"The Experience"

[rlord]

Rick are you participating in Clearwater "The Experience" this year? Also either way is the Trade Show still free you just show up sign in and go? I aways got a pass from youso I'm not sure if I can just go to the trade show or not.
Anybody from the board plan on attending?
Does seem to be more our business related than in past years.

[encapman]

We're not having a booth this year. We're taking a wait and see approach to their new regime. In fact the old version of Connections had turned into a bit of a sleeper for us for the past few years. It takes a good sized financial commitment to be an exhibitor, and frankly we were not seeing adequate return on that investment. So at this point we're thinking that we'll wait and see if the show gets more interesting to participate in. Although I'm kind of doubtful that it will ever pick up the kind of excitement and momentum that it once had.

Here is a link where you can pre-register for free for the trade show only... http://www.experiencetheevents.com/conf_reg.html

I will be cruising the show Saturday. Maybe I'll see you on the trade show floor on Saturday afternoon.

[NJP]

Yeah Rick I know what you mean. I really don't like the basement area of the hotel either. I love the area. Cool beach and area it's held in. JMO

[encapman]

It's not even a basement. It is a parking garage! They convert the parking garage underneath the hotel into an exhibit room by building temporary walls, laying down cheap disposable carpet, adding marginal lighting, and pumping in tons of AC. It's a brilliant idea, but a dismal environment for a trade show.

But that's not why we aren't supporting this year's show. We aren't supporting it because the classes remain essentially the same year after year after year, a large portion of these shows are related to water damage restoration (which we aren't into), and their shows haven't been drawing audiences that have much interest in commercial carpet cleaning products. In the early years the shows were very profitable for us! But in recent years it's basically been the same old same old year after year. And as an exhibitor, at some point we need to look at the big picture and say where is the ROI?

Like I said, I'll keep my eye on the show. If it gets more interesting, we will jump back in. I had exhibited at every Connections event (east and west) since the very first one in Vegas. But we finally pulled the plug on last year's Vegas show, and decided not to exhibit. To be fair, I should add that we've always enjoyed working with Larry Cooper and his staff - all very nice people!

The Clearwater show is right in our backyard. So if it ever does turn into a viable show, it would make sense for us to be there. But for now though we're taking a wait and see approach. Yet looking over this year's speaker agenda, the program looks to be about the same as ever. I really hope I'm wrong and discover that there's compelling reason to return next year. We'll see.

[TheCleaningDude]

Do you think other vendors are taking a similar approach?

[encapman]

I don't really know about other vendors. I did see some pull exhibitors out in the last couple of years. And I heard of some that bailed on the last Vegas show. But I'm guessing that there are still a good number of exhibitors.