I’ll be honest: I can barely remember the first time I went to Las Vegas. If I recall correctly, I slapped high-fives with my friends until the wee hours of the morning, made a couple hundred dollars at the poker table, and wound up having one of the best times of my life. Fast-forward to 2008 and my job actually requires me to attend tradeshows in Vegas four times a year. Four! I must be doing something right in life.

At the end of the summer, I hit Vegas to attend one of North America’s largest fashion tradeshows. The Magic tradeshow has been in existence for over 70 years and has grown into the largest and most comprehensive men’s apparel and accessory event in the USA with over 115,000 attendees per show. Trust me: this tradeshow has it all. You can visit the sourcing section to get low prices for raw materials, the manufacturing section to get your clothing built, and the distribution section to get your product placed across the world and into customer’s hands.

If I told you all the different types of people that visit this tradeshow, it still wouldn’t make sense. Thankfully I own a digital camera. My goal this year was to create a photo essay that would showcase all the random companies, interesting people, brands, and other weirdness at the show.

Take a look below for this year’s photo gallery, which I’ve lovingly titled “Magic-ness 2008”.

Magic, from the outside.

Only one part of a greater whole.

The Manufacturing/Sourcing floor.

Big Black and Ceeto.

Danny Trejo and myself.

EPMD.

Kimbo Slice.

Steve Aoki and Ben Baller.

Obey.

Lifetime.

Me and Mike York.

Worst fashion...ever.

Shave and a haircut...

Some of the things you'll see.

Mountain Dew artist collaboration.

Paul Wall.

Pusha T from The Clipse.

Ying Yang Twins.

T.I.

Quintin "Rampage" Jackson.