SEMA’s Tom Gattuso & Warren Kosikov

Your statement or opinion is like SEMA is not a car show.

So I don't think of SEMA as a car show.

The relevance of the show is going to come down to the best cars on the planet being there.

Special SEMA episode.

VP of sales, VP of show event planning.

We were the largest attended trade show in the country in 21, 22 and 23.

That helped our negotiations with the convention center.

I don't want to get into too much inside baseball, you can't.

But what are the negotiations like?

Removing any emotion from it.

OK.

And just doing it with logic.

It just doesn't work.

Some celebrity or somebody that needs to get taken around the show after hours.

And that's been my time to be like, OK, forget about it.

You ever get like Bert Reynolds or anybody like that?

And I get a call right when I get to my room from my former boss and he goes, the band kisses here.

What's the biggest message you would like to give anyone listening that is a future feature vehicle

to understand or deal with or know before they show up?

Best shoes for SEMA.

Wild card.

I feel it's going with those sketchers shape ups, which he's had pretty good luck with.

They've done coming from the guy that wears Toms.

Stop it.

That was years ago.

You want it? It was one thing.

We haven't announced it yet, but very soon we're going to announce.

And I, you know, it'll just be between the five of us.

Is that cool? Yeah.

What's going?

Welcome back to another episode of Oil and Whiskey, brought to you by Weathertech.

Floorliner HP is Weathertech's top tier floor mat.

It's the next generation of floor mat protection after Weathertech's best selling flagship product, the Floorliner.

A necessity if you care about your car and want to keep it looking pristine.

New car help maximize resale value when it's time to trade it in.

Older, pre-owned car make it look better with a simple interior refresh upgrade.

Mask the wear and tear, laser measured to fit your exact making model.

With thousands of applications available for older and newer models.

No one has the depth of coverage that Weathertech offers,

constantly adding to the list with its latest vehicle releases.

High wall design for ultimate year round protection.

Its raised edges contain dirt, water, sand, snow and everyday messes,

keeping that factory carpet in its original condition.

Super durable and hefty so it lies flat, won't warp or degrade over time.

Soft touch feel, nibs on the underside and retention devices help them stay securely in place.

American made in Bowlingbrook, Illinois.

Go to Weathertech.com to check out their Floorliner HP and find your application.

This week, special SEMA episode.

Tom, you've done it before.

You've did the podcast via Zoom remotely from California.

Warren has not.

Rookie.

VP of sales, VP of show event planning.

Yeah.

And a show planning.

Yeah, VP of events.

Glad to have you both.

I think it's going to be a really good episode.

We talked a little off camera before.

You've talked about the planning side on the season one.

I think that had to be two years ago, three years ago, something like that.

Talked about the planning side.

No Warren Well through Selena.

So we're going to be able to talk about the things that you have to fit into the Tetris or Jenga

that he sells.

He's like, oh, this guy really wants this size booth.

He wants a 15 by 23.

So I grew up doing that.

I started my career doing auto shows and we would come into basically an empty convention center

and we would sell manufacturer by manufacturer and you get to this place there was

5,000 square feet on this side of the hall and 5,000 square feet on this side of the hall.

And you need to figure out how to get two people at one at six and one at four.

And I did all that math to be able to make all that work.

And that is the nerd part of the trade show industry.

It's all just a big.

Did you play Tetris at all?

I was good at Tetris.

My answer to that is on the Game Boy.

There's people that say they're good at Tetris.

If you've seen the space shuttle take off, you're good at Tetris.

And I'm seeing the space shuttle take off.

I have not seen the space shuttle.

We use that reference all the time that Tetris reference when we talk about our space

selection process.

And people say, how does that work?

I say, well, it's a combination of the NFL Draft and the Game Tetris all happening at the same

time.

So we'll call a customer and be like, you're on the clock.

And then they watch the pieces start falling on the on the floor plan and try to plug their

spot in at the right time.

It gives me anxiety because I have a difficult enough time organizing my closet.

That's like five by five, let alone, you know, what a million square feet of space with how

many vendors are there on average?

This is somewhere around 2,300, 2,400, depending on the year.

And like you said, it's just over a million one in terms of net square feet.

Probably a three and a half million square foot campus, including the outside too.

How many on average?

How many of those 2,300 are first timers?

About a quarter of them.

Yeah, each year.

Anywhere from, you know, we'll call it 350 to 500, depending on the year, our new exhibitors.

Which makes my job tough because my we lose almost that many at the same time.

So in order to grow the show, you know, I've got to bring in 500 to get ahead.

Right.

Our first timers, I'm sure they have their own unique challenges to deal with.

But is it generally easier for placement because they know that the first time they also don't

have any preconceived, maybe don't have any preconceived notions about space?

Or is it the opposite?

Yeah, I would say they have a lot of preconceived notions.

I want to be down there.

Yeah, we get a lot of, yeah, I need to be right there.

And like, all right, well, talk to me in about 30 years when the companies around you have

started to go away.

So yeah, there's a lot of preconceived notions.

And, you know, it's funny how 100 feet can make or break somebody's show in their mind.

And we try to walk them off that ledge and be like, listen, there's a lot of people there.

They're not going to, there's no wall 100 feet away from your booth.

They'll keep coming down the aisle.

I mean, ultimately with that, I understand like the frustration of people wanting to be front

and center.

