles in the festivities. And with our hours extended to (at least) 9 p.m. And with our inventory having been bulked up big-time in the past few days alone.
Could be quite a day. But it's already been quite a year.
To start, it's been fun. I'm not going to lie: Dali and I have really enjoyed the experience, not just of the retail component but also with the-far-more-significant-to-us element of being able to meet our readers and listeners throughout the week, even while having a cool new space in which to write articles, record podcasts, have meetings, whatever.
And beyond that, the retail's gone ... better than expected. Without getting into dollar figures -- we seldom do -- we've already moved into legit profitability, albeit modest, and we hadn't budgeted for that at all in 2022. Add into it that we opened on April 29 and still haven't benefited from Light Up Night or the entire Christmas season, and there's ample room for optimism that we'll exceed that modest level in short order.
