Association Puts the Junk in Manufacturing
By Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 9/27/2004
What do you give the Tradeshow Week 200 show that has everything? How about a few laughs.
In designing the 2004 Intl. Manufacturing Technology Show, held Sept. 8–15 at Chicago's McCormick Place, the Assn. for Manufacturing Technology did what it does every year: looked at attendee feedback from the previous show. Peter Eelman, IMTS' vice president of exhibitions, said he realized that, year after year, survey respondents say the same three things are important to them: the chance to shop and buy products, see new technology and have some fun.
With 1,200 exhibitors filling 1.1 million net square feet, the IMTS expo offers ample opportunity to shop and buy products. A new Emerging Technology Center — including a theater presentation followed by live demonstrations of nanotechnology, noncontact inspection and smart machining — took care of the request to see the latest developments in the manufacturing field.
But how do you get 75,000 engineers and machine tool manufacturers to cut loose? How about this: Give them 10 minutes to make miniature cars out of a pile of junk, then have them race the cars down a 16-foot drop to see whose car is the best engineered.
Sound familiar? It's the basic concept behind Junkyard Wars, a program on cable TV network TLC, which has some 93 million subscribers.
Eelman and his team thought a TV show like this would appeal to IMTS' audience, so they asked their advertising agency, SKM Group, to do a little demographic and feasibility research on ways to transfer such a program to the exhibition floor. After studying several possibilities, including Monster Garage and American Chopper, SKM determined Junkyard Wars would be the best fit. Sheldon Lane, a spokesman for the Junkyard Wars road show, said the group has done its act in malls and schools, but this was its first tradeshow.
IMTS attendees responded enthusiastically to the experiment. Erik Schulze, a proposals project engineer for IMPCO Machine, waited nearly an hour to compete, then, going by the name "T-Rex," single-handedly beat out two teams of two people.
"This was the icing on the cake," Schulze said, adding that the best part was being able to go home and tell his two sons that he's been in a junkyard war, since the three watch the program together.
By placing the game at the back of the exhibit hall in Lakeside Center, on the opposite side of McCormick Place from the Emerging Technology Center, IMTS did more than spice up the tradeshow. It created two poles of activity that kept a steady stream of traffic moving through the convention center.
Eelman said the Junkyard Wars attraction was part of a larger overall buzz at the show, due in part to renewed vigor in the manufacturing sector. Will he bring it back in 2006? "I don't know if we'll do that, but we'll do something like it," Eelman said. "There's a world of possibilities, and who knows what will be hot two years down the road?"