But if you've got a good product and a good display, I mean, there's other avenues.

You've got the new products that if you feel like your space isn't the greatest,

well, what better space than new products?

Like people will seek you out if you've got something unique.

So you just got to be there.

I'll steal one of Tom's lines.

We've had people with what they thought was great locations.

Say they had a crappy show and people thought they had a crappy location,

had the best show they've ever had.

They want a new product award or something happened that blew them up.

And so, you know, that real estate term of location, location, location.

Now, we try to keep that out of the trade show vernacular.

Sure.

It's a good amount of what you put into the show from a company standpoint

to get attention to your booth, not just where here come find us.

I mean, it's a massive show of all the automotive aftermarket.

So I think a lot of it's on the actual company as well to promote yourself that you're there,

where you're at, what you're doing.

And I think a lot of guys miss that.

Yeah, we say like it's not a fishing expedition because in my career,

and I've been doing this automotive events for more than 30 years,

you can talk to someone that had the worst show ever.

And their booth is right next to the person that had this is the best show I've ever had.

It really comes down to what your attitude is, what your pre-marketing is,

like just really how you handled it.

And I like to say practice, you know, because I used to,

I did enough of my own events where people would come into my booth

and I'd be really good on the last day.

Like there wasn't a question I couldn't answer.

My elevator pitch was just drilled.

But on the first day, I was still practicing it.

You know, I was getting to learn it and going through my bullet points and doing all the stuff.

So I always tell people, practice when you get there.

So you're as good on Tuesday when the door opens,

as you are at the end of the day, Friday, after you've talked to hundreds of people.

And if you take that attitude, you're gonna, it's gonna convert for you.

And a lot of people don't do that.

You know, it's, it's an effort thing and easy versus effort.

A lot of people just kind of lean on easy.

It's also interesting that what is the actual standard metric for

was it a good show or a bad show?

I mean, it's gone are the days where you're filling up an order book,

you know, and you can get, you know, you can scan badges, right?

If you, if you're just wanting to get leads, is that your metric?

You know, there's, there's ways to get your leads.

It's, it's everybody's individual business plan is a little different on what is

successful or a great show.

Because you can be, we've had those days with a great location and a great booth

of an absolute just packed booth that you can't move.

And you can't talk to some of the people that you really need to talk to,

because you've got a line of that certain type of, of people that you also know in your head.

This is conversations, but these aren't qualified conversations.

So movement and action and people in the booth is one metric.

But if it's, if they're, you got, you got any stickers, you got anything free?

Like I can fill my bag up.

You got any posters?

Right.

Yeah.

It's the one at a time versus a lot at the time.

Yeah.

It really is, it's interesting to watch that whole dynamic when you talk about booth prep,

because it's like, who's, who's planning the booth?

And a lot of times it falls on marketing.

And marketing is all about, you know, branding and exposure and media coverage.

And, and they'll build a booth to do a certain thing.

And then at the end of the show, the sales seems like, well, we didn't get a lot of leads.

And the marketing is like, well, we got a lot of branding.

We got a lot of media and our social content creators came in and they,

they were able to kill it.

So sales and marketing need to talk.

Like a successful show really needs to hit both of those groups.

And they just need to be collaborating on, on the plan.

Do you think there is a standard, a unit of measure for success in today's day and age

with the broad landscape of individual businesses?

Yeah, it's so different with all the exhibitors.

I, you know, travel around the country and do a lot of visits to members and exhibitors.

And one of the first things I ask him is, you know, what does success look like for you?

If I come to your booth on Friday and say, how did it go?

What's going to, what makes it go this?

And the, the answers are, are all over the place from Thomas point, you know,

it was a branding exercise to, you know, we just wanted to, to meet up with some new

distributors. And unfortunately we still have some folks that are like,

oh no, I passed out this many, you know, pieces of literature.

And we're like, yeah, we got to get, we got to get you past that.

I emptied my boxes of catalogs.

I don't have to come home.

I don't have to shoot any home.

So it's, it's, it's a wide spectrum of, of what success looks like for, for various exhibitors.

You know, because you've got, you've got, you know, auto makers down to, you know,

the guy that just created some widget in his garage and it's a broad, broad spectrum.

For those of us that put maybe right, maybe wrong, put almost zero merit in printed catalogs

anymore. What do you think about maybe making a rule of just like no vendors are allowed to do

any print catalogs? Man, that would save so many conversations, so many monies, so many trees.

Yeah, I don't know how many attendees are asking for them still.

I don't know. You tell me.

In my experience, the ones they're asking for them don't need them.

Yeah, right. It's a souvenir.

It's a hundred percent a souvenir collection.

It's a book.

You got any, you got a, you got a book on these chassis.

It's in the digital age.

I mean, I get it.

Like we talked about like in print media, I still like it open up a magazine and peruse

through things, right? I wish that was where it was, but I haven't looked through a physical

catalog for any single part I've ever purchased, whether it be home audio, you know, stuff,

anything that you've ever looked for. I haven't ever looked through a catalog in years.

I used to love the JCPenney catalog for Christmas time when they come out or whatever.

Remember the Crutchfield catalog?

Oh, the Crutchfield catalog was great.

Page by page by page.

And now you get a little flyer, a pamphlet, and it's got QR codes.

