Overland Expo -- SEMA in a field?

I have a little different perspective that I'd like to offer...as a first time expo attendee.

It was exciting and inspiring to meet some of the people I've only read/watched/admired via a "device."

Yes, it was a crazy day on Saturday, but our admission experience was relatively quick, 28 minutes from the Ft. Tuthill gate to engaging the big "P". Not bad, as I've waited much longer at sporting events or concerts that I was personally less interested in.

The vendor area was crowded mid-day, but the morning cruise though wasn't bad at all. Had a chance to chat up several "to meet list" vendors and gain the necessary knowledge for future acquisitions.

We ate at the food truck area, and enjoyed some truly fantastic Zona Tacos, worth their weight in tender pork deliciousness. Waited a total of 10 minutes for our tacos, faster than most sit down restaurants, and consumed them in 30 seconds flat.

Never waited in line for a bio-break, restrooms we encountered were clean and plentiful.

Maybe some additonal beverage kiosks scattered throughout would have been nice, as it was warmer than expected and us flatlanders got thirsty at 7,000'. Next time, we are toting our 3L hydration packs. :)

Appreciated, and glad we caught the American Adventurist public address announcement honoring all of those who serve...very nicely done Mr. Bennett.

Finally, the unexpected twist for me was realizing, after seeing all the really cool shiny stuff, that our camping/off-road kit was perfectly adequate...for now. As others have mentioned, spending six figures is available (financing was offered more than once) but not THE roadmap to camping and off-road enjoyment. For us, it was the people we met that made expo the worthwhile experience that I wouldn't want to miss again.

When are those dates for 2019? ;)
 
I finally have a little bandwidth on a nice, quiet, slow Sunday morning. I have a different perspective, being on staff here and going straight from OVX to ICSC RECon, a massive commercial real estate convention that fills the Las Vegas Convention Center with 1200 booths and 37,000 participants.

OVX West has matured from a relatively small industry gathering to a large trade show. I am thankful the Hansons’ team work so hard to keep it from becoming yet another show and shine, lifted vehicle showcase. With the opening of the fort area this year, the venue was fantastic with great flow from one area to another and plenty of space to move around and see everything overlandy. I didn’t attend classes this year so I’ll have to assume they were the same high quality, thoughtful variety as when I used to get the full weekend pass.

In the booth, we were able to interact with a lot of people. We met or reacquainted with many of you and were able to introduce our brand/tribe to many others. We were able to enhance existing partnerships and explore new ones. Our booth location and size were top notch. All staff were able to camp in the booth together and host some after hours gathering and shenanigans.

There were a lot of very expensive vehicles there, which is to be expected at a show at this level. Right or wrong, this is the way the industry is headed so it should be expected. I doubt it’ll last forever but right now, it is an accurate representation of the industry. I think most of us tend to take and post photos of the new shiny stuff because it’s new and shiny. This overstates the dominance of these vehicles. There were plenty of home built, dirty, functional vehicles on display if one looked, but the don’t contain the newness factor to be seen as much in event coverage. Heck, @BlkWgn had quite a few fans from around the interwebs who came looking for him at our booth.

As mentioned, I literally left OVX for a dinner at 1930 to kick off the other show I worked in Vegas. They were actually remarkably similar. Both offered good educational programs, although the depth and sheer number of classes at OVX was superior. More to the point, both were THE place to be for the industry this year. There were big industry players that attendees were able to meet and interact with, but also those in the industry were able to work on collaborations as all the key organizations were there.

I am not new to this forum but I am new to staff. I’m hopeful we will have more representation at locally organized weekend camp out type events. We made some good connections at OVX and hope to parlay those into a greater reach within this industry. Some are growing just to grow their brand but AAV’s mission is to help teach folks how to balance the use of our public lands with need to protect and preserve them. OVX allows us to expand that vision in ways the local events cannot. I’m looking forward to next year already and being able to attend events across the country when time permits.
 
A common theme so far... "I like the clowns but not so much the circus". :D Pardon me for piling on even though I wasn't there.

