We're Back From Nashville
We Made It.
Sorry We Didn't Call When We Got Home.
Everything Is Fine.
After spending three days on the Car Wash Show floor in Nashville, and ten days on the road getting there and back to Wisconsin (while making many stops along the way), and after convincing ourselves that we might need a day to wipe our brains clean before diving headfirst back into creative agency duties, the thought I keep coming back to is this: trade shows are weird.
Not bad weird. Just…weird. Months and months of buildup, planning, coordinating, last minute printing and scrambling for two full days of conversations, catch-up, and swag collecting and comparison (primarily from our kids). When talking to some of the music city center staff, they said the Car Wash Show is their biggest event, followed closely by the Asphalt convention. See? Weird.
This was our third ICA show that we attended, which may be one of the main reasons we were so wowed with the production and scope of the show floor, education sessions, and just the general density of things, but maybe not. Maybe it actually is just impressive.
Besides the obvious takeaways, the highlights of our time spent walking around Music City Center with a loaded wagon in tow were finally getting to meet, in person, a big chunk of our customers and collaborators that we’ve only spoken to over the phone or video meetings. And getting to make new connections with some amazing operators, equipment dealers, and manufacturers was wonderful. We owe a lot of people phone calls, emails, and cheese. If you’re reading this and one or more of these apply to you, please reach out!
Here’s a couple things, in no particular order.
We Drove
Through a freak southern Wisco rainstorm and some crazy Kentucky flooding, we flew south like a slightly sluggish and brightly bloated migratory bird, Nashville-bent. Mel spent the week prior painting the exterior of the company Transit in OhmCo yellow and tri-foam, in defiance of the price it takes to get a van wrapped these days --- to great effect! Van looks great, and her paint job weathered everything from torrential rain to torrential cicada attacks along the outer-skirts of the Nashville city limits.
It was fun getting to stop at a few familiar washes along the way, including Camel Express and Wash 37135!
We (Mel) Spoke
The number one question we got on the trade show floor was "where's your booth?". Our number one answer was "what booth?". In lieu of setting up shop this year on the show floor, Mel spoke about using AI models to decrease the initial costs associated with branding. It's been a big topic this last year especially, and we were happy to share some perspective from a creative agency's point of view. Lots of great conversations followed it --- and it was great getting to hear how businesses are integrating some of these great new tools into everyday operation. Also, Mel killed it! (She's standing behind me right now making me type this...but she really did do great...).
We Talked (a lot)
If you're reading this and we missed you on the floor --- we're sorry! Our time prowling the show floor was super productive, from meeting some of our customers for the first time face-to-face to learning more about some of the challenges and struggles operators are having when it comes to marketing their businesses, every conversation was great (except for that one. You know who you are! I see you...).
Without sounding corny, the biggest takeaway from events like this is the reinvigoration that follows the trip home. It's all of the ideas that get floated around that you just want to act on immediately or that new big project that was pitched in a conversation that we can't wait to get started on. This is a cool industry with a lot of cool people and approachable businesses, and more and more of you are willing to get weird and creative with how to represent your business --- we're here for it.
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