And it's, Crutchfield wasn't as good, but yeah, there's the internet now.

Right.

CCS still has a catalog.

I love that one.

There's a mini catalog.

All the skateboard decks.

That was good.

Oh, that was good.

Yeah, that was a little, yeah.

There's, I just, there's so many traditionalists still and you deal with that in marketing.

The people that want them are the sales reps.

Sales reps are like, hand me a stack of catalogs so I can go hand those other people.

No, for sure.

And, and what we're, we're finding with the show is, is there's,

there's stages of a life cycle.

When you first come to the show, you're looking for distribution.

And I think that person probably still wants a catalog.

They're trying to get their word out there.

They're invented a product and they're bringing it to market.

But after say five or six years, they shift a little bit to where they're looking for

media coverage.

They're looking to talk to current customers.

And new distribution isn't as popular as it was for them.

You know, they really just want to nurture their current distribution channel.

But then you get to somebody who's been in, in the show 15, 20 years.

They're not looking for distribution necessarily because they've got that really covered well.

What they're looking for is more branding.

And it's this platform where social media content can get created and, and really just

how is my brand represented in the industry.

And then when you look at the industry, everyone has their car person.

So when you say like, oh, the branding at the show, you know, may or may not be valuable.

If you look at it just from a micro standpoint, we overuse the word influencer, right?

But every crowd group or, or, you know, group of people has their car person.

So like, Hey, did you go to the C much?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

What was cool?

That person may not buy anything, but he in that group is the car influencer.

So it's like, yeah, yeah, that chassis is cool or that suspension is cool.

Or, you know, this thing is cool.

And I got to see it and you should look at it.

He validated it for his, his followers, his audience, his group, his friend group is.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's all over the place.

And, and really from a show perspective, Warren and I have to build this event to handle

those three groups where distribution, media coverage and branding are, are, are kind of

there and everybody's at a different stage of that.

What's different now after several years post pandemic?

I can't say the C word on here.

YouTube can't stand that.

We will get, and I already said, I already said, so Elio have to take that word out.

Are they still using that twice?

Yeah, twice.

I said twice this time.

That's still a trigger red flag.

Oh yeah, you would get shut down.

Yeah.

Not shut down, but they, they just throttle it back, throttle it back way, way.

Yeah.

So pandemic since then, is it back to the way it was?

Is it, there's gotta be some things that are just different and they'll always be different.

Yeah, I think there's a different mindset a little bit.

You know, we came out of the pandemic.

A lot of the folks in the, in the aftermarket had some of the best years they've ever had.

And we're like, maybe I don't need this trade show thing to run my business.

We're in the past.

There's companies that would never even consider not exhibiting at the Seaman show

because they were worried about what the rest of the market would think if they weren't there.

So we lost that a little bit.

And really, as the year started going by and those government subsidies dried up,

they were really pushing that those, a lot of those sales,

there started to be a rethink of, hmm.

Maybe I do.

How do I start feeding this funnel again?

And, and so we, you know, we're, that was a positive thing for us for sure.

And I think, you know, Tom, we'll talk a little bit about attendee mindset,

which is changing as well.

Folks looking for, for more face-to-face interaction.

It's interesting.

What's going on right now is, is the marketplace is getting younger.

And, and what we experienced in 2020 had this, this resignation that happened

and newer people coming into the workforce.

So, so we're in a position right now where people are predicting by 2030,

75% of the workforce will be Gen Z or Millennial,

which leaves 25% for your boomer and your, your acts.

And the Gen Z and Millennial don't know what their parents trade show was like.

So they're looking for different things.

And right now the average age of a person that's managing a booth on the exhibitor side

is 37 years old.

Really.

So you, you take that into account, how do you communicate with that person about

the value of a booth, what your ROI, you know, those types of things.

We're evolving, but we're familiar.

So it's one of these things where we have this younger marketplace,

this younger workforce and this 58 year show.

And, and trying to keep it relevant.

And I think that's part of the excitement of what we do is, is keeping it relevant.

And really it's, it's showcasing the companies that are coming in,

and the products and innovation they got, you know, at the end of the day,

we could build the SEMA show the way, you know, we build the SEMA show,

but it's the exhibitor and attendee interaction that, that really is the magic.

And that, that's what makes a show great or not great.

At the end of the week for us, a thumbs up is where a lot of conversations happening.

They can be good.

It could be bad.

It doesn't matter as long as people are talking.

Good things happen.

A lot of the marketing behind SEMA must be catered to that, right?

Because when you're talking about the younger generation and if you're marketing to them,

it's not just a bunch of blue curtains hanging in the show and a few signs.

It just doesn't get the job done anymore.

It's, it, I've noticed over the years, it seems to just be getting more and more hip.

Ever since RJ came on, it gets completely, it's a different, it's a different SEMA.

Better, it feels different.

You walk into the main, you know, lobby and it's, I mean, it's a lot of energy.

It's, it's fun.

It's, it's just, it's badass.

It's not like it was in the early years when we were doing it.

It's, it's really evolved, which must be, I mean, you got some smart people in that

organization all across the board, but the marketing side is obviously doing a good job.

They're focused on who to market to.

Yeah.

And to your point, Josh, nobody cooler than RJ.

Nope.

Nobody's cool.