I missed this year due to a health issue I'm nicely recovering from. For the smart-asses among you my name was not changed from Tim to "Tina".

I did attend last year, the first time at Ft. Tuthill, and have been to every Overland Expo (OX) West event except the first, held in a parking lot in Tuscon, so it was a true disappointment to miss this event.

I think I'm in a good position to say that this event has grown steadily, cultivated by the watchful eyes of Roseann and @Jonathan Hanson, and of course their team. I have to admit I do miss the "intimacy" of the smaller events, but I think that can also be attributed to the industry being more limited at the time. This concept of "overlanding" has expanded considerably, as well as the creativity from others interested in this market, corresponding industry growth, and the resulting demand for more specific products.

But it's not just about the "farkles". A key component carefully nurtured is the education program. The real value for those serious about this pastime and OX is the diversity of instructors; some world travelers, others well seasoned and knowledgeable in their own areas of expertise. In fact, one thing Roseann Hanson once observed - OX is the place to learn... American Adventurist (AAV) Rendezvous events are the place to do what you've learned... although you'll find we do some pretty cracker-jack training delivered by industry experts as well. In any event, we work well together, in part due to the inspiration of attending the Expo events and the ethos of the OX organizers.

What's encouraging is the Hanson's embrace the remarks from attendees and carefully select vendors for these events. Bigger is not necessarily better. They get that and they also appreciate the "family". That family includes AAV as many of us were among the first to attend and contribute to OX in a variety of capacities, but it also includes many of the other vendors and travelers from around the globe that strive to attend this unique gathering.

I guess what it comes down to is something AAV has espoused over the years... to be part of something bigger than just yourself. This is just one element of accomplishing that task. If you're thinking about attending or have attended, do it at least once; join us at the reunion of old friends - be part of the family. OX West or East, AAV will be there.
 
Since when has it been anything but sema in a field?

That being said. I go to expo really because its nice to meet the people behind the products, and to find cool new stuff like the UpDownAir system i just bought because of expo.

Training is cool, but its more of a generic get your feet wet. People who really want training will source it where its more in depth and appropriate.
 
Thanks for everyone's replies and thoughts on this subject. I haven't been able to attend the past few years and I really missed it. I was able to attend the first one in Prescott Valley in '09 and then two of them at Mormon Lake and I was astounded how much it had grown between PV and Mormon Lake. Sounds like it's taken off a lot more since then as well.

Todd Z.
 
I wanted to wait until a few opinions were registered here before responding/contributing. I’ve been watching the comments with interest—and paying attention, yes even to Cam :). I also took a look at the polemic started by the fellow with the screen name “Stumpalump” on Expedition Portal, in which he condemns the Expo as “ . . . nothing more than a carnival in a parking lot,” and then states flatly that anyone who would go is a sucker. Hmm.

Obviously when you have 14,000 sucke . . . I mean people coming to an event, some of them are going to hate it whether it is well-run or not, and will make their feelings known as publicly as possible. That’s what social media enables. And when something genuinely goes wrong—for example the shockingly incompetent job done by the shuttle company this year—it’s the organizers of the event who will take the heat. Fair enough.

But to address the initial question. Has the Expo become too big and too impersonal? Those who were there remember the first year in Prescott, and the next couple in Amado, as nearly miraculous, modest gatherings of people who shared a passion or were just discovering it, and had little if any idea there were others like them—or that there were specialized products that would support that passion. In 2009 scant few people in the U.S. yet knew what a roof tent was, or that there were portable fridges that would keep ice cream frozen in Death Valley. Nor did many know that, for example, you could use your left foot on the brake to improve traction, or air down tires to improve flotation, or stitch a split sidewall on a tire. The Expo provided those products, that information, and that camaraderie.

