ASW Conversations: SEMA isn’t letting a crisis go to waste

There’s a saying to never let a good crisis go to waste and the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) is taking that to heart when planning its annual SEMA Show.

Attendees of the 2021 event likely noticed wider aisles and a thinned-out crowd. Travel restrictions put a damper on attendance numbers from both members of the industry and exhibitors.

But, as Tom Gattuso, vice president of events with SEMA, explains in the latest episode of ASW Conversations, his team saw this as an opportunity to learn and adjust for future shows, especially the next one in November 2022 when crowd numbers are expected to bump up closer to the typical 150,000-170,000 people mark.

“We will have some of those wider aisles,” he told host and publisher Peter Bulmer. “And, really, it’s a nod towards trying to make people’s time at the show more efficient … it didn’t make anybody super happy that they would have to go from one meeting to another meeting and feel like they were swimming upstream. So by being able to create a more efficient traffic flow … and you look at what the user experience is like and what it is like to go from one side of a hall to the other or one building to another for a meeting, how efficiently can you be there. And that’s been a focus of how we’ve been designing the floor.”

For anyone who attends this show or wants insights on putting together an event in this new age, Gattuso offers some unique insights on what to expect this fall and the thought process behind putting it all together.

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