With most waiting for signs of economic recovery, this could be a tough year for industry tradeshows. I asked Jeffrey Straw, chairman of the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association’s Manufacturers and Services Division and Geosonics/Vibra-Tech vice president and area manager, about this years’ show.

How are vendors approaching this year’s Agg1?
From those I’ve talked with, the approach is cautious. Our two companies are looking at this in a very conservative fashion this year. We’ve seen some preliminary numbers, and they seem to be down from last year in terms of attendees. There are still some of the bigger companies sending people, but the numbers appear to be down. Now, that doesn’t take into account that Agg1 is a month earlier this year. Some people may register at the last minute. There are also likely to be a number of walk-ins. There are six states that Cincinnati is next to that are easily within driving distance. I anticipate there will be a lot of walk-in traffic. But, we are approaching it cautiously. We are not sending as many people as we did last year in Orlando. I think everybody is doing the same with that, so cost is a huge deal. These shows are expensive to go to. It is not just the registration, it costs you X-number of dollars per square foot. As vendors we also bring a series of people; they have to stay in a hotel, travel arrangements to make, meals and all of the other things that go along with that.

For those who are going, are they cutting back in areas?
Vendors are not bringing as much in terms of big equipment. I don’t have facts and figures, but I know that the people that had renewed from the year before (they were given a better rate to renew in 2009 right after the show), there were those who scaled down the size of their booth. I don’t know that companies like Caterpillar are going to scale down the size of their booth. The question is how many support people do they bring. And they may not bring as much equipment. They are going to bring their key lines, but I don’t know that they are going to bring all of the ancillary equipment.

Does scaling back like that hurt the sales effort?
It doesn’t hurt our sales effort. We can do it with two or three people, but we’re choosing our more senior people that are more sales oriented. What we may be doing is focusing on the leads more. We are looking more for those qualified buyers that are decision makers. Our focus is on getting the leads and then going to see those folks after the show. Nobody I talk to with NSSGA (M&S Division) expects to sell right there on the show floor. They want to introduce those people to their products, find out what their needs are, and then go see those people in a one-on-one setting. You may deal with somebody at Agg1 walking through the show, and they are a regional manager; they may not be the final decision maker, but you can get to those people and work your way to the correct person.

Will those who attend be serious shoppers?
We might not have the quantity, but you get the quality of people that are there. At these shows, you are looking for the decision maker, the person you are going to make the sale to. The fact that Ward Nye, incoming president of Martin Marietta, Don James, chairman of Vulcan Materials, Gerry Geraghty, president of the Rogers Group, it is good to talk to them and meet them, but I am not going to sell them a seismograph or a noise study. Bridgestone isn’t going to sell them tires. They are going to find out what their needs are and go back to those decision makers at another time.

Do you have a sense about Bauma?
There’s going to be some scaling back. Con/Agg and Bauma, those big shows like that, folks will say ‘if I have one show to go to, that’s the one I’m going to’ because they can see everything there. It will be well attended, but I don’t think the numbers will be as high as in the past. Again, it may be that they send their decision makers. It has been two years since the last Con/Agg. For those major shows, they are going to send the quality people there. One of my clients would send all of their top people to Con/Agg; they’d have 20 people there. I don’t think they are going to do that next year. They are going to send only their top people, but not the extra folks.

At Agg1, the big aggregate producer companies are very well represented on the list. Those are companies that want their people going for some of the education. That’s the advantage going to Agg1 as opposed to going to one of the other big, big shows. Agg1 has got the educational benefits.

How many leads does a vendor need to do better than breakeven at a show?
For us, I don’t know that there’s a number. If we could come out of there with 15 to 20 good, solid leads, that would be something that we could translate into sales.

Is Cincinnati going to hurt Agg1?
It really depends on the weather. It would not be my first pick. It is good for drive-ins and may be good for the aggregate industry. If it is really horrible weather, then it is a problem. It would not be a place I would suggest they have a show in February. There is some reduced cost (staying in Cincinnati), but there are other areas that I thought would have been better. A lot of this is driven by the association of NSSGA and NAPA; the locations were picked for a few years by NAPA. But there were other locations that might have been better this time of the year.

Does the M&S division prefer the Agg1 format to the number of small events NSSGA used to do?
The input I’ve gotten from the members over the last few years is mixed. You have one show to go, you’ll have all the people there going through the hall, and you may do a presentation and see all the folk tied to the NSSGA annual convention. It is a one-time cost per year. When you had six to 10 shows spread out over a year, if you had a range across multiple industries—we do noise, water well, blasting type work—we would go to an automation conference, the drilling and blasting seminar, the operators conference, and the environmental, safety and health conference. We’d have four or five shows to go to and our costs were more. But, when we went to the drilling and blasting seminar, we were dealing with just people focused on drilling and blasting. The focus was tighter, and you had the ability to refine your leads tighter. When you are at Agg1, you have everybody across the board; it is a little harder work to pull out those good leads. But it is more cost effective.

What do you expect from Conexpo-Con/Agg?
It is so closely tied to the economy right now, but Con/Agg will be like the international shows—it’s going to do well because it is Con/Agg. I’m hoping that the economy is going to be better in 2011 and things will be starting to scale up. For Con/Agg there will be strong attendance, but I don’t know that it will be anything record-setting. I don’t think we will be close to anything record-setting until maybe 2012. Everybody says that 2010 is going to be better. I don’t get that feeling that 2010 is going to be better until the latter half. We still have some months of reduced work. The lack of a federal transportation bill, construction and the aggregate industries are going to lag behind for a while.