The SEMA Show is a huge event for car parts and customization. Companies bring new aftermarket products and show what’s coming next for car enthusiasts.
OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer—companies that build vehicles and major components sold under their own brand. In event-planning context, OEMs are often key sponsors, exhibitors, and partners for auto shows and industry events.
Ford is one of the largest U.S. automakers and a key OEM in the American automotive industry. Mentioning Ford alongside other brands frames the era’s shift in where automakers were locating headquarters.
Honda is a Japanese automaker that became a major player in the U.S. market, especially from the 1970s onward. Its inclusion here highlights how non-U.S. brands were also establishing corporate footprints in California.
Toyota is a major Japanese automaker and one of the largest global car manufacturers. Mentioning Toyota in the same breath as other OEMs reinforces the idea that many companies were consolidating leadership and operations in California during that period.
Nissan is a Japanese automaker that, like Toyota and Honda, expanded significantly in the U.S. market. Its mention supports the broader point about OEMs relocating headquarters and corporate presence.
Auto shows are large public or industry events where automakers and aftermarket companies display vehicles, concepts, and new products. The speaker’s career path is tied to producing and selling show space (booths), which is a core part of how these events are organized.
“10 by 10 booths” refers to a standard exhibit space size used at trade shows and auto shows. Selling booth space is a common early step in event production because it determines how exhibitors can display vehicles, parts, and branding.
B2B events are for businesses to meet other businesses. Instead of selling directly to drivers, it’s more about companies working together and learning about products.
Aftermarket parts are things you buy to change or upgrade your car after it’s already been made. For off-roaders, that can mean upgrades that help the truck handle rough terrain.
An off-road expo is basically a show or event for people who build and drive off-road trucks and SUVs. It’s where enthusiasts share ideas and companies show off parts and setups.
Two-wheel drive means only two wheels get power instead of all four. Some off-roaders run 2WD in the desert because it can still work depending on the terrain and how you drive.
Off-road tires and wheels are upgraded parts made to grip better and survive rough ground. The tires especially matter a lot for traction in sand, mud, or rocks.
King of the Hammers is a well-known extreme off-road race. It’s used here as an example of how off-roading can be totally different depending on where and how you’re driving.
The speaker keeps coming back to the idea that SEMA isn’t just about cars—it’s about people. They want attendees to feel like they’re part of a group that shares the same interests.
ORBA is the Off-Road Business Association, an organization focused on protecting off-road access and land-use interests. The speaker says SEMA acquired ORBA to expand advocacy for off-road and power sports communities.
Side-by-sides are off-road vehicles built for trails and rough terrain, usually with two seats next to each other. They’re popular for recreation and have lots of aftermarket upgrades.
Drifting is when a car slides sideways through a turn on purpose while the driver keeps it under control. It looks really cool, which is why events often include it.
SEMA Fest is SEMA’s music-and-cars event. It’s meant to bring together car and motorcycle fans with concerts so more people can experience the lifestyle.
SEMA Live is a long-form live stream of the SEMA Show, described here as a 31-hour broadcast. It’s structured like sports coverage, with a desk and roving reporters to capture what’s happening inside and outside the convention center.
A floor plan is the map of the convention hall. It shows where each company’s booth will go.
LIVE
Hey Gearheads and welcome to GT Garage Talk, a discussion about all things automotive.
I am your host Corey and today on the podcast we are talking all things SEMA and aftermarket
modifications to vehicles.
You know on the main channel I do a lot of new car reviews that is the bread and butter
of what GT Garage Talk has become.
But here on the podcast I really love telling people stories I like focusing on the industry
as a whole.
And so today's interview is a lot of that all rolled into one.
I do have Tom Gattuso from the SEMA show here on this episode.
He is the vice president of events with SEMA which for those of you maybe slightly unfamiliar
that is specialty equipment market association.
It started as a business business trade show in the aftermarket space for automotive and
it has grown tremendously and without stealing any of his thunder without kind of stepping
on his toes of what he wants to share we'll just go ahead and bring on Tom Gattuso.
Well Tom it is absolutely great to have you here on the show this week to talk about all
things SEMA and the direction that we're headed there.
How are you today sir?
You know happy to be here Corey we're like 208 days away from the SEMA show right now
so we're really going hard and this is the fun time.
So lots of planning going on but love the opportunity to be able to talk to you and
give you an update on what we're doing.
