The Car Wash Show 2025: OhmCo Recap
The International Car Wash Show 2025 (ICA 2025)
HOW TO WORRY ABOUT SHIPPING SO MUCH YOU GET AN ULCER
We made it to Vegas—and back! The Car Wash Show 2025 was a wild ride from start to finish, full of surprises, laughter, and some very real “what on earth is happening?” moments. We had issues with nearly every flight and ended up staying at home for what was supposed to be our first night in Vegas because our flight didn't go out. There were SO MANY UNEXPECTED things, but we also got to see SO MANY friendly faces and hear what everyone was up to! While the third day was totally dead, the first two days were pretty good. I wasn't sure if I would do it again, but... keep reading to find out, haha.
Getting There? Chaos.
Our original flight? Cancelled. The backup? Rescheduled. Our itinerary turned into a puzzle that even ChatGPT couldn’t solve (okay, maybe it could, but we weren’t thinking straight). Mike and I split up and both waited in different lines to try and get the best opportunity to find different flights. We were even prepared to drive to Green Bay, Milwaukee, Madison or Chicago! However, none of them were an option. So that first night we ended up staying at home. The nice part was we got to see the kids again before we left. The scary part was that all our luggage had disappeared. Mike had the good sense to put tracking tags in everything and we got to watch it fly away. After hours on hold, we found out we'd have to track it down in Minneapolis between flights the next day. SOOOOO that was a relaxing, haha. Somehow, we manage to get a few hours of sleep, up early the next day, found the luggage, found our tradeshow booth, and then landed in Vegas with all our gear and just enough energy to walk around Vegas, find a CVS and stock up on snacks and water, get an amazing hot dog for dinner, a little gelato, and got to bed at a good time to make it to setup.
Set-up was hard only because we've never done it before. While we had rented out a room at our local library and did a preliminary run, we've never put all the pieces together at the same time. Some things were smashed in transit and we had to figure out a way to hide the bumps and lumps. It all worked out just find and we were pretty proud of the final result... with our favorite being the inflatable!
The Booth? Inflatable (Yes, Really).
I designed an inflatable booth—and kept it a secret until showtime. It was a hit! People came over just to ask about it, and now we’re getting requests to make inflatables for other people. Our friends would smile just the biggest, cheesy smiles when they saw it and said they'd never seen anything like it at the carwash show before. And to be honest, that's what we wanted to hear!
We’ve made booths for clients before, but designing one for ourselves was an entirely different kind of design project. I thought it was so fun and it came to me quite easily. When working with the engineering team, we only needed two design rounds to get the correct height and shape for it to support itself. I always tell Mike that in another life I was an architect, haha. SO if anyone wants a customized inflatable for their carwash, I can do it! It's SO FUN!
But the main goal behind the inflatable was to have a tradeshow booth that would fit in a suitcase. Our buddy Aden at Air Freshener Marketing had, had bad luck with booth stuff not showing up, and to avoid that having a checked bag seems preferable. However, when that almost went missing somewhere between Wisconsin and Minneapolis, that nearly everything gave me a second ulcer (not figuratively). From shipment schedules to carpet costs (don’t even ask), it was a logistical tightrope walk. But it worked—and we loved it.
Big thanks to
Jim at https://carwashbizcenter.com for taking a picture of us on the first day with our matching red outfits. We didn't think to do that the first day because there was so much going on, so it was such a lovely surprise to see the OhmCo featured on Carwash Biz Center! It was nice to see us looking all cute at our inflatable booth.
LWF + OhmCo = A Party in the Corner
One of the crazy last minute projects before the show was to finish and launch Leadership Worth Following's (LWF) new website. It was down to the last second, but we managed to get it done with the help of their amazing new president, Tara Baugher, and the editing guru, Matt Dewolf. I don't even know if everyone knew that we got it done, but in honor of getting that project done, and bringing attention to their new leadership Event, everyone gathered at our booth to celebrate the launch (check it out if you haven’t!).
We were in a corner spot—by choice, thank you very much. ICA didn’t “put baby in the corner,” we picked that spot on purpose. It’s cozy. We were next to our buddies. We like it, haha.
