8/10/2010
HEADLINES
SHOW NEWS: Choose One: NIFS or STAFDA?

With NIFS/West starting one day behind the 34th annual Specialty Tools & Fasteners Distributors Association convention, exhibitors and distributors will have to choose between the shows.
 

STAFDA is November 7-9, 2010, in Phoenix. NIFS/West is November 8-10 in Las Vegas.
 

Exhibitors are complaining that NIFS’ scheduling during the earlier announced STAFDA convention will hurt both shows.

Indeed in 2003 – the last time NIFS partners Jim Bannister and Mike McGuire scheduled their show during a STAFDA convention – at least two National Fastener Distributors Association board members were at STAFDA instead of NIFS. 
 

NIFS scheduling near STAFDA is not new. All 14 NIFS/West trade shows have been within two weeks of STAFDA.
 

Ironically, in 1994 Bannister complained about a fastener manufacturing show being scheduled within two weeks of his 1995 Columbus distribution show.  In a letter to then FIN editor Dick Callahan, Bannister charged that the manufacturing show “has exhibited a total lack of regard for the industry by scheduling their trade show so close to ours. Prospective attendees and exhibitors will be forced to make a choice as to which show they visit or participate in,” Bannister wrote.
 

He noted that having two “events only 14 days apart has to have a negative impact on both.”
 

When the 2010 scheduling conflict was discovered in 2006, NIFS claimed it had seen November 14-16 dates for STAFDA.
 

However, no mid-November STAFDA dates were ever published in the FIN Calendar and STAFDA responded that it never even had a contract for those dates in Phoenix.
 

Despite four years advance notice, NIFS did not reschedule its 2010 show to avoid the conflict it created.  So exhibitors and attendees will have to choose.
 

An option in 2010 is to attend STAFDA on Sunday and Monday and fly to Las Vegas Tuesday morning.
 

See the July 19, 2010 FIN issue for STAFDA conference sessions and schedule or online: stafda.org

Good News for 2011

For the first time NIFS/West will be more than two weeks from STAFDA in 2011. 
 

NIFS/West is moving to October 19-21, 2011, at the Sands Expo in Las Vegas. Web: fastenershows.com
 

STAFDA will be November 13-15, 2011, in San Antonio.  ©2010 GlobalFastenerNews.com