Awesome awesome we will absolutely dive into that for sure but I do want to dig in a little
bit to your background you have a very extensive background I was checking out your LinkedIn
profile earlier you've been very heavily involved in event planning for many many years show
director for the off-road expo auto dealer show so clearly you're involved in automotive
you're involved in event planning I am now the former president of Texas auto riders
association so I've done my fair share of event planning yeah how on earth what what
drew you in to this this path in automotive particularly in event planning.
So I decided at a pretty young age that I wanted to work in the automotive industry
and it was this this time in the late 80s where the economy was going to kind of going
through a shift I graduated from college and really needed to decide how much I wanted
to commit to to working around cars or with cars or somewhere in the industry and I ended
up interviewing for a job on the east coast and there was a hiring freeze the the day
that I was hoping to get an offer so I made a decision I could have moved to Michigan
or I could have moved to California and California really seemed cool and at that time a lot
of OEMs were were putting headquarters out there from Lincoln Mercury and Ford to Honda
and Toyota Nissan so so I jumped in and sold everything I owned I bought a 66 and Paula
convertible and I drove it across country and that was meaningful because that was my my birth
year so I drove across in this convertible and and really just started over looking for an
opportunity in in the automobile industry and I found one out of the blue that was producing
auto shows and literally I started by selling 10 by 10 booths and and sort of built a career
from there but we had a ton of fun I learned from some really old school people on on how to
produce a show and that foundation has really you know just kind of skyrocketed my 30 year career
on how to do events and where to find the the magic in them on bringing people together
I'm incredibly jealous of that very long-stored career and sounds like you just kind of got
to help direct and and set the direction of said industry as you started working through this
practically right out of college right yeah it was a little bit after college it was enough time
for me to save some money but you have pretty much you know I started my career in events and
really never looked back it was it was a part of the industry I didn't even know existed you know
I had wanted to work for a manufacturer and do those types of things but as I was looking for
those jobs I saw an ad in the LA Times of all places and it was to to produce the Long Beach
Auto Show and the Orange County Auto Show there was a small production company that we had and
then I had an opportunity to essentially start the San Jose Auto Show and I got this little niche of
being able to to do smaller regional events and really bring people together and that helped me
go into off-road expo which was sort of a next evolution where we were looking for some opportunities
in the off-road industry I started to work for Advanced Star and at that point I accumulated
about 15 years of experience of building events and it was everything from small regional shows to
some B2B events and I walked into SEMA sort of in the right place in the right time where I had
done everything from producing 200,000 square foot shows that were all under a temporary structure
to doing shows in convention centers and the SEMA show at the time was really starting to take off
and grow I joined SEMA in about 2011 and we were coming out of the 0809 recession and we got to try
some cool stuff and we did a lot of really neat stuff that is still around today but the foundation
of my career of building something anywhere and no opportunity is too small to bring people together
really helped me with SEMA and gives it a more personalized approach when we're when we're doing
our event. So your time at off-road expo is about six years there off-roading is really I would say
one of the forefront of the aftermarket experiences right now or the after purchase experience
everybody wants a vehicle that either looks or is capable to take it off-road and then they want to
fix it up they want to modify it and make it better I know here in East Texas that I've got an awesome
spot just one hour drive from me where I can test everything off-road I love it right it's near and
dear to me I almost I'm back and forth whether or not I enjoy on-road or off-road more because
I fell in love with the Chevy Camaro and that that's my car but off-road just gives so much
more fun and excitement to it so you start off small events regional events you build that up
into something then you take this job on at the off-road expo what are some like key takeaways
from your time they're focusing primarily on something that was really growing to this massive
behemoth where it is now yeah so it was interesting because with with the off-road industry it's very
close-knit and and you really had to had to be part of it and in that part I enjoyed and we were
at the time looking to roll out more off-road expo so I actually did one in Houston one year
we did one in Utah as well in Salt Lake City but what I noticed was there was this group of people
that were selling California off-roaders and they were you know 16 to 22 years old and they
were spending their paychecks on their pre-runner truck and they were going out in the desert on
the weekends and beating it up and then fixing it during the week and and again spending most of
their paycheck on parts and we brought those guys to our Houston event and I watched something
really interesting happen the off-roading that happened in Texas was different than what was
happening in Southern California there was a lot of mud and mud bogging and that type of stuff