#naughtykidsclub
So even with this very boring post from LWF, we still had a full booth despite our terrible tradeshow spot:
LET'S MEET UP!
Join us at the ICA Expo in Vegas for a fun social gathering and meet-up. Introductions and getting acquainted with leaders of our industry.
Hope to see you there!
- Saturday @ 3:00p local time
OhmCo Booth #2903
DONE WITH DAY ONE
Pack up was a sinch each night! All we did was unplug and deflate! It was SO EASY! You might have noticed the red phone? That was a fun idea we had so if we had to leave the booth to help film, photograph, or go to the bathroom, that we still had a way to take calls. True to car washing form, we didn't get any serious leads on the phone call, but we did get a lot of hilarious messages. By the way, you're all a bunch of trouble makers and I'm telling your moms.
Meddy from Hello Wash set us up an entire messaging service and it was THE COOLEST THING! Unfortunately I could not figure out how to make it work for the show, but I want to do it for NRCC. Meddy was one of our booth neighbors and it was a blast being next to him. Sometimes Mike and I can be shy, but Meddy doesn't allow that to happen and he pushes us to be the best us. For example, he said to me, "Tell me about websites and graphic design..." and I was so thrown off that I replied, "We do websites and graphic design." And the LOOK OF DISAPPROVAL HE GAVE ME was the worst and the best at the same time. It's burned into my brain. Oh my gosh, he cracks me up.
The Best Part? Always the People.
We got to reconnect with so many of our favorite customers and meet a ton of new folks. We got to be right next to Petit and Jason Hayes, which is the entire reason we have a business. I know nearly everyone knows, but we love working with them. They're lovely. We also got to be next to Dencar too, which finally getting a chance to talk to Shara (we've only really emailed before this) was so helpful and it helped us roll out the updates to all our Dencar customer websites. So even though we had a really weird corner spot because we're newbies, it was really fun to be next to our buddies. It was a great first show spot.
I hate that we were so far away from some of our friends though. Arcadian was doing live demos and we had to sprint across the show floor multiple times. Luckily Matt DeWolf uploaded all his interviews so we got to tune in. Brian did a preview of a car repair kit and I totally missed it. Sgt. Sudz, Wash Brands, and HydroSpray weren't terribly far from us, but because they were blocked by giant booths, it was like crossing the Himalayas to get to them. And don't tell me that Wash Brands is supposed to be our enemies because they're our competitors. We love them and can talk to them all day. We have a lot in common, you know, haha. Carwash marketers UNITE! :)
Honestly, we’re still laughing at some of the jokes we heard. (You know who you are.) We even launched a website while we were at the show—because of course we did. Congrats to David on your new website, haha! We also squeezed in some good eats (Batista’s Hole in the Wall— I had the ravioli and I won’t stop talking about it), supported our friends at Car Wash After Dark and Talk Car Wash, and finally put some real faces to names we’ve known for years.
Trade Show Lessons (the hard way)
- Carpet is shockingly expensive.
- Electricity upgrades are even worse.
- A music case makes an excellent shipping crate/desk combo.
- Sleep is optional but highly recommended.
- Don't forget your tradeshow booth insurance. We didn't, but I think it's a good reminder, haha.
- Use tracking tags in everything.
- Get ulcer meds to make it easier to eat.
Coming Home? Also Chaos.
Our flight home was delayed. Mike and Mel didn’t even get to sit together. We ran to our gate in Minneapolis like it was the final scene in a rom-com. Spoiler alert: we made it, but just barely. Then we slept, got sick (as per usual), got better, and started doing a million meetings to catch up after the show.
What's Next?
We weren’t sure we wanted to do Nashville… but we signed up. Yes, the booth location isn’t great again (we’re sensing a trend), so if you’re reading this and planning any events, invite us—we bring snacks, inflatable booths, and great conversation.
Thanks to everyone who made Vegas worth the stress. We came home with new projects, exciting meetings, and very full hearts (and carry-ons).
Packed up and ready to go home to Wisconsin! Give us a call to start your next carwash website, digital marketing, and design project!
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