I attended the The Woodworking Shows event in Detroit (Novi) yesterday. There has been some concern about changes with their reported new ownership, so here are my opinions. (I suspect Doug Meyer will have some comments as well.)
1. On-line ticket sales. – I could not ‘get in’ to buy after I had clicked onto the “Detroit site.” I was successful if I entered ‘buy tickets’ on the home page.
2. Attendance – This has always been a big (well attended) show. I opens at noon Friday. I arrived about 1:30 and I would estimate 800 cars in the parking lot. The usual cacophony inside. (Big word for very noisy.) When I left at 3:30, about one third of the cars were gone. Hmmm!
3. Displays – This was a much smaller show than in the past. The only ‘big name’ vendors I remember were Festool, DeWalt, Steel City; a local tool shop had a lot of Bosch stuff; Luguna was there but only with a very small band saw. Then the usual mix of attachments and small-supplies vendors (Peachtree was big in this. There was a regular feeding-frenzy at their location.) Marc Sommerfield gave seminars on cabinets which was well attended. Great looking stuff.
4. Prognosis – Something has happened. It seems to be going downhill. I don’t know why they cut the paid seminars. Marc Adams, has been a regular and he has been cut. We’ll see what happens next year.
Frosty
“I sometimes think we consider the good fortune of the early bird and overlook the bad fortune of the early worm.” FDR – 1922
Replies
Frosty
Similar observations here in Alberta. This year we had 3 shows over the course of 6 or 8 weeks. At the same time there were some closely timed shows in eastern Canada. This is not a healthy situation. I have always looked forward to seeing what the innovators have to offer. You can see what the big manufacturers have anytime via their distributors, plus they rarely provide any hands on demonstrations.
The show circuit schedule is getting so convoluted that the small exhibitors cannot afford to be crisscrossing the country.
Demonstrations. I come tot he show to learn. The Edmonton show use to have some very good seminars. The last couple of yours this has not been the case. I would gladly pay a higher admission fee for this.
As it stands, I am likely to abandon the local shows and head off to the big one in Las Vegas unless these exhibitors tell the promoters "enough madness!" They bear the bulk of the cost to advertise and sell. If the value isn't there, they will direct their advertising dollars to different channels.
Don
Hi
Same situation in San Mateo - San Jose area. Last year I have seen hardly any big name companies or seminars. I have stoped going to that shop this year. The Woodcraft show is as good as even sligthly better than the woodworking show because it is tailored for home wood worker like me
Bob
Well in short I did not make it. I live a whole 4.5 miles away and did not make it. I was working until late Friday, and then I looked at the list of companies at the thing and said I was not sure about attending. Then I had some wood working to do that I needed to finish by Xmas on Sat, and well I have 10" of the white stuff in the drive on Sunday, so I did not make it. I talked to a friend that did and he observed that it was kind of small.
I did go the last few years and noticed it was going down hill (for instance LN was at it in 2005, but was not last year or this year) so it has been tending down. And when you take in the cost of attendance and the cost of the parking, I just figured that I was better off to spend time doing wood working vs looking at things. Of course ever tool I have in the wood shop was bought in 2005 or latter (with one or two exceptions) so I am not really looking for anything new, and with the demos not being up to snuff, and less attendance by the larger companies this just added up to me skipping it this year. I have a hunch that the snow on Sat night /Sunday did not help them any.
Doug
I was there Friday afternoon and found it to be pretty disappointing, (luckily I had a sales call in the area). No L-N, not much of a Porter-Cable display. You know it is dying when there are a number of non-woodworking related booths, i.e., inserts for hurting feet, etc….
I found a few items at the Peachtree booth and there were Timber-wolf band saw blades. A local (Holly MI), used machinery dealer was there and his stuff was interesting but all in all it was not worth going.
FWIW,
The booth with the inserts for hurting feet was also at the AWFS show in Las Vegas this year.
It didn't seem out of place.
The Woodworking shows have been going steadily downhill since the government started putting chemicals in our drinking water.Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
A friend and local tool store owner (ToolZone) and has a large display at the Denver, Co show. He told me that "The Woodworking Show" recently changed ownership - I think he said August 2007... but I may be wrong.
Anyway - He met with the new owner and he was told that as a result of the sale/purchase - new contracts, etc had to be reworked with the vendors... unfortunately, many of the larger vendors take a long time to get everything signed... so the size of the shows have been impacted. My friend told me that the new owner has big plans for the future and not to worry.
The last show I went to of this type was about 8 years ago and it was pretty much a waste of time. After being at the big shows in Las Vegas and Atlanta I have found these shows to be pretty much a waste of time.
In my humble oppinion, the 'Wood Show' industry is now facing the same shake-out that the computer industry has gone through. Costs for booths, hotel rooms and shipping materials to the show have gotten too expensive to support all these shows. Yes, it's nice to toss the sawdust with the guy from Mini or Felder, but when they realize that they are not making sales AND have to ship a ton of machinery to the next show, these companies have found out that the return on their dollar was VERY poor. Yes, they can support one to three shows a year, but they can not support a team cris-crossing the country 52 weeks a year.
Our 'local' show (Long Island, NY) has had the same problem... dealers do not want to commit until the last second. We (the Long Island Woodworkers) can not afford to rent a large hall without knowing that we can sell enough floor space to turn even a small profit.
Now, as a woodworker, I've purchased all the major equipment I need (or have the room for) and I'm not really going to upgrade the stuff I have. As an example, the guys from Wood-Mizer have displayed at a number of our shows. Yea, it's fun to watch them slice through logs and make noise and sawdust, but after a few years, the number of BUYERS for this piece of equipment reaches a VERY LOW number. What I want is to see are dealers who have the expendables... router bits, sandpaper, wood, finishing supplies, hardware, etc. I'd like to see a dealer who has a nice selection of books on woodworking too.
Sorry if this is too long but.....
To all my Friends on this board.....
Have a Happy and Healthy New Year
SawdustSteve.... bending nails, making splinters and sawdust for too many years
I think you've hit the nail on the head. e.g. Laguna showing only a 'small' band-saw. Supplies and books are good sellers, though.Good to hear from Long Island. I went to Grammar school in Hempstead and graduated from Garden City HS- in 1944, which was pre-Levitt. Farmingdale was all potato fields.Frosty"I sometimes think we consider the good fortune of the early bird and overlook the bad fortune of the early worm." FDR - 1922
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