but the people were very similar you had these these guys and gals that were you know in the same
age group and they sort of dressed the same and talked and acted the same and we brought them
together and it was really neat to watch them say like what do you do your two-wheel drive like how
do you even do two-wheel drive it's like oh because in the desert you do this or that and they really
were swapping notes and that to me was and this is you know probably 2006-07 timeframe that to me
showed me that the industry really has a lot of potential because there's a regionality to all
of this stuff and when you look at the off-roading that happens in Arizona you know a lot of times
that's sand driven or rock driven when you're in Utah and some of those really beautiful places
like Easter Jeep Safari just happened so so that part of it was was where you just it opened my
eyes to how big the potential is to bringing a community like that together and then when you
look at at SEMA as a whole and what we are you know we're a non-profit trade association
that represents the industry and you look at this this desire and passion to modify a vehicle
all of a sudden all the stars start to align for me where it's like okay there's an association
that's doing things like right now we have a right to modify bill that we're working through
which really is tied into some of the modern ADOS equipment so it's like okay we know people want
a lower or lift a truck and they want to be able to put off-road wheels and tires on it maybe a winch
but they don't want to sacrifice the safety standards so so we know this passion exists
we're able to talk to the community with our events but then we can also represent them in DC
and we can do cool stuff like have this right to modify that will allow you the opportunity to
modify your your car or truck but still be able to communicate with the ADOS features that the OEM
and the safety features that the OEM built in so so for me it was the best of both worlds where
I got to be able to look at these communities and then pretty much give my my energy to an
association or a company that that's really for the continuation of this hobby for for decades to come
I am so glad you brought up the regionality of it all because
again I'm any sexes I've got red dirt which turns to glue when it gets wet and where I test
it can be extremely rocky iron ore or it could be muddy stuff which is typically what we see a
lot of and then I have been out to Death Valley I've been out to where I've climbed chocolate
thunder as part of King of the Hammers and that is a totally different it's the same skill set but
total different application of an off-road vehicle and riding with Dave Cole as he is just barreling
through the sand dunes is it's fun it's off-road but it is so very different from my usual experience
here and what what you did at off-road expo and what you are doing now through SEMA in bringing
these communities together is what I like to hear that that is what I like to focus on here is the
human aspect the people aspect yeah and how do vehicles how do our activities bring us together
so that transitions very nicely spent six years there at off-road expo but now you're
deep into SEMA and making some big changes there what are some kind of some of the Tom G
fingerprints that you've left on SEMA in your time so far so if I were to identify a Tom G
fingerprint with the SEMA show it really comes down to user experience and there's a there's a
couple different types of events in our industry you've got consumer events there's trade events
but then outside of that there are corporate events and there's just a different feel for all of those
and at SEMA we've got people that are on both sides of it they're in the B2B side and they may be a tech
at a performance shop or a collision repair person but on the weekends they've got a dirt bike or a
drive or ride so they can't help themselves they do the business in their section but then they can
help themselves they go to the truck section or the power sport section so we know we've got this
this person that goes on two sides of it the business side and the recreation side but the
corporate event side for me has always been a push where I want you to feel special and I want
you to feel like your association understand you so when we're doing things like SEMA central and
SEMA live and some of the programs that we've got it really is to make people feel like they're
part of a community and we do it in very subtle ways like when you come to the SEMA show and you
look at our signage since 2013 we've had an automotive industry artist every three years
do signage as our show and we started with Max Grundy and you know we went to Ed Tillrock and
Alex Carmona and then Chip Foos and now we're using Larry Chen photography but what we saw
was something really cool Cory people came to the SEMA show and they they took some of our signage
home and I've never seen anything like that before it's one thing if you get inducted to the Hall
of Fame and one day maybe you'll be in the Texas Writers Association Hall of Fame and you'll take
that thing home but people were taking signs that just had some of our automotive artwork on it so
that let us know that we were doing this thing the automotive industry thought was cool they just
didn't know why and that to me is one of the things that I really get energized with is is these
things that help the user experience be special and let people know that there's a community that
they're a part of they get to be in this community for for a year and years on years but for a week
we circle the wagons we talk about things about the innovation and where the industry is going so
for me that's the Tom G fingerprint is is the user experience and making making people feel like
there's a community out there that that really does thrive with them being part of it now for
