Recounting 30 years of shows

Jan. 1, 2020
As I logged on to my travel site to purchase my ticket to Las Vegas, the lyric to that good old Grateful Dead song, Truckin' popped into my head.

As I logged on to my travel site to purchase my ticket to Las Vegas, the lyric to that good old Grateful Dead song, Truckin’ popped into my head. “What a long strange trip it’s been.”

The flashback occurred when I realized that I was making reservations for my 30th consecutive late fall sojourn to Sin City for what is now called “Industry Week.”

Of course, in those days it was the Automotive Warehouse Distributors Association (AWDA) and The Big I Show or the Pacific Automotive Show and of course SEMA plus a few others I was too young and naïve to know about. All this was occurring before we were able to get our act together as an industry and create what is now the second largest event in Vegas; Automotive Aftermarket Industry Week.

As I head into my fourth decade of show attendance I estimate that I have been asked “Are you having a good show?” at least 5,000 times and “When did you get in?” around 3,500 times. But as I reflect on 30 years of the same questions, I must say that way more often than not, I have had a good show. And that got me to wondering about what the next 30 years might hold for the annual aftermarket gathering of the tribes.

Most association pundits say that trade show attendance overall is trending down. And while our market segment is not being hit as hard as other industries, the overall attendance trend is down.

When you think about it, the trend is not really all that surprising. While the associations have done their best to keep costs down, it is the creep of non-show expenses that are having the greatest impact.

PAGE 2


Thirty years ago, Las Vegas was a very different town. It was a city that made its money from gambling revenues. Food and drink specials were everywhere. You almost had to try to spend more than $50 a night for a room. I remember as few as 20 years ago paying just $19.95 for one of the motel rooms behind the Stardust and eating the $1.99 steak and egg breakfast at the Westward Ho Casino. And how about $1 Heinekens and margaritas?

Today Vegas is a town that makes money on everything; food, drink, rooms, shows and gambling. A $17 breakfast is the norm. Or $8 for a Bud Light. And while room costs admittedly have moderated some since 2008, they still average over $150 at most headquarter hotels.

The net effect is the overall cost of attending a show has increase about five fold in the last 10 or 15 years. As I said before, the cost of real estate and other fees paid to our associations has only increased modestly; it is the cost of everything else that is escalating.

Combine these factors with historical and ongoing industry consolidation and the result is shrinkage — smaller booths, fewer people in attendance, attendees staying fewer days. This all means that the associations managing our shows will need to get creative and adapt their tactics to a new environment. It might mean finding a different and less expensive city to host the show. It might mean having the shows less frequently. Or it may mean applying technology in some creative way to enable “virtual” attendance.

There are two significant obstacles that will make the kind of innovation that is required difficult to do. And they both have to do with money.

The first is the fact that manufacturers bear the overwhelming burden of funding our trade shows. Historically, this made sense since distributors and jobbers were typically small, mostly family businesses and the manufacturers were much larger and better-funded entities.

But much has changed in the 30 years since my first show. Today, one can argue that the resellers are the better-funded and more substantial entities. With the emergence of buying groups, program distribution and big box retailers, one could argue that resellers are the healthier of the two types of businesses, certainly on the replacement parts side of the street. Yet buyers pay only about $25 to attend the show while manufacturers pay thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars to exhibit. It may well be time to reexamine that pricing model.

The other issue is the critical revenue stream that the shows represent to our associations. When show revenue represents 50 percent or more of the income for some associations, there is incredible pressure to keep attendance up — even when counting on attendance growth is fraught with the peril I already mentioned.

While I personally look forward to 10 or 20 more years of attending our post-Halloween celebration of all things automotive, I can’t help thinking that some changes need to be made to keep industry week vital. What do you think?

As I logged on to my travel site to purchase my ticket to Las Vegas, the lyric to that good old Grateful Dead song, Truckin’ popped into my head. “What a long strange trip it’s been.”

The flashback occurred when I realized that I was making reservations for my 30th consecutive late fall sojourn to Sin City for what is now called “Industry Week.”

Of course, in those days it was the Automotive Warehouse Distributors Association (AWDA) and The Big I Show or the Pacific Automotive Show and of course SEMA plus a few others I was too young and naïve to know about. All this was occurring before we were able to get our act together as an industry and create what is now the second largest event in Vegas; Automotive Aftermarket Industry Week.

As I head into my fourth decade of show attendance I estimate that I have been asked “Are you having a good show?” at least 5,000 times and “When did you get in?” around 3,500 times. But as I reflect on 30 years of the same questions, I must say that way more often than not, I have had a good show. And that got me to wondering about what the next 30 years might hold for the annual aftermarket gathering of the tribes.

Most association pundits say that trade show attendance overall is trending down. And while our market segment is not being hit as hard as other industries, the overall attendance trend is down.

When you think about it, the trend is not really all that surprising. While the associations have done their best to keep costs down, it is the creep of non-show expenses that are having the greatest impact.

PAGE 2


Thirty years ago, Las Vegas was a very different town. It was a city that made its money from gambling revenues. Food and drink specials were everywhere. You almost had to try to spend more than $50 a night for a room. I remember as few as 20 years ago paying just $19.95 for one of the motel rooms behind the Stardust and eating the $1.99 steak and egg breakfast at the Westward Ho Casino. And how about $1 Heinekens and margaritas?

Today Vegas is a town that makes money on everything; food, drink, rooms, shows and gambling. A $17 breakfast is the norm. Or $8 for a Bud Light. And while room costs admittedly have moderated some since 2008, they still average over $150 at most headquarter hotels.

The net effect is the overall cost of attending a show has increase about five fold in the last 10 or 15 years. As I said before, the cost of real estate and other fees paid to our associations has only increased modestly; it is the cost of everything else that is escalating.

Combine these factors with historical and ongoing industry consolidation and the result is shrinkage — smaller booths, fewer people in attendance, attendees staying fewer days. This all means that the associations managing our shows will need to get creative and adapt their tactics to a new environment. It might mean finding a different and less expensive city to host the show. It might mean having the shows less frequently. Or it may mean applying technology in some creative way to enable “virtual” attendance.

There are two significant obstacles that will make the kind of innovation that is required difficult to do. And they both have to do with money.

The first is the fact that manufacturers bear the overwhelming burden of funding our trade shows. Historically, this made sense since distributors and jobbers were typically small, mostly family businesses and the manufacturers were much larger and better-funded entities.

But much has changed in the 30 years since my first show. Today, one can argue that the resellers are the better-funded and more substantial entities. With the emergence of buying groups, program distribution and big box retailers, one could argue that resellers are the healthier of the two types of businesses, certainly on the replacement parts side of the street. Yet buyers pay only about $25 to attend the show while manufacturers pay thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars to exhibit. It may well be time to reexamine that pricing model.

The other issue is the critical revenue stream that the shows represent to our associations. When show revenue represents 50 percent or more of the income for some associations, there is incredible pressure to keep attendance up — even when counting on attendance growth is fraught with the peril I already mentioned.

While I personally look forward to 10 or 20 more years of attending our post-Halloween celebration of all things automotive, I can’t help thinking that some changes need to be made to keep industry week vital. What do you think?

About the Author

Bob Moore

Bob Moore is a partner in the consulting firm J&B Service that specializes in the automotive aftermarket.  Moore who chairs the SEMA Business Technology Committee and is a member of the SEMA board of directors, can be reached at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @BobMooreToGo.

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