MILWAUKEE – CONEXPO-CON/AGG and the co-located International Fluid Power Exposition (IFPE) is the largest construction trade show in North America. However, what does that mean to someone who’s never been there? Or to any trade show of this magnitude?
At 2.8 million square feet, CONEXPO-CON/AGG takes up every square inch of the Las Vegas Convention Center, including the meeting facilities at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino, and the Las Vegas Festival Grounds. That’s the same amount of space as 48 NFL football fields (or 36 regulation soccer fields)! And the City of Las Vegas itself presents a different kind of climate than some people (especially international visitors) may be used to.
That’s why CONEXPO-CON/AGG produced a video (found here) showing tips for first-time attendees and exhibitors alike to help make their first experience to this capital of construction both more comfortable and successful. These tips include:
- Bring more than one pair of shoes, or shoe inserts! (And if you are planning on bringing new shoes, start breaking them in now!).
- Hydrate! In Las Vegas’s desert climate, even in the early spring, dehydration can sneak up on you. The constantly dry air means your sweat evaporates much more quickly than in more humid places, so drink three to four liters of fluids each day, including some with electrolytes.
- Bring a bag! There’s a lot of information to gather at CONEXPO-CON/AGG and IFPE, and a lot of it comes in the form of printed materials. But when you’re carting them around a 2.8 million square foot show without a bag, that can get very old very quickly.
- Keep dining groups in numbers of six or less if you can! At our last show in 2017, we had nearly 130,000 attendees. That’s more than the entire City of Green Bay, Wisconsin all in one place at one time. That can be overwhelming for restaurants, even those used to large influxes like those in Las Vegas. One way they manage it, however, is by making large groups have reservations ahead of time. Usually, the group size they require reservations for is around 6 people.
- Leave some blank space in your suitcase for freebies and toys for the kids! CONEXPO-CON/AGG and IFPE are well known not just for the neat things you can see on the floor, but for the neat things you can take home. Add to that an amazing gift shop, and soon you could find yourself making difficult decisions on what to leave behind if you don’t have enough room to take everything home.
- Make a plan! This is a huge show with lots to see, including hundreds of smaller exhibitors with big ideas and products to share. By making a plan before you get there, you can make sure to see everything you want to see without being overwhelmed by the scale of it all. The best planner? The CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2020 app available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.