my audience which my podcast audience is one thing my youtube channel audience is focused on new car
purchases but for that kind of crossover there that maybe may not be as familiar with SEMA I
myself have had many friends go and cover it I personally have not been but it is on the bucket
list how would you best summarize what SEMA is to the average enthusiast or the average consumer
it's an opportunity for an industry to showcase the innovation that they have going on right now
and really propelling an industry into the future so it's what's going to be on cars and
trucks and motorcycles in the future and there's there's this conversation that just happens on
the show floor and it's not necessarily buying and selling it's more product innovation here's
what we're coming out with and when this when the conversations start to happen that's really when
the industry starts to get forged and we're really lucky at the SEMA show well we have
three different components of the automotive industry coming together we've got a manufacturing
component where you know people that make parts we've got a distribution component so that's the
the performance shops and the the auto zones and pet boys and Napa auto parts of the world
but then we also have an end user enthusiast component and when you can take manufacturing
distribution and end user and put it all in one place all in one week the speed at which the
conversations happen is is light years ahead of any other environment that we could build
and it really does propel an industry forward for the next three to five years so we're unique in
that aspect and we really leverage that for the benefit of the entire industry and it seems as
though in recent years many more OEM vehicle manufacturers have taken notice and have started
participating at various different levels whether it's showing off I know when your Chevy had their
the best version of a K5 Blazer we could expect from a brand that does not make a serious off-roader
in that segment anymore you're there at the show and so what has it been like saying the vehicle
manufacturers really start to take more interest and lean further into it as well because that's
that seems like another component that just adds to the secret sauce if you will of what
SEMA is it definitely does because we've we're watching the environment that happens from
from an event standpoint and there are shows that that ebb and flow and my job really at SEMA is to
make sure that we're constantly evolving to keep up with the needs of the marketplace and really
what the workforce and the people that are in our community are looking for
but it's nice to watch the the vehicle manufacturers come in and have a lot of success like last year
Toyota broke a record for them when they debuted the side-by-side Scion and they had 1.4 billion
impressions of the launch of that vehicle within 24 hours so when you take a company like Toyota
that has done events globally and they tell you that they launched a side-by-side at your event
and they had the most views they ever had of any launch ever it just makes you feel like you're on
this right track and it gives you this confidence when you're talking to the other vehicle manufacturers
of knowing that you're going to be able to deliver a return for them and that really is what it's
all about is having people come in and show us what they're working on and like you said you know
the best version of a K5 Blazer or you know maybe the the coolest side-by-side that's out right now
or a concept vehicle that you know we've had from Kia or Hyundai in the past and it really does ignite
the spark of what can be done when people are focused on just improving and progressing and
making things perform better and look better and just be cooler so we're really into promoting
that part of it and love the fact that the OEMs are right there joined at the hip with us.
Yeah and for many of the aftermarket accessory makers and even the aftermarket
shops and things like that having the OEMs there that serve as the canvas to which everything
stems from having their ear having their attention having everyone there under one roof
sounds like an awesome recipe for like you said it just accelerates the growth of how quickly things
can and do change I'm pretty sure that's why we're seeing such a surge in off-road enthusiasm now
why Easter Jeep Safari is so huge that's because of events like SEMA that are for lack of better
term the mecca of car modification culture. Yeah no you're absolutely right and it's one of these
things where you don't necessarily know that there's a push behind it if you're if you're not
watching what's going on and and we did things you know we just recently were successful in
convincing some of our lawmakers and in our administration to overturn an EV mandate that
was in California as an example but what it did was it gave people an opportunity to be able to
plan for the long term so our goal there wasn't to not have electric vehicles our goal was really
to have a choice everything from synthetic fuel to hydrogen to electric to ice engines but now we
have this industry and off-roading I think benefited from that tremendously is we have this industry
that can now plan and go okay we know ice engines are going to be around for a while
and there's now an opportunity to also do electric and and there's torque that happens with electric
motors that just doesn't happen anywhere else right and our industry is going to take all these
options and they're going to go okay I'm going to do Easter jeep safari and I want to go up chocolate
thunder what is the best thing I can put in my car that will make it go up that and that I think
is what we fight for is is let the vehicle be the canvas let our industry put the parts on it
and then let the end user go out there and enjoy it and and be able to do the things that that they
