SEMA spelled backwards is A MESs

As many of you know the newest, hottest craze in broadcast cable television shows is Custom Automotive and Motorcycle stuff. Whether its a build-off, a pimping of a vehicle, a tricking of a truck, or just a bunch of east coast guys building bikes it has America gripped and yearning for more.

Every year during the first week of November, hundreds of thousands of people gather in sunny Las Vegas for the annual SEMA/NACE show. SEMA is the trade convention that caters to the insatiable appetite for all things vehicular. It doesn't matter whether it's motorcycles, hot-rods or monster-trucks, or any other associated products that can be attached, painted, modified or "Kustomed" chances are you'll see it at SEMA. Kustom painters and kustom kulture abound! You can see famous artists and their work in many of the booths, along with a plethora of pretty spokesmodels signing autographs and posing for cheesecake pictures.

As an aside - it's best not show all the pictures to your wife and also, have the models sign the posters to your children. I did this once with a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders calendar I had gotten at a tanning show. I had Miss May sign her picture to my son Evan. It was the only way I could get it in the house. "See honey, she signed it for EVAN!!?"

Back to SEMA it was freakin' huge. It takes up the entire LV Convention Center and the parking lots on all side. Plus most of the hotels dedicate space to in their parking lots to many of the exhibitors. For example, one of the exhibiting companies, a company that does sound systems (I think) hosted a motocross freestyle jumping competition in the parking lot of the Hard Rock Casino. It was loud and exciting and pretty kewl to see these bikes going airborne, 30 or 40 ft up.

Our sister company, Anest Iwata USA was one of the exhibitors. They had a small booth 10 x 10 which gets lost in the sea of exhibitors at this show. But even with small digs, the little booth was packed most of the time. Our parent company in Japan sponsored a Japanese artist, Shin, to come and attend the show. His presence in the booth caused quite the stir as many flocked to get an up close and personal look at his custom painting work and nude figures. A few lucky visitors even got a picture with Shin.

Later in the week, we co-hosted a hospitality suite at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino with 3 other well known Kustom Kulture companies; Artool, Coast Airbrush and Airbrush Action Magazine virtual smorgasbord of who's - who in the custom painting and airbrush industry. The 1st Annual AIRBRUSH CONFIDENTIAL BASH featured a limited guest list of hand picked invitees which kept the party small and intimate yet loads of fun. Some of the people who attended were; Mike Lavallee, Craig Fraser, Steve Vandemon, Dennis Mathewson, Dean Loucks, Debra Mahan, Bob Bond, Cliff Stieglitz, David and Raina Monnig, Shin, Satoru Iwata, Kuni Tomita, Will Naemura, Robert Paschal, Gabe McCubbin, Mark Hebbeler, Dale Stitt, Tom Prewitt, Giorgio Ucellini, Giuliano Rapetti, reps from House of Kolor and the list goes on. As these pictures attest, a good time was had by all! We even introduced our soon-to-be NEW line of Iwata-Artool Kustom-Wear, t-shirts and bowling shirts. A very special shout-out to Cliff Stieglitz, Will Naemura, Gabe McCubbin and Dave Monnig for helping me to put this event together.


NACE on the other hand is the antithesis of SEMA. It is calm, quiet, demur, sophisticated and highly technical. While it lacks the glitter and glam that is SEMA, it serves as one of the most important parts of the vehicle industry; professional paint, body work and collision repair. While I only walked this show for one day, it still makes for an interesting contrast.

The only problem with SEMA and NACE is the chaos of it all. There are over 140,000 people attend both shows during the week. Couple that with your normal Vegas weekend rompers and a only 4,000 Taxi's in Las Vegas's entire fleet and you'll have yourself quite A MESs.