The Upper Midwest Electrical Expo, held April 12-13 in Minneapolis by the North Central Electrical League (NCEL), retained its title as the electrical industry’s most successful regional trade show with another record-setting event.
This year’s Expo had 429 electrical manufacturers in 363 booths (both records) and impressive support by the local electrical community’s independent reps and factory salespeople that work the booths, and the local distributors that brought 32 busloads of customers to the event. Several vendors said the booth traffic at this Minneapolis show even tops traffic at the NECA annual show.
Dale Yohnke, NCEL’s executive director, was particularly proud of the cooperation and cohesiveness from competing electrical companies in the area that it takes to stage the event every two years. “Another aspect that’s sometimes overlooked is the general atmosphere and buzz at this year’s Electrical Expo,” he said. “I can’t remember in my 28 years an electrical trade show that had as much buzz — new products, great looking booths, interesting incentives, and fun — as our Expo in 2016.”
Observations from the show. The booths with the most business seemed to be the ones showcasing job-site supplies, hand tools and labor-saving products like Arlington Industries, Rack-A-Tiers and Klein Tools. The folks at Arlington said their new electrical boxes for granite countertops were attracting a lot of attention, and Rack-A-Tier’s booth was loaded with new products that use super-magnets, including cable hanging devices and other job-site labor savers. One such project is the Dirt Bag, which eliminates metal shavings from box installations, and another was the StaplePro, which organizes staples in a toolbelt with a clever magnetized holder. Chad French, StaplePro Industries, the contractor who invented the product, was demonstrating StaplePro at the booth. Rack-A-Tiers culls through several hundred ideas a year from electrical contractors for new products, and each year a handful make it into their product catalog.
The number of lighting companies moving into new LED niches was also impressive. One lighting company that stood out was Maxlite because of how quickly they have evolved in the LED space from just offering PAR replacements and residential LEDs to a more robust line, including area lighting, perimeter lighting and more commercial options.