Tire Retread & Repair Information Bureau, David Stevens April 2015
TRIB recently attended the first North American Tire & Retread Expo held in New Orleans and we wanted to share our experiences from the show.
TRIB has worked for several years with Gus Lima and his fantastic team during the growth of their show in Panama — the Latin American & Caribbean Tyre Expo. My experience with that show has demonstrated the commitment his team has in creating not only successful shows, but also shows that are fun for the attendees and exhibitors.
The show opened with a New Orleans brass band leading attendees onto the show floor where they found 112 exhibiting tire, tire retread, tire equipment, and tire repair companies. There were too many TRIB members exhibiting at the show to list here and I don’t want to leave anyone off by providing a partial list, so I’ll just say that there was a great selection of companies displaying machinery, products and services for the retread and repair industries. If you’d like to see a full list of exhibitors, please contact us.
While many exhibitors would rather have seen a flood of visitors to their booths instead of the floods of rain on the streets outside, overall they seemed happy about the quality of attendees they met and the opportunities to renew old connections and make some new ones. Officially there were 1,041 registered visitors in attendance and if the show in Panama is any guide, that number will continue to grow.
Several events were also held throughout the show to educate, inform and entertain visitors, including:
I’d like to thank and recognize all the participants in the Miss Retread contest. As I said at the time we announced the winners, it was an almost impossible task for me and my fellow judges to choose the winners. So many of the tires could have easily been in the top three and the choices we made hinged on the smallest of details. The winners of the contest were:
Industrias Del Neumaticos S.A.U. of Alicante, Spain, won first place and was awarded $5,000. The winning retread was a Hankook casing size 345/65R22.5 and Alphatread RTH-22 tread.
Centre Techno Pneu, Inc. (associated with Borrachas Vipal S/A.), of Rimouski, Quebec, won third place and $1,000 with a Continental casing size 11R22.5, and a Vipal Rubber Corporation, VT 180 tread.
Congratulations to Gus and his team for a great start in launching the North American Tire & Retread Expo. I look forward to working with them on making the show bigger and better in 2016. If you’re interested in the Latin American market, I would encourage you to attend their show in Panama — the Latin American & Caribbean Tyre Expo. Learn more at www.latintyreexpo.com.
For more information on the North American Tire & Retread Expo visit www.usatireexpo.com.