And I think it, from the outside looking in, I think that it, it might have,

maybe taken him a little longer to get the, where he wanted to be, you know.

Listen, the wheel turns slow sometimes within our organization.

Big organization.

But, you know, yeah, we did a lot of, we knew he was coming in the, in the inside joke

within the walls where you kept hearing over and over, just wait till RJ gets here.

Just wait till RJ, when RJ gets there, it'll, it'll all be fine, you know.

And then we laid that on him and he heard that for a little while.

But yeah, he's, he's been really successful in, in getting that marketing machine rolling.

Well, it's an actual, it's an actual living, breathing arm of semen,

now the marketing side of things.

So social media wise, where it's, it looks like you're interacting with possible human

beings on the other side of this versus before just did not have that feeling.

And there was no cadence to him.

And you go, you'd look on there and be like, it's been four weeks since the last post.

And, you know, a month since the last, it's just not.

Yeah.

From the HIPAA audience, like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to get my information

about the organization or the show from the show's own social media,

because it looks like they don't care.

I'm going to have to worry about somebody else telling me about what's going on.

Yeah, it's much more intentional and strategic for sure.

Yeah.

The amount of time we spend working on it, nobody really knows.

And it's like any social media, you know, and you can, you can go up against the line

or stay way afar away from the line.

But we're making strides to, to really just mirror what we're seeing.

And, and again, with this evolving group of people that's come into the show and we're

seeing our demographic change, when you send an email or you do a social post,

you know, immediately what that data is like.

So it used to be where you would write an email and it was, you know, lots of words.

And you assumed everybody read every word.

I'm like, it was in the email.

You shouldn't have assumed that because we did not.

We absolutely did not.

The average dwell time in an email is like three seconds.

So then it gets to this point where I don't know if you've seen what we have this button

that says push here to register, you know, and it literally is only the button.

You know, and that's a, that's a one second read.

It looks just like your car ignition does like push here and go.

But it's, it's again, it's the, it's this evolving communication channel that we have.

And these folks that are just getting media a completely different way.

They're communicating a different way and you can't, you can't always do it the way you did

and expect different results.

We've talked about not to make this a complete love fest on all the things that you guys are

doing right, but we talked about it with Karen Chapman on here.

We've talked about it, you know, with, with everybody from SEMA organization.

We talked about the Spagnola.

I've used the word that seemed like agnostic prior to, and you know, maybe it was a little bit

with, you know, Spagnola coming in or, you know, some other people coming.

There was just that SEMA was like terrified seemingly to piss off anybody.

Anyone group, never take a stance, ride the fence on anything.

Didn't matter.

Social media, political stance, whatever it is, ride the fence.

So everything got so watered down and so afraid to make a statement about anything.

That's changed so dramatically and it's continuing.

You see it on the political action side of things where it's just like, no,

we will speak out, right?

And we will say this.

We're going to go a little harder even, you know, on the social media side.

There used to be like a blurred out, just like there's exhibitors here.

We're not going to maybe show a logo of one because then a competitor might get expen-

You know what, like show that there's exhibitors here.

Highlight, if it's, you know, KC highlights got a great boot, whoever it is.

You know, some people, it's just is what it is.

You got to be more real and you're seeing that across the board of like, yeah,

we're going to stand up for at least what we believe in.

We're going to piss a few people off, but at least we're not going to be just so vanilla.

Oh yeah, we hear it when we piss them off.

Oh, I'm sure.

Yeah, I'm sure you do.

You hear both sides of it, but I think authentic is a word that's overused,

but we got to be authentic and really we're reflecting the industry back to itself.

So we need to know who the industry is that we're reflecting.

And that I think is part of this whole evolution that we've been going through and

putting the right people in the right place to do the right things is

part of it that you used to take for granted.

Worse thing in the result of that, and it's great.

It's getting a lot more of a car guy run feel to it, which

so much more easily relatable for the industry and everybody being involved.

And you kind of, you want to jump on it more and get behind it more.

Well, it's quite literally run by a car guy now and it wasn't before.

Again, using the same words again, it's been intentional and strategic on Mike's

Bagnolis part to take a stand, you know, put his intentions and what he believes in

and then see where the cookies crumble.

At least you know where you stand and that's kind of think what's,

and for the most part, like the stances, like you said, it's reflecting,

reflection of the industry.

There's always going to be fringes that's going to be like,

I disagree with that, right?

You know, I'm upset about this.

But you've also made a lot of people really happy, right?

Or proud or being like, yes, I feel the same way.

Or, hey, you're talking to me or, you know, now I feel like you care,

you know, you're actually in tune.

So I think it's absolutely been a positive, 100% of possible.

Yeah, I appreciate you noticing that because there's been, like I said,

it's been very intentional.

Yeah, it's obvious on a lot of fronts.

I mean, I've even seen some social media posts back, you know,

some different PAC stuff going on and, you know, Spagnola,

doing a personal post on a, you know, thing you're like,

well, I would have never seen anything like that back in the day.

And then you kind of watch all the hate.

You're like, this is, this is what?

But it's at the same time, you're looking at like,

well, at least there's engagement.

At least it's showing passion.

It's like authentic.

Like you said, they came out and made a stance.

At least you know where the hell they stand.

Yeah.

Versus being like, oh, we'd only really even pay attention to that stuff.

Well, yeah, you do.

