Show management announced the 37th annual International Fastener Expo drew 750+ exhibiting companies, 5,000+ total registration and 2,500+ attendees.

IFE claimed a 26% increase in participation over the past two years.

• It was the second year for Emerald Expositions after acquiring the National Industrial Fastener & Mill Supply Expo following the 2015 trade show. For 2017, Emerald gave the event a new name: International Fastener Expo.

• Also new was a one-time Las Vegas Convention Center location. The show was at the Sands Expo & Convention Center from 2011 through 2016. 

For 2018, IFE will return to Mandalay Bay – where NIFMSE operated from 2007 through 2010.

• Longer second-day hours were new for 2017, with Thursday extended from the traditional 9 am until 1 pm by three hours until  4 pm.

• Emerald did not announce specific attendance registration figures as the previous show management did. However, by announcing registration numbers were up 26% in two years, it implied distributor registration was 1,672 – or 324 more than the 2015 number of 1,248.

That 26% applied to overall registration would make total registration about 5,669, compared with the 2015 figure of 4,499. 

• Emerald’s floor map shows 1,039 occupied booths. That includes 71 machinery section booths; 237 in the second year of  “Source Global” section; and 731 in the traditional distribution-oriented space.

The show topped the 1,000 mark in 2016 – besting the 2015 record of 829.

• Show management reported a 53% majority of attendees were executive management and 55% of the 50 largest distributors in the world attended the 2017 trade show.

More than 1,000 attended the opening evening reception.

Emerald credited co-locating with MetalCon as “highly successful, producing the busiest show floor IFE has ever seen.” Next year, the show will be held in conjunction with the automotive specialty equipment trade show – SEMA. It draws about 70,000 vendors and buyers to the Las Vegas Convention Center, which is 5.6 miles from the 2018 IFE at Mandalay Bay Resort on the South end of the Las Vegas “Strip.”

New in 2018 will be the manufacturing and Source Global sections opening for a half day on October 30 for a “Preview Day.” The second and third days will be the traditional trade show.

2017 IFE Exhibitor Comments
• “It was great!” Dennis Cowhey of Computer Insights Inc. declared. “We did very well and we had lots of fun too.”

• “Pretty good show, about the same as the last few years,” said another exhibitor.

• “I thought the show was just ‘OK’,” one veteran exhibitor reflected. “Business overall was reported as better for the distributors, which was good to hear.”

• “Very good,” John Conte of Fall River Manufacturing declared. “We were generally pleased with the show.”

He rated quality and quantity of attendees stopping by the Fall River booth as “7 out of 10.”

“We don’t count heads, but judge more by the quality of our conversations. Fewer attendees allows more time given to those who do stop by the booth.”

• “While it did not seem as busy as many shows which was perhaps due to the two-day scheduling, the quality and quantity of those in attendance was great,” Char Cooper of Cable Tie Express found. “It was a nice mix of current customers and new potentials we at Cable Tie Express hope to turn into long and loyal customers!” 

A key for Cable Tie Express is “arranging key meetings in advance to be productive from both sides of the table. 

• “Overall the attendees at our booth were positive and had goals or quotes,” Nick Penney of Vogelsang Fastener Solutions reflected. “The hours were a little long this year. The second 1/2 of day two was very empty of customers.”

• One manufacturer relatively new to exhibiting, Baron Yarborough of Spring Bolt & Nut Manufacturing, felt attendance “might have been a bit down, but the quality of the people walking the floor was way up.”

The show’s expanding number of booths in recent years means “people were more spread out, making it feel less busy,” Yarborough commented. “But that also makes it to where you could have more in-depth conversations.”

Though Spring Bolt has been around for decades, “we have not really marketed ourselves too much until recently, so we are still at the stage where we meet a lot of new distributors at every show we attend.” The 2017 IFE included “a lot of great potential customers coming by and checking out some cool fasteners.”

Yarborough commended Emerald for “always wanting the fastener industry’s input and listening when we give our ideas.”

A veteran exhibitor found that “from the opening of the doors until the end of the first day, with only a slight slow down during the lunch hour time giving the booth people a breather, the exhibitor was “steadily busy with two or three attendees waiting.” The second day was “slower but steady,” allowing more time to spend with attendees.

The company set a goal of 200 leads and ended up with 180 “possibilities.”

Machinery exhibitors are awaiting the half-day of “preview” hours in 2018. Once a trade show on its own with fastener machinery, it has been aligned with both wire and distribution shows subsequently.

“Every year seems like a bit much for machinery,” reflected Ray Sullivan of Cinco Industries Inc., who is also president of the International Fastener Machinery & Suppliers Association.  Years ago when held separately, the machinery show was biennial. He advocated a new location for a fastener show and “I think a lot of the machinery people are feeling the same way.”

“Show was about the same as last year,” responded Bryan Byrne of National Machinery Exchange Inc. “Not very crowded in the machinery section, but a few good quality customers.”

