CONEXPO 2011
By Bob Martin - General Manager - March 25, 2011
By all counts (at least thus far), CONEXPO 2011 has been a very welcomed success. After years of slumping sales, the turnout at the CONEXPO exhibition in Las Vegas this week seems to indicate a positive change in customer perception and general optimism for the coming year.
I managed to attend the show for a single day yesterday, and I was very happy with what I saw. The show was incredibly busy and all of the exhibitors that I spoke with said that there was a very promising amount of good, solid inquiries. This was a complete change from our own xperience at the last UCT exhibition in Texas, which was dismally slow and not well attended at all.
If you've never been to CONEXPO, it is a true experience not to be missed. One of (if not THE) largest equipment expo's in the world, there is plenty to see. To help the novice, or even experienced, show-goer, they have come out with a downloadable app for your smartphone that will actually help you navigate the show. I didn't have time to download and play with it, but its a great idea and a necessity if you've got stands that you want to hit and don't have the time to hunt for them.
Being Las Vegas, there is always lots to see and do. As it was the second day of the show when I attended, I could easily pick out the bleary eyed examples of late night revelers regretting a few too many libations the night before.
Vermeer had a good booth at the show, with their new terrain leveler taking front and center of their display. They had several drills on display along with samplings from their other industry offerings. Their D1000x900 took up the rear of the booth, a great display of their maxi-rig offerings.
Ditch Witch featured their brand new JT5, a direct replacement for their JT520 line of mini HDD drills. The JT5 features rack and pinion pulldown, and its name is now following Ditch Witch's new format of naming, similar to the JT100 (no 20!).
All in all, it was a great show and I really wish that I could have spent another day to look around. There is always 2013 to look forward to!
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