You're too afraid to say it.

Like, just say it.

Right.

No, and it's hard because a lot of times we can feel like we're the empire

to baseball game, right?

And hopefully we're never noticed.

But you make that one bad call and all of a sudden everyone's like,

blue, blue, blue.

Yeah.

So we're, we used to try to stay away from that.

Now it's like, are we convicted with the call?

Yeah.

Do we believe he's out or safe?

Now, at the end of the day, there's still video and they may overturn it in New

York or whoever does that.

But if you're convicted with what you're doing, you believe in it,

you saw what you saw, you call what you call.

Again, it should work itself out.

And you're going to be wrong some of the time.

That's, that's the beauty of it is you're not going to be right all the time.

At least you're not quiet all the time.

Yeah, you're just doing something.

Right.

Bench is clearing parole.

It'd be pretty sweet at the same time as here.

Hey, come pretty close.

I'm sure there's a 58-year history there.

There's a story there.

I'm sure there is.

Sure.

It was back when it was in Anaheim.

I bet there was a lot more.

Yes.

Back when you could smoke in the show, I think there was probably more fights.

That's not coming back anytime soon, is it?

Smoking or Anaheim.

Smoking in the show.

It's Vegas.

Yeah, this is true.

A little bit of time in now from opening up Friday to the public.

What's your take now?

What have you learned?

Good, bad?

What's the feedback?

I assume it's coming back again this year.

It is coming back again this year.

And the feedback's been good.

We came out of Coke and I don't want to say experimented, but we introduced

an opportunity for the public to be able to come to the show.

At that time, prior to 2020, it was about 50-50.

40% of the industry didn't want consumers at the show.

40% did.

And 20% in the middle couldn't figure out what they wanted.

And now the scale is tipping a little bit more.

And I really think it's part of a distribution channel.

Like, how are you fulfilling some orders?

And who is at the end of that order?

And are they valuable to talk to?

So somebody that's in your booth looking for a sticker is one thing.

But somebody who may be a CEO or a company in the prime age who wants a car that's going to

look cool but perform like a modern car, he may be a one-off, but he may be a really good

customer for some company.

So what we're finding is companies are more apt to want to talk to the consumer.

And again, it comes down to how you can fulfill orders and how you can serve that person.

So it's gotten to be more popular.

The litmus test for me was we did it in 2021.

And we had everybody in a specific type of badge.

And at the end of the show, the feedback we got was, hey,

our lead retrieval didn't work on that purple badge.

What was going on with that?

And we said, well, those were the consumers.

Those were the people that we weren't sure you wanted to talk to.

Across the board.

Oh, no, we want to talk to everybody.

Everybody is valuable.

So then you get back to that ROI question.

Was that intentional?

Just make them not get what they want and then it comes back hard to the other direction.

So that part wasn't intentional.

The purple part wasn't intentional.

I'd like to take credit for that.

But it started to evolve.

And the next year we got more people and we got more people.

So this year we're doing it again, but we're now literally calling it the Friday experience

open to the public because we had this ticket offer for three years and people would call

our phone and be like, is there a way that the general public can come to your show?

So we had to put that into the name of the ticket, literally.

But it has really good traction because, again, I think when you get down to it,

company by company, they see the value there.

And they may change their pitch on Friday a little bit,

but it's giving value to the show on Friday.

And I think from my seat, and I think it flows over into Warren's a little bit,

is we want to be able to provide value from the time you get there until the time you leave.

And if our show is open for four days, if we can provide value on that final day

and that final afternoon, it's something that other trade shows don't do.

And the last day on the trade show, I like to say the loudest sound in the world

is a tape gun at two o'clock, two hours before the trade show closes.

Right? Yeah.

You don't hear that at the SEMA show because there's people still walking up and down the aisle

and there's conversations still happening.

So that for us is this success point, but we're looking at the marketplace

and we're looking at what it's going to be like in 10 years

and how easy you can fulfill an order and how much you want to talk to a customer.

And it will ebb and flow a little bit.

So the show right now is poised to do any level of B2B and B2C that the marketplace wants.

And it's not going to be our decision.

It's going to be the marketplace.

So you guys are exhibitors.

You're going to come to us and be like, you know what?

We need less consumer or more consumer or more B2B or more focused B2B.

And we'll morph to be able to fit that need because you won't be the only ones wanting it.

Where are you seeing the trend going on that?

Right now the trend is to have more consumer conversations,

more end user enthusiast conversations.

And part of it is, again, they're the influencer in their friend group.

So they're going back and saying, okay, this is the cool stuff I saw.

But at the same time, for every B2B marketing person,

there's a B2C channel that they also want to talk to.

I never understood the apprehension for the general public coming in

because end of the day for every single business in there,

that's your end customer, right?

So don't you want to get them in, get them excited,

get them familiar with your product to...

Yeah, the old school way.

I just didn't want to, they didn't want to deal with them.

They want to deal with their sales wrap or distributors.

The feedback from the exhibitors would be,

we only want to talk to people buying stuff by the container level.

And they'd always say, the guy would come up and talk about a 69 Camaro

and needs one set of calibers, they didn't want to have that conversation.

That's your job.

Make him, he's an enthusiast about your product.

So that's the feedback we get.

But to Tom's point, that's pivoted over the years.