visualize in their head they'll be able to do that you know in real life with with the vehicle they
hope so funny that you bring up EVs and chocolate thunder in the same breath because I have done
chocolate thunder in an EV and that is an experience but yes I myself you probably wouldn't believe it
being in east Texas I am not it opposed to EVs I think they serve a great niche I do feel like the
method to which they were forced on delivered to the public it was detrimental to their overall
growth and so yes seeing that SEMA is able to leverage its size of enthusiasts of manufacturers
of all its members to say hey we don't see this as good for the industry as a whole let's let's
change this and go back to freedom of choice basically you spoke earlier about the right
to modify and freedom of choice is huge so yeah big win on that one and yeah you've kind of hit
on a bunch of things that are leading us in the direction of the conversation on power sports
I can't imagine why but it seems like there is going to be an expanded power sports
focus moving forward with SEMA what can you share with us in that realm well core you're
going to see a red thread right with this answer and it will make sense why an association like
SEMA exists but we saw another off-road association ORBA the Off-Road Business Association and they
defend and protect the use of lands and that type of thing and we saw an opportunity to acquire them
and really exponentially expand the protection that they could bring and when we acquired ORBA
we heard from the power sports community because they were members of ORBA we heard from them asking
sort of well what are you guys up to and they started to really see the value of what SEMA could
do from not only legislative and regulatory things and protection of land but also what we
do in our SEMA garage product development center or SEMA data or even with our event the SEMA show
so we started to talk to them and really again it was this perfect storm of wanting representation
knowing that we've got a good event and really being able to expand the marketplace in which
they're operating and then when you look at just the industry as a whole there's these things that
just connect together so if you're a motorcycle enthusiast or specifically what you say a dirt
bike enthusiast there's a good chance that you own a truck of some sort and you're needing to go
off-roading to be able to get to the place that you're going to go use your dirt bike
and then you take an industry like overlanding so you've got trucking off-road and you've got
overlanding and you get out dirt bikes and all these things sort of collide together
in in our trade show so we thought okay what would be better than to expand the power sports to
include on-road vehicles on-road motorcycles all of it and that's what we are now is as we've got
an expanded power sports section motorcycles dirt bikes side by sides
directly connected with our truck and off-road section which is going to again
be combined in there with overlanding products and it takes these segments of an industry
and it really puts them together in a place that no other show can do and it's not that we're
necessarily trying to be a vertical solution but we're this horizontal umbrella that can take
a lot of different things with the same user put them all in one place and make their time in our
event highly efficient and really again propel everything forward with innovation of products
so what will power sports look like moving into SEMA for future years are we going to see an
expanded presence this year and we will what what would that look like physically there at the show
so physically it's going to look like there's going to be v-twin parts manufacturers and
motorcycles we're we're going to have dirt bikes we're going to have side by sides we're going to
have the apparel and the the race suits and that's type of stuff are going to come into the show
kind of in a different manner than they have but just more expanded and in that part of it is is
going to be something that just continues to evolve we've got more motorcycle oems than we've ever
had and we're going to start to incorporate more and more of those types of things into what we're
doing when you look at some of our outside areas we feel there's going to be an opportunity to have
ride and drive demos and that type of thing as well so we're excited to be able to build on it
for the future and we're going to we're really going to go into this methodically you know we're
not just going to go and say okay boom it's this giant thing we're going to go slowly and take the
best components but we're getting tremendous support from the industry because they're looking
at what we're doing they're seeing the crossover and then we're also expanding our event into a
consumer plague on Friday we're open to the public now and that's a new thing coming out of the
pandemic so so again the motorcycle industry and the side-by-side industry is looking for a place
to be able to do their B2B but we're also supplying them thousands and thousands of dealers but then
tens of thousands of end user enthusiasts so it really is going to be this thing where everything
from v-twin motorcycles to dirt bikes to you know metric bikes to side-by-sides and everything in
between are going to be what comprises our our power sports section we're excited to see how it's
going to come together I'm excited to see it whether it's firsthand or through all of my peers in
the industry who that is part of their yearly media plan is to head out there I am curious you
touched on it a little bit the outside portion of the show it's not all just under the cover you're
in Vegas correct we are yeah we're in Las Vegas where this year will be the third through the sixth
okay and we've got the entire inside of the Las Vegas convention center full and we've got every