So supposing Roseann had decided to forever limit attendance to, say, the thousand or so people who came to the first events? A couple of things: She would have been (rightly) branded as elitist and exclusionary—and we wouldn’t have been able to make a living at it. It was to everyone’s advantage, ours and the attendees’, to let the show—and the amorphous but intriguing concept of “overlanding” itself—grow as it wished and as more and more people discovered and were intrigued or entranced by it. Like any buzzword or activity that catches on with the American public, there is a time to get through when you just want it to go away. I’m thinking of the term “tactical” in the firearms and firearms accessory world, as the buzzword example, or the craft beer explosion as a product line/hobby gone insane (peanut butter/coconut stout, anyone?). In many respects we’re in the middle of that now in the overlanding world, and many people are understandably turned off by it. But it will pass.

So, is the Overland Expo now just “SEMA in a field?” It depends.

If all one does is purchase a day pass, cruise 300 vendors, and buy a couple of tacos and a Coke, then, yep, it’s absolutely SEMA in a field. On the other hand, if one buys a weekend pass with camping, stuffs one’s truck in between the beat-up FJ60 with the roof tent and the German-plated Unimog with a heavily annotated map of the world on the side, sits around the (imaginary!) campfire with the drivers of both, attends a few demos, takes in the film festival and talks by overlanding legends such as Ted Simon and Elspeth Beard, and votes on that beat-up Mercedes 300D with the bullet holes in it as the coolest vehicle at the show, the experience becomes something entirely different. And if one signs up for the full Overland Experience—which costs almost exactly the same as a three-day “Park-hopper” pass to Disneyland—and has full access to a suite of classes and training run by experts from all over the world—then I think we’re in a different universe than SEMA. We stress that those classes are intended as introductions, to give students a taste of what they might want to pursue in more depth later and elsewhere. Yet, for example, when students showed up for the Camel Trophy Expert Skills Challenge, they were presented with this:

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It was awesome watching people who didn’t know each other form a team to accomplish a task most of them never would have dreamed of tackling.

So, whither the show? Actually we have decided it is big enough, especially for the Fort Tuthill venue, which we like. We will concentrate on improving the infrastructure and organization. We will not, however, change our basic approach. For every complaint we receive or read on social media, we still get ten thanking us, the vendors and organizations such as American Adventurist, and the training team for, in an astounding number of cases, changing lives. One fellow caught Roseann and me at a happy hour this year and poured out his soul to us, saying he had had no idea of the potential for adventure and exploration he had been missing. He thanked us with his hand over his heart, and all three of us were in tears by the time he said good-bye. One interaction such as that makes everything worth it.

Another thing for sure, contrary to what some have said, is that we will never abandon the small and new manufacturers. Will we refuse business to BFG or Global Expedition Vehicles? No—that would be elitist and exclusionary, not to mention financially moronic. But we have vendor tables in tents for a few hundred dollars; many who started with us this way now have feature spaces. We also maintain the free spaces for authors, and just introduced a dedicated do-it-yourself area for those who like to convert old ambulances, etc. So as much as is possible we still strive to keep the small community feeling.

Sometimes we all just have to look a little harder to find each other!
 
Kudos on your thoughtful reply and for each and every past OEX. It's virtually impossible to please everyone, that being said the comments/grumbles provide valuable input or what worked and what may have not. I'm thankful that you have undertaken this endeavor and continue to do so.
 
grantwilson said:
I did it at east and it was awesome. The whole crew is fantastic
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Same. The new venue is even more local to me now, so less excuse not to. Presuming the land owners will allow traffic direction signs, Biltmore didn't, working traffic duty may be more pleasant with less, "What do you mean this is one-way?!!". I will just have to see if I can make the time this year.
 
Dave said:
Sprinters are neat but I'd wager you guys are less than 1% of the target population based on number of owners, cost of ownership, etc ;)
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I dunno. there a bunch of us running around doing dumb things. Plus eye candy man. Eye candy lol
 
Lots of good feedback in this thread. I just wanted to add that I go back year after year as much for the Overland Kids program as anything else. It is pretty awesome to see the kids working with the 7P team to learn the skills being used in the command challenges.

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