And as a lot of these manufacturers even started setting up,

their own B2C websites and dropshipping and whatnot,

they've become much more interested in continuing those conversations with the end user.

You mentioned earlier, there's the CEO or the guy wanting a sticker.

Obviously you, maybe there's a way, there's not a way that I know of

or you probably aren't doing it, that you can quantify or qualify

that individual customer, if it's a CEO or a guy that's going to come in to get a sticker.

Coming in for a, you know, a one day, Friday at the end of the day,

you know, maybe prohibitive for, you know, a guy coming from the East Coast.

It's like, man, I got to fly out, I'm going to do one day.

I'll just look at it online, but a local around the area that's like,

it's a car show, I'll buy a ticket, I'll go, I just want to see all the cars.

That's my only concern going forward is how,

at the end of the day, people are at your point.

They're enthusiastic about cars, you're in front of them, great.

But there is some growth, I think, that needs to be done on the enthusiast side,

on a respect level for how to navigate a car show, you know.

Yeah, there's that, Josh.

But sometimes the guy, the two guys we're talking about are the same guy,

meaning that there could be a guy that's a CEO or he owns a large, you know,

multi-store tire shop.

And he's there and he's just looking for tire repair equipment.

So in the South Hall, he's a big player and he's talking about it,

but he's also a Jeep enthusiast.

So when he finishes his business and work in the Isles of the South Hall,

he goes, I'm going to go check out the truck hall.

And now he becomes an enthusiast.

And so those exhibitors will be going, why don't you let this guy in?

And well, he just spent millions of dollars over there.

He's coming for his enthusiast part after it works.

So we find that sometimes it's the same guy, but to your point,

on the consumer side and the car show folks,

yeah, there is an education there as to what the behavior should be with regard to show cars.

That's what the, it's more on the car side and some on the display side,

more on the car side.

That's what's very difficult from the builder standpoint.

And a lot of the people that we deal with is that, is that it?

Oh yeah, there's three kids inside that car.

There's three kids inside the car right now.

That's real carbon fiber.

I was actually kind of shocked at how little of that there was, though.

When we heard that it was getting opened up,

I started thinking of it like the auto show, basically, you know,

it's going to be just like a free for all.

There's going to be people climbing over cars and taking pieces off the cars.

And to be honest with you, I didn't really experience any of that.

I couldn't have put my finger on one person and said,

you know, this is a Friday guy that came in as a enthusiast or, you know, just a customer.

Most of it happened earlier in the week from people that had legitimate batches.

He'd be shocked at some of the people who know better and do that.

Josh had to handle a couple of those guys, but he handled it.

But I didn't see an issue with it, to be honest.

I mean, I was a little worried about it.

Yeah, we don't market it the same.

And again, I grew up with a consumer show background.

I did auto shows for 10 years or so.

I did Off-Road Expo for five.

Super respectful of the demo vehicles that are there on the lot, aren't they?

These are super respectful.

These are rides.

He brought the ride for me.

But you don't market them the same.

Like this for sure is a cut above.

And at the end of the day, I don't think of us as a car show.

I really do think of us as a part show.

In the canvas of which those parts are shown just happens to be cars.

Sure.

But if you look at us compared to a true car show where everything is a car,

it gets to be a little bit more amusement park-ish.

Where if you walk into a wax booth or an air filter booth or somebody like that,

it's pretty evident that they're about the product.

And the car is just sort of an adjunct to that.

Like here's our product looking badass on a car.

Yeah, I mean, it's certainly a draw, though.

Wouldn't you say like, for me anyway, I want to see something.

Wheel looks great by itself, but it sure looks better when it's tucked under the fender of a car.

And you can see it when it's sitting on the ground with a tire wrapped around it.

And there's a lot of things like that.

But there's also some that it's just a draw.

It's just placed there as a piece of eye candy.

It kind of goes both ways.

So your statement or opinion is like, SEMA is not a car show.

It's a show for manufacturers and exhibitors that have all different types of parts and services for cars.

Yeah, I don't think of it as a car show.

This is our clickbait hook right here.

I'm trying to get you to say it.

Yeah, I'm not a pickin' that up once you're laying that down.

So I'll lay it down.

SEMA's not a car show.

No, SEMA.

And a lot of the Builder community listens, Tom.

We've got a rebuttal coming.

We're going to deep dive into it.

So I don't think of SEMA as a car show, as a straight vertical car show,

because it's made up of manufacturers of parts.

It just so happens that they want their part to look as authentic as possible.

And that only happens with the top builds in our industry.

So when you have that combination, that's really when the spark of that conversation can start.

Because you take that to a whole other level, we're not a vehicle parade.

We've got 20,000 people that attended, though.

So the SEMA show isn't the parade of cars at the end, the SEMA crews.

It's the culmination of what happened that week.

Right.

Do you think you'd get the publicity and attention without the cars?

It's a great question, no.

No, it all works together.

Yeah, the cars are the eye candy.

I mean, that draws a lot of attention.

People, through our surveys, always want to see the cars at the SEMA show, for sure.

I want to continue talking about this, but you mentioned that you're not a parade.

And you're not.

But you sure do make it hard to opt out if you don't want to go through the parade.

I got to throw shots when I can't.

It's not hard.

All you have to do is not move out.

Well, yeah, I know.

Just go to dinner.

