OK, after a much needed break I'm ready to do the recap from our first year as a exhibitor at SEMA. Since it was such a huge show and so much to share I decided to break it up into 2 parts. Therefore, on with part 1.
It all began with Will Naemura and I taking a flight down to So.Cal to pick up our booth. It had been fabricated by a local company
Brushed Metal Design which is owned by a very talented Tony Anderson. Needless to say when we arrived and saw our new booth we were floored! It was much much more impressive than we could have ever imagined. After a quick tutorial on how to disassemble and reassemble the booth, we packed it up, loaded it into our rental truck and headed for VEGAS.
We were making good time to Vegas when we hit a traffic jam just outside of Baker, CA. Traffic eventually slowed to a halt. After about 15 minutes we put the vehicle in park, after 30 minutes we shut the vehicle off. After the first hour Will pulled out his laptop and started pecking away at the keys. After 90 minutes I changed my Ipod from Alternative to Classical so I could relax and maybe nap. It was more than 2 hours after we first stopped before we were able to continue. There had been an accident and both directions of HWY 15 were shut down. It was quite the mess. We finally ended up getting into Vegas by 1 am.
The next morning came early as we headed out to get in line to load our gear into the convention center. Much to our delight, there were hardly any other trucks queued so we unloaded quickly and got busy setting up the booth. After two days of set up and many different configurations and struggles to organize the booth in a sane and logical manner, we finally discovered the perfect layout.
I need to mention that I was quite impressed at how SEMA could manage such a huge logistical challenge like the SEMA show. SEMA is now the largest show in Vegas, its so huge that they even have to have exhibits outside, in the parking lot! But the good folks working the show, especially the floor and show managers, did an outstanding job serving all of our needs. This made our first go around as an exhibitor alot less painful.
As you can see in the pictures our booth was filled with a ton of "eye-candy". Lets start off with the main feature - the back drop. Our brushed aluminum design depicted a wall-of-flames with the logos of our 3 brands cut into it. The logos themselves were back lit colored Plexiglas in the traditional color of each brand:
Anest Iwata in blue;
Iwata in red,
Artool in yellow. But, the primary and most impressive feature of the backdrop was the gallery of artwork behind the wall, suspended above the flames. There were a series of 4 paintings representing the diversity and the tremendous artwork being created in the custom painting industry.
Dennis Mathewson painted a dreamy but off-the-hook landscape in Hawaii that featured a custom hot-rod on the road.
Next was an over-the-top fire breathing dragon done by the master of fire himself,
Mike Lavallee.
A monochromatic Pirate theme was painted by the dynamic duo of
Craig Fraser and
Debra Mahan, in typical Fraser fashion you need to look for a long time to find all of the hidden little treasures painted within!
Not to be outdone was the extreme tribal-skull-totem perfected by master artist and craftsman
Steve Vandemon. Steve's painting was "electric" and completed the wall perfectly.
Of course there was so much more to see in our booth. Airbrush guru
Pamela Shanteau helped with our VEGAS motif with a set of KILLER CARD paintings that adorned various places in the booth. Dave Monnig of
Coast Airbrush kindly donated some of his Kustom Kulture Lounge furniture and the "show favorite", pin-up statues. There wasn't a minute that went buy without some guy cracking some kind of joke before getting their picture taken with a statue! We also had a
Killer-Painted working retro refrigerator from Mike Lavallee. It came fully stocked with energy drinks! That stuff made us all whacked during the show!
But the star of the show in our booth was
Marc Martino's Kamikaze Trike. Outrageous was an often used word by many of the show attendees; in my mind outrageous is an understatement.
Thanks to everyone who helped us put our best foot forward in our first attempt at SEMA. Many of those people were representatives from our sister company,
Anest Iwata USA, Gabe McCubbin from
Artool and our automotive market distributor
ASET. And last but not least a very special thanks to our staff at
Iwata Medea who did a tremendous job and put up with my stressing-out and bossiness. Will, Brooke, Joanna, Tony, AD, Kathy and Robert - THANKS! Also, special thanks to Donn Shanteau for letting me use some of his pictures to illustrate this blog.
Coming next Part 2, the sights and sounds heard around SEMA 2006. Also, I hope you like the new look.
