More than half of the registrants for the Future of the Industry Conference (FOI) at CBA Advance next week are retailers-a huge increase over just two years ago, which saw only 28 retailers out of 145 total attendees. CBA Advance will convene Jan. 31-Feb. 5 at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville.

FOI, scheduled Friday and Saturday, will focus on restoring trust between retailers and suppliers. There also will be progress reports from CBA's supply-chain management committee.

More than 300 retailers are registered for Tuesday's Independents Day, which will include CBA's state of the industry report.

Expo will run Tuesday through Thursday. Of the 225 companies exhibiting at CBA Advance next week, 52 will be doing so for the first time.

CBA does not release total registration numbers before Advance but said the number of stores that preregistered is about the same as last year. However, the total number of preregistered attendees is up because of an increase in exhibitor staff.

Overall attendance last year was 3,861, with 221 exhibitors.

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