Chill for the rest of the week.

Go to dinner.

It only takes two hours.

Chill for two hours, come back, and you're good.

Yeah, we made that mistake before we leave it up.

Been part of the parade.

It's interesting.

It's good for, you know, as a friendly shot.

But people need to know that, like, don't leave there unless you're ready to roll.

We've all seen the casualties.

So that SEMA crews has been an interesting study, because when we first started it,

you know, a lot of folks had that attitude, like, I don't want to be stuck in this thing.

And well, now the minute we talk about maybe not doing it because of some construction

or whatever we had over the last two years, that was a problem.

Like, no, no, that is a major part of our marketing plan at the SEMA show is participating

in the SEMA crews.

So it's had quite a turn around.

I get it.

Just speed it up a little bit.

I mean, I don't know if you guys are aware of this,

but most people's cars aren't 100% done before SEMA.

So then sitting for two hours.

I'm not familiar with that scenario.

There was one, I think, but that's in a two hour line.

Yeah, waiting to get out.

I can't imagine how many radiators and charging systems go in the process.

I think it's amazing.

There's a there is, like you said, there's a lot of enthusiasm.

There's a lot of people that came to come there to watch that, watch the crews.

I think it's amazing to come from a love cruising and anytime you can do that.

However, just a personal thing when you've done SEMA for so many years

and you've been you're there on the 11th or 12th day

and you've done the show and you're so there's a time of like

people seeing this car, like the trailers right there.

Let's go ahead and get this thing loaded up and get.

But I also get why you have to do it.

I get it.

It's just, you know, the social media footprint of that little slice of the SEMA show is incredible.

Yeah.

Yeah, we're just being we're just being whiny little whiny little cry babies

on the car show side of things.

So you mentioned we have a lot of builders.

You know, it's kind of our core audience court or listeners.

What we have seen and experienced firsthand is it is getting increasingly harder

and more difficult to get a car, a place on the floor from booth shrinkage.

A lot of company consolidations where you had you had five opportunities,

you know, with, you know, 10 by 30s, 20 by 30s to get a car in.

And now you've got one of those five companies, you know, that's not taking any cars

because they got to put displays.

So just the opportunities that once was there, you know, even five years ago,

but more, you know, 10 years ago, you had way more opportunities.

And we're talking Central Hall and stuff, car in a booth, car in a booth, car in a booth.

So it's becoming harder.

We deal with we dealt with a bunch of them last year.

We do our best on our ass and we do a big party on Thursday nights

and we take submissions for that award.

And the big thing is like we had probably 20 something pretty nice cars that I thought

I was going to have a booth so and so I can't have a booth.

I can't find a spot.

I can't get a car camps, but you can deal with those as a feature vehicle.

You can get outside.

It's just not the same as it once was.

I don't know what to.

It's a little combination of inventory and demand.

So our inventory has gone down a little bit, particularly because of some of the construction

that's taking place.

And that's just over the last year and this year, but the demand has been increased.

So it's just, you know, finding real estate for the spots is really what it comes down to.

Right.

And I think that I think a lot of the manufacturers need to probably,

if anybody's listening, put a little bit more emphasis on sizing wise for

maybe what the draw of a car in their booth can do.

Right.

Especially the right vehicle and the right builder.

And because that the secret that nobody really talks about is you put the right car

and the right builder, that builder is going to do so much marketing immediate

to people to come to your booth for you for free.

We actually have some data that shows, you know, how important a car,

a nice vehicle in the booth could help draw attention to the to the exhibit.

How does it compare to a booth girl?

A lot of booth girls out there.

Yeah, a car tire.

A cute car tire.

But the cars are higher.

That's, that's, that used to be kind of a running joke.

And that's actually, you don't see it nearly as much.

You know, the wheel entire hall used to be prolific with that.

Not near as much.

You don't see it as much anymore.

I think, you know, the people that are there really are interested in cars.

Yeah.

So another aspect to this is this evolution of our show and the relationships

that the builder has with someone.

And in the past, and again, you noticed it from a social media standpoint,

we didn't want to take a side.

In the past, we wanted the manufacturer to shine the light.

So we have no relationship with most of the builders.

Because somebody would say, hey, I want to get my car into the show.

It's like, well, you got to find somebody that, that you're getting parts from

because they're going to want that.

And now we're at this place, especially when we're starting to involve consumers,

where we have to have a relationship with the builder because the cars are,

to a certain extent, the star of what happens.

So we're getting better and better with that.

I'd say, like, if we were evolving and you were to see us kindler and gentler to a group

this year and last year, we made a concerted effort with builders.

Because the manufacturer relationship isn't doing the same thing that it was.

Right.

Like, you notice.

So now we're at this place where we're creating these areas.

We do this Seema Live 31-hour live broadcast.

And we make the booth inordinately too large for that so that we can have some cars there.

We've got some cars in Seema Central.

We've got little pockets you'll see this year of just builder cars.

A content creator area where they'll be able to have some prolific cars there.

So it's us trying to evolve and noting that the relationship channel or the communication channel

from the builder has changed.

So we'd still prefer they go to a manufacturer and be able to get that benefit.

Because I think the industry evolves from there.

But if they can't get there, we want to be able to have an avenue where they can still display

the cars. Because again, the relevance of the show is going to come down to

the best cars on the planet being there.