parking lot that they have also full and the outside is important to us Corey because it's
one of those things where as soon as you step onto the campus you can hear and see and smell
and feel our industry alive and it comes from the activations we have outside and the drifting and
you know freestyle motocross and that type of stuff that we have outside and it's an important
element for our event because it's more than just products or vehicles or you know the the
platform in which the products are displayed it's more the practical use of those products and some
of our most popular things are the activations we do or even our our SEMA parade at the very end of
the show where we've got over a thousand vehicles that that go in a in a very orchestrated route
around the convention center and down convention center drive in Las Vegas with 20,000 people
watching and and it's this thing where it's like okay here's a new build from a builder
that they've been working on for months or years you've got all these new products on it
and you've got this opportunity for people to come together and see it in motion and hear it and
feel it and and that part of it is just exciting because again it's this electric connection that
you make between between people and and when somebody lights up and goes that's how I want to
do my Camaro right you fell in love with your Camaro and and it brings you this joy it brings
you this memory when you see those customized you're like yeah that that one did it really well
it gets you enthused about your car again and it really gets you thinking about what can I do with
my daily you know how can I change that how can I really find enjoyment driving to work and I think
that's what our industry is is striving to do so it really is an all immersive experience from the
moment you arrive through hours of show floor inside outside exploration uh yeah you had mentioned
earlier that you are now opening it up to the public on Fridays when did that start and how
has that evolved what have you learned from it so we learned a lot and for the most part I'm
going to say it started right after the pandemic we did a little bit right before the pandemic
but coming out of it we we had an opportunity for people to be you know really be able to buy
tickets to what we call this Friday experience but what we learned was our industry was transitioning
through the pandemic the pipeline of product purchases was more streamlined than ever from
the manufacturer to the end user and and we saw this change in the need of what our manufacturers
at the SEMA show are exhibitors if you will who they were looking to talk to and it changed a
little bit so the very first year we had our enthusiasts in a different color badge and it
wasn't connected to the rest of the systems that we had on the B2B side and we did some focus groups
at the end and our manufacturers said you know everything was great we really enjoyed the show
but the people that came in with the different color badge they couldn't we couldn't scan them
to follow up with them and share with them some of the new products we're working on we said well
no that's because that was the end user enthusiasts those were the consumers and they said yeah we
want to talk to those people too and that ratio of that has started to improve year after year
after year so we still have it only open on Friday but we've started to expand where we create an
event called SEMA Fest and SEMA Fest is something that that is automotive and music combined and
it happens on Friday and we've got these top level bands that come you know we've had everybody from
Imagine Dragons and Sublime and Cage the Elephant and it really is this opportunity to see what would
happen if we took passion for automobiles and passion for motorcycles motorcycles and just our
industry in general and then passion for music and combine them and it really is exponentially
taken off where we're able to just celebrate this this lifestyle if you will and in the
automotive community but we make it easy too Corey like if you don't come or some of your users
aren't able to come we produce something called SEMA Live which is a 31 hour long live stream of the
SEMA show and we treat it a little bit like Sports Center meets the SEMA show where there's a desk
and Chris Jacobs is at that desk but then we have three roving reporters that go through the show
and they're doing everything outside inside interviewing people and seeing the celebrities and
all the magic that happens at the SEMA show you're able to watch and see that happen and one of the
reasons we did that was you know we wanted to share with the world what happens in the confines of
the convention center but at the same time it's it's to give people an opportunity to see what's
going on and go oh yeah that's cool like I want to be part of that and we're seeing benefit from
that from both the B2B side and the B2C side so again excited to just be able to share it with
everybody and that really wasn't the case six or seven years ago it was B2B only and now we're
seeing the industry changed so part of ever our evolution was to change along with it
so the show is coming up what are the show dates again we're going to be November 3rd through the
6th and then SEMA Fest is on the 6th November and how would one whether they are a manufacturer
business in the space or an in-consumer wanting to come on Friday how does one interact with
getting tickets making sure that they're not left behind registration I assume is opening
fairly soon correct it is and we would you know we're going to look really smart if we could just
mention AI somehow on this call right absolutely looking for us they could check AI and find out
but really what what we've got set up is a SEMA show website and a SEMA Fest website and again
you can find all this through a search like SEMA show consumer if you're a consumer and it will
