2/13/2010
FIN Survey: Three-Way Tie for Trade Show Location

End of 2009 FIN Survey: In what city or cities should the major U.S. fastener trade show be located?

There were three top choices for locating a U.S. fastener trade show.

The host cities of the current two largest North American fastener trade shows were the most frequently mentioned specific locations: Las Vegas and Chicago.

But the word “rotate” received multiple mentions and a variety of others cities were mentioned as frequently as Chicago and Las Vegas.

Cities receiving multiple mentions were: Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Orlando, San Francisco and St. Louis.

Also named individually were: San Antonio, Dallas, Charlotte and Phoenix.

One apparent Bay Area advocate had three suggestions: “San Francisco, Oakland or San Jose.”

Among other suggestions were: “Warm ones,” “Somewhere in Ohio,” “Southeast,” “Detroit for great deals,” “Vegas on the monorail route,” and “one trade show only and at an easy place to get in and out.”

Familiarity may have bolstered the numbers for Las Vegas and Chicago. The National Industrial Fastener Show/West has been held in Las Vegas since 1997 and is scheduled there November 8-10, 2010.

Chicago is the home for Fastener Tech in odd-numbered years since 2007 and the Mid-West Fastener Show in even-numbered years back to 1982.

The next Chicago show is June 7, 2010, and Fastener Tech will be June 13-15, 2011.

Columbus – where the first NIFS was held in 1981 and NIFS/East is scheduled on May 25 this year – was mentioned only once by a FIN Survey respondent who suggested, “Cleveland, Chicago, Indy or Columbus.”

The Southwestern Fastener Association sponsors a show in even-numbered years alternating between Houston and Dallas. The 2010 Southwestern Fastener Expo will be April 10, 2010, at the Gaylord Texan Hotel near DFW Airport.

The Specialty Tools & Fasteners Distributors Association rotates every year and has held conventions in most of the cities mentioned by FIN Survey respondents.

STAFDA will meet November 7-9 n Phoenix this year.

Other STAFDA locations in the past decade were: Atlanta, Denver, Nashville, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Baltimore and San Antonio. ©2010 GlobalFastenerNews.com