One distribution-oriented exhibit appreciated “one good point” of the separate section for machinery and importers.

Though the booth numbers have jumped in the past two years, a few exhibitors complained that the numbers were boosted by non-fastener booths. 

“It’s a fastener show, not a place to buy sunglasses or get a facial – only fastener people should be able to get a booth.”

Longer Second Day
Exhibitors responding to FIN were unanimous in questioning this year’s longer second-day hours.

“The additional length of the show was of no benefit and just cost additional money,” declared one exhibitor who added that she heard “many complaints on the 2018 show dates and length of show from exhibitors and attendees.”

“One -and-a-half days are plenty for this show … or even a one-day 9 am to 5 pm would work,” she added. “We were all just twiddling our thumbs in the afternoon the second day this year.”

“Making the second day a full day did nothing for me as after 1 pm I don’t think I had anyone in the booth,” another exhibitor said. “I would rather go back to the half day as I can catch an afternoon flight. Second full day makes it so I have to spend another night.”

Extending the second day increased costs, one exhibitor pointed out. It meant several of his staffers had to stay another night, increasing hotel and restaurant bills and keeping them away from home longer. It was difficult to make that third evening useful, he added.

“Many of the A-listers had left on the second day so our choices for entertaining didn’t really exist.”

“The second half of day two was very empty of customers,” an international exhibitor summarized.

“Go back to 1.5 days,” one exhibitor commented. “The second afternoon was a waste.”

“The first day is busy enough to keep us all talking and the second day we leave our booths to run through the show,” an exhibitor explained. “This year was literally a huge waste of time from 12:30 pm the second day.”

“No one was in their booths come 2 pm,” another exhibitor observed. “Most started packing up already … or they were at the beer garden.”

“The first day was very good especially early – before 2 pm. The second day was really slow after lunch,” another exhibitor found. He suggested IFE “should have paid us to stand there that long without any activity.” The veteran exhibitor quipped that he is thinking of putting a hammock in the booth for the second afternoon in 2018.

Another participant placed the burden on show management to bring in attendees when they extend hours: “I will be watching for initiatives from show management to create second afternoon traffic in 2018. If they fail to have good traffic in the aisles, maybe we as exhibitors should send show management a message by packing up and leaving early?”

Another exhibitor suggested if second afternoon traffic is slow in 2018 “exhibitor staff should ‘take a knee’ at the front of their booths at 2 pm to send a message” to show management.

Location
Though multiple exhibitors didn’t like this year’s location at the Las Vegas Convention Center, “We are not thrilled with the show location for next year,” one exhibitor said in reference to Mandalay Bay on the south end of the Las Vegas “Strip.”

From 2011 through 2016 location at the Sands Expo “was closer to the center of everything. Mandalay Bay is a bit remote and it forces us to take a cab down to the center of town if we want to utilize the other hotels and restaurants.”

“Stop moving the show,” asked one exhibitor. “We were happy to be located at the Sands, which was closer to the center of everything.”

Several exhibitors questioned IFE scheduling for 2018 immediately after the Specialty Tools & Fasteners Distributors Association October 28-30 convention in Phoenix and over Halloween. “For those businessmen and women who are also parents and grandparents and/or who enjoy the fun of Halloween night, this poses quite a conflict in missing this holiday so special to many!” declared one veteran IFE exhibitor.

Holding the show on Halloween is “just not good business,” another exhibitor said. “I heard from many attendees they were not coming next year.

The awkward scheduling was caused by previous NIFMSE show management’s booking only through 2016. Upon acquiring NIFMSE in 2015, Emerald found most desirable dates already booked for 2018.

STAFDA was originally scheduled in Denver during mid-November 2018, but was booted by Colorado this summer in favor of a five-year contract with a larger trade show.

STAFDA was able to reschedule to Sunday, Monday and Tuesday in Phoenix. IFE will open on Tuesday in Las Vegas with conferences, a half-day preview for the machinery and source global sections and opening reception, followed by the regular trade show Wednesday and Thursday.

Also an exhibitor complained about children in the aisles at the 2017 IFE. “There has always been a minimum age of 18,” she recalled. “Not this year. There is no need to bring your children to a fastener show – that was my only complaint.”

The one-year LVCC location didn’t please exhibitors. From “dirty bathrooms” to “no place to take a customer for lunch” and too far from hotels.

One exhibitor complained about the timing of signing up for a 2018 booth “during the hours of the 2017 show going on – while people are fully engaged with the present show.”

Founded in 1981, today IFE includes about 70 product categories. Web: FastenerShows.com

Emerald Expositions, which operates 50 U.S. business-to-business trade shows, including 31 of the top 250. Emerald events draws 500,000+ global attendees and exhibitors and occupies 6.7 million NSF of exhibition space. Web: EmeraldExpositions.com