bring you to either our SEMA show website or SEMA Fest and then if you're on the B2B side SEMA show
has our whole registration system built into that but that's really where all the information is
and then we have another website SEMA.org that really is our association but they're all connected
together but at the end of the day March the or May the 4th is going to be one we're going to launch
a lot of things we're launching our registration for the B2B side we're going to launch our Friday
experience ticket which is our consumer ticket for the show and we're also doing our SEMA Fest
announcement as well so on May the 4th if you want to be the first person to have a ticket or
a badge to the show that you're opportunity to do it we're going to go all summer long
registering people at the end of it we'll probably have somewhere around 165,000 people
registered for the show so you can imagine what that's like but we're going to announce our bands
this year in July for SEMA Fest we'll announce some of our keynote speakers for the show again
as we go along in the summer so right now we're launching registration on May the 4th
check out our websites if you want to be part of that but again it's where we start and then we
really just push all the way to November 3rd we open our doors and 160,000 people come in and
the industry figures out what it's going to look like in five years. You joked when you
jumped on the call you already know how many days until the show opens you are a month less than a
month away from registration opening so again for my past life of planning events I know that
your life is about to be crazy moving forward until the show ends you get a little breather and then
all back again right yeah now we work on multiple shows at the same time especially like this past
construction so I've already got 27 and to a certain extent 28 on the planning cycle
but we're going to go really deep into our planning for 26 also starting on May the 4th and
it's a fascinating thing to watch but we're going to we have a blank floor plan right now
and we're going to have 2,000 exhibitors participate in a space drawing and it's like Tetris meets
an auction the NFL draft and companies come in one at a time and they pick their space
and we draw the floor plan as we go so you're able to watch it you can go to our website and
find a link where you can see our floor plan it's updated every 15 minutes and our manufacturers
call in one at a time and we'll place in the period of two weeks we'll place 2,000 people on
that floor plan and you can watch the SEMA show go from an empty hall to a million plus net square
feet of a exhibit space and 2,000 companies and you can just watch it all happen and we've got a lot
of people that do that so we make it very user friendly in that respect like we talked about
earlier but if you want to see us build the show it's right there in front of everybody on SEMA
show.com well you are absolutely taking advantage of all the modern technologies I'm sure you'll
weave AI in there somewhere so there we go these are it sounds smart for you come on there's our AI
quota for this episode but Tom I appreciate you coming on spending the time to help educate the
consumers not only about the SEMA show and what it stands for what it means for the end consumers
but also sharing a little bit of your past your passion and kind of how you got here
so I do thank you for that. No I love it and I think you can tell I get passionate about events
which is a weird thing to be passionate about but I'm locked in on that and now let's help you
take some stuff off your bucket list if you have an opportunity to come or anybody listening
we do make it easy to attend and when you come I'll tell you this you're not going to forget
your first time and it'll be something that you'll always want to come back and do again.
Absolutely well thank you Tom. Thank you Corey. So huge thanks to Tom to the team over at SEMA
for continuing continuing to produce fantastic content at the SEMA show SEMA Fest sounds awesome
all of it sounds awesome I am jealous I have a lot of my industry friends that make the pilgrimage
out to Vegas every fall to cover the show to cover what's new and to kind of help show where the
industry is going he and I both alluded to it in the conversation OEMs have taken notice of SEMA
and are really starting to change the landscape of the industry and exactly what it looks like
so we will have down in the show notes all the details to register to attend to be part of it
yourself if you are in that space but as always you can go to GTGarageTalk.com and find out all
you
About this episode
Tom Gattuso, SEMA’s VP of events, breaks down what makes the SEMA Show more than a parts marketplace—an innovation engine where manufacturers, distributors, and enthusiasts collide to shape the next 3–5 years of vehicle trends. He shares his event-planning journey, highlights SEMA’s focus on community and user experience, and previews major changes: expanded power sports, more OEM participation, and Friday consumer access plus SEMA Fest (music + cars). He also discusses “right to modify” efforts, EV mandate pushback, and how SEMA’s Vegas campus activations bring builds to life.
In this episode, Cory reaches out to Tom Gattuso, VP of Events at SEMA. Tom and Cory discuss how Tom got to the role of VP of Events and what the future of the SEMA Show looks like.
If you liked that episode and would like to hear more, head over to Patreon.com/GTGarageTalk and sign up on our 1LT Camaro tier and you will be granted access to TheAftermarket, extra content recorded after each new episode. You’ll get to hear just a little more about what Cory and guests are like when making an episode of GT: Garage Talk. If that’s not enough, browse through our many other tiers and see what perks come with each level.
