The Tale of Three ConExpos
know that a lot of our readers were at ConExpo earlier this year because I had the opportunity to speak with a whole bunch of you as I dashed back and forth between the furthest reaches of Las Vegas Convention Center’s South Hall and Gold Lot and all points between in what seemed to be an endless round of meetings, presentations, and demos of a schedule that could only have been scripted by a madman. Though the final tally has yet to be released, I have heard that there were more than 120,000 attendees plowing their way through the million-plus square-foot venue.
And what was the attraction? Well glitter, gaming, and excitement of course—after all that’s what Vegas is famous for—but as most attendees will confirm, the stunning display of products and services served up by more than 2,000 exhibitors had “The Strip” beat, hands down.
This is the third once-every-three-years ConExpo I’ve attended—each with its own special character and sense of purpose—but this one stands apart not so much for its size or even introductions of new and exciting equipment and services, but because it was a validation of the depth and significance of the changes wrought to the construction industry over the past several years. To illustrate this let me take you back to the two previous happenings.
ConExpo 1999: Holding onto the Past
I remember vividly the disgust of an outspoken loader driver for what he viewed as puny controls on a new offering from a long-standing bastion of the lever-and linkage world. “I never thought I’d see the day…” he opined bitterly to his fellow witnesses to this heresy, and it was apparent that most within earshot held to his opinion.
“Why not take advantage of more of the digital data for the displays?” I asked one salesman. “Because,” he explained with great patience, “our customers don’t like to see change.”
Yet all the tools for change were there—digital data buses, electro-hydraulic actuators, laser designators, joystick controls—but to many attendees, those things belonged to the world of kids’ games rather than that of mud, dirt, and searing heat or numbing cold that were the realities of the jobsite. It may not have been apparent at the time, but the battle lines were drawn, not so much about the technology as to their applicability to the tasks at hand.
ConExpo 2002: Clash of the Cultures
Hardly had we set foot into the new millennium that we found ourselves in a showdown between traditionalists and those who reasoned that technologies that performed reliably on the battlefield should be able to stand up to the rigors of the jobsite.
Armed now with several years of experience with the technologies and emboldened by a rather clear vision of what the future held in store for the construction industry, the equipment manufacturers cast aside their own fears of change and arrived in Las Vegas with the greatest array of “whiz-bangs” ever assembled under one roof. The question no longer hinged on the applicability of the high-tech innovations, but whether their benefits could justify the added expense.
ConExpo 2005: From Iron to Solutions
What to me was most striking at this year’s event was the almost universal acceptance of those innovations that only half a decade ago had been regarded by mainstream dirt movers as, if not pie-in-the-sky, at least far-fetched. In contrast with the past, the questions by attendees reflected not just a grudging willingness but a genuine desire to push the suppliers for even greater change, and the exhibitors for their part were eager to talk about “solutions” not just machinery.
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Still, ConExpo for the kid in all of us remains a huge and wondrous toy store, filled with the same things—maybe a little more refined—that lit our fuses in the first place and set our feet on their inexorable course.
As one attendee in front of me at the entrance to the North Hall said with more than a touch of awe in his voice, “Boy, howdy.”
Author's Bio: John Trotti is the Editor of Grading & Excavation Contractor magazine.
May-June 2005
The Tale of Three ConExpos
know that a lot of our readers were at ConExpo earlier this year because I had the opportunity to speak with a whole bunch of you as I dashed back and forth between the furthest reaches of Las Vegas Convention Center’s South Hall and Gold Lot and all points between in what seemed to be an endless round of meetings, presentations, and demos of a schedule that could only have been scripted by a madman. Though the final tally has yet to be released, I have heard that there were more than 120,000 attendees plowing their way through the million-plus square-foot venue.
And what was the attraction? Well glitter, gaming, and excitement of course—after all that’s what Vegas is famous for—but as most attendees will confirm, the stunning display of products and services served up by more than 2,000 exhibitors had “The Strip” beat, hands down.
This is the third once-every-three-years ConExpo I’ve attended—each with its own special character and sense of purpose—but this one stands apart not so much for its size or even introductions of new and exciting equipment and services, but because it was a validation of the depth and significance of the changes wrought to the construction industry over the past several years. To illustrate this let me take you back to the two previous happenings.
ConExpo 1999: Holding onto the Past
I remember vividly the disgust of an outspoken loader driver for what he viewed as puny controls on a new offering from a long-standing bastion of the lever-and linkage world. “I never thought I’d see the day…” he opined bitterly to his fellow witnesses to this heresy, and it was apparent that most within earshot held to his opinion.
“Why not take advantage of more of the digital data for the displays?” I asked one salesman. “Because,” he explained with great patience, “our customers don’t like to see change.”
Yet all the tools for change were there—digital data buses, electro-hydraulic actuators, laser designators, joystick controls—but to many attendees, those things belonged to the world of kids’ games rather than that of mud, dirt, and searing heat or numbing cold that were the realities of the jobsite. It may not have been apparent at the time, but the battle lines were drawn, not so much about the technology as to their applicability to the tasks at hand.
ConExpo 2002: Clash of the Cultures
Hardly had we set foot into the new millennium that we found ourselves in a showdown between traditionalists and those who reasoned that technologies that performed reliably on the battlefield should be able to stand up to the rigors of the jobsite.
Armed now with several years of experience with the technologies and emboldened by a rather clear vision of what the future held in store for the construction industry, the equipment manufacturers cast aside their own fears of change and arrived in Las Vegas with the greatest array of “whiz-bangs” ever assembled under one roof. The question no longer hinged on the applicability of the high-tech innovations, but whether their benefits could justify the added expense.
ConExpo 2005: From Iron to Solutions
What to me was most striking at this year’s event was the almost universal acceptance of those innovations that only half a decade ago had been regarded by mainstream dirt movers as, if not pie-in-the-sky, at least far-fetched. In contrast with the past, the questions by attendees reflected not just a grudging willingness but a genuine desire to push the suppliers for even greater change, and the exhibitors for their part were eager to talk about “solutions” not just machinery.
Still, ConExpo for the kid in all of us remains a huge and wondrous toy store, filled with the same things—maybe a little more refined—that lit our fuses in the first place and set our feet on their inexorable course.
As one attendee in front of me at the entrance to the North Hall said with more than a touch of awe in his voice, “Boy, howdy.”