ASRW 2008 POST-SHOW EDITION
Co-location of CARS, NACE Results in Successful Week
and Positive Feedback

ASA President Ron Pyle addresses the media during the ASRW closing press conference. Seated, from left: CARS 2008 chairman Aaron Clements, NACE 2008 chairman Darrell Amberson and Galen Poss, Hanley Wood.

Ron Pyle, ASA’s president and chief staff executive, shared feedback obtained from exhibitors and attendees and discussed the positive reviews staff and volunteers have received while onsite.

Pyle said from the association’s standpoint, one important benefit of ASRW is that members from both the collision and mechanical sides of the industry have the opportunity to network with one another like never before.

“In the past, they were separated to different parts of The Strip,” said Pyle. “However, with the co-location of CARS and NACE, now they’re all in one place, and the tremendous amount of camaraderie and intermingling of the disciplines has been a benefit for all of the attendees, as well as the exhibitors.”

CARS 2008 chairman Aaron Clements.

“After having been chairman under the past set of circumstances to the new, I thought the transition to the co-locating went very well, and I’ve heard lots of very good feedback and my perceptions of the show have been extremely positive,” said Amberson.

Aaron Clements, AAM, CARS chairman and owner of C&C Automotive in Augusta, Ga., stressed the important benefits of networking and making connections not only with members from the same segment of the industry, but also connecting and gaining perspective from those in another segment.

“With the new co-location, we are able to sit side-by-side with friends that we have rarely gotten to see in the past,” said Clements. “On the mechanical side, it’s opened up completely new doors for us, so that’s been a huge benefit, and I’ve heard many positive reactions about it.”

Galen Poss, president of Hanley-Wood, the company that manages ASRW, said this year's co-location of events enjoyed good attendance relevant to the newness of the format. While final figures will not be known until the close of the show today, Poss said they were delighted with the number and quality of attendees seen throughout the last three days, but he expected numbers to be somewhat down from last year’s shows. He attributed the decline to the down economic situation and the fact that they had seen fewer shop employees registered because owners could not afford to leave the shop unattended for the duration of the events.

NACE 2008 chairman Darrell Amberson.

“There is some hard data that says the collision repair industry is doing a lot of mechanical repair work,” said Poss. “Something we’ll be able to evaluate once the shows are complete is the crossover of NACE attendees signing up for CARS classes, and CARS attendees registering for NACE classes.”

Poss said the co-location of events resulted in 20 percent of NACE attendees registering for CARS seminars, and that those statistics “just go to show you the amount of crossover we’re seeing between the two types of shops and disciplines.”

“Most exhibitors have said they were having a better show this year than last in terms of amount of customers they are seeing and the amount of business they are doing in their booth,” said Poss.

CARS had 6,600 square feet of trade show space, and 47 exhibiting companies, while NACE finished with 127,800 square feet and 362 exhibiting companies, 64 of which were new.

The 2009 Automotive Service and Repair Week (ASRW) will be held at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center Nov. 4 through 7.
The event will again co-locate ASA’s NACE and CARS events.