What does that process look like for a builder then to get in touch with?

So maybe Seema for one of those curated spots of...

I know you guys always have these little tucked away.

So they've...

I've seen those...

I've seen like, that's not a real company.

I think you've been the benefit of that before.

100% been the benefit.

Absolutely been the benefit.

So essentially, they're finding the way in.

They call a board member they know or a council member or one of the Seema staff.

But I'd say you could contact me.

You could probably contact Warren, but...

Flashback knows email.

Or quick on the screen.

Warren's going to send me your cell phone right now.

But no, we're interested in having the best builds on the planet.

So again, if there are builders that can't find a home,

we want to be able to help them find a home.

Because the worst case scenario is the cars in town.

That's the other thing.

A lot of times they'll trailer it in and it's in town.

They just...

Their last minute thing fell through and we don't want that car in valet at Fountain Blue.

We want that car on display somewhere where it benefits the industry.

Well, we've had some conversations even around this year and some ideas.

Do you think that once kind of the smoke has settled,

dust has settled for the construction and you've got your new landscape

and your set kind of footprint, is there something there for Seema

and this new relationship with builders space-wise, idea-wise?

There had to have been conversations about what...

At the end of the day, square footage costs, right?

You just got to be a monetization factor of, okay, what does that look like?

Right.

Yeah, we started this research a couple of years ago.

Josh, we...

A bunch of us went to Tokyo Auto Salon to see...

I don't know if you guys have been that short.

To see how they kind of managed this because they balance a B2B event

with a B2C event with a car show.

And they had a unique way of displaying their cars

where they're kind of had a little flooring, a little spotlight,

maybe even a little kiosk for somebody to stand by.

And we all kind of all looked that went...

That's probably a direction we should go.

We implemented a little bit last year with an area we called the JDM Showcase

where we had about six or eight vehicles there.

And we kind of incubated that a little there.

So there's probably a place down the line where we have

builder spotlight area, something like that.

We just have to figure out how to execute it and how to deal with space limitations.

Yeah.

And then really finding the talented builder.

The up-and-coming builder I think is the hardest where they don't have a name.

It may be their first car.

They've spent thousands of hours trying to put it together.

And it may be coming in where you can't even see a rendering.

You don't know what it's going to look like until the last second.

That's where that young guns thing has come in.

It took some years to mature, right?

Just like anything.

It's like a tree growing.

You know, I had to get...

You had to battle the builders.

The battle, yeah, the battle builders.

Now it's became...

You've had a couple of guys come through the ranks,

you know, and they're no longer young guns or they're still.

But the quality, the engagement, and the notoriety that it gives them,

it's completely different than it was several years ago.

That's given that guy the name that he obviously wouldn't have had.

But the quality speaks for itself.

It doesn't really matter.

If you're building the shit that they're building...

Yeah, but it gives you the launch pad to get in front of the insane social media coverage

that you have at SEMA, which then probably finds him his next customer or two,

which helps build his business and...

The young guns stuff this last year...

Just keeps going.

If there were some really good...

Good grief.

You could have parked it among some of the best cars, isn't it?

Yeah.

You wouldn't have known.

I mean, it's very...

Better than some.

We do get hit up a lot by builders that aren't building at that same level.

And I think that really is the opportunity, if you will,

is figuring out what you can do to showcase this progression.

With every vehicle, it just gets better and better and better.

Almost more like the...

I always enjoyed when I was a kid,

the reader's ride section in car craft, because it was obtainable.

You could reach it.

You felt like you could be there.

The reality is that the industry probably is much larger in that segment of that type of car

than it is the three-quarter million dollar or seven-figure budget custom cars.

I agree.

But not at SEMA.

I don't know.

But my own...

When you just...

I'm digesting this as you're saying it.

It's kind of like...

There is the minor leagues, right?

And there's lots of other car shows that you could absolutely get in front of

with whatever quality of build.

I maybe I'm just personally hold SEMA at a level of a world series type of level.

Where it's like, now you come to see the major leagues play.

This isn't everybody gets a trophy.

Like everybody gets a shot kind of thing.

That's just my own personal...

Sure.

That's what this show is.

You say...

Sometimes you say things.

And...

Yeah.

Yeah, we just...

Say your opinions, right?

I agree that that segment is way larger.

And there's a lot of enthusiasts that want to have their car there.

I mean, there's just...

I want a lot of things that I can't have.

I think what you're saying aligns with a lot of people.

Expectations that people have when they come to the SEMA show and the quality of

the builds they're going to see is definitely high.

Let's face it, not calling out anybody in particular.

There's already enough pro builders that get a build out there outside at SEMA

that already gets enough shit talked about them.

Because they didn't bring the quality they should have.

Let alone open it up to where you're already making set in the stage of like,

well, we know these aren't that good, but we put them all over here.

It would give you a place to shift them.

Well, yeah, when they show up and be like,

all right, well, you're actually going to park over there.

Oh, okay.

So what I'm going to need you to do is you see that.

You're going to go down that way.

So no front or rear driveshaft.

All right, you're going to have to push that one there.

So Tom will tell you the moving in the feature vehicles in Tom's words,

it's the hardest thing we do at the show.

All the other stuff is kind of like duty, but...

And it's Tom's life.

He kind of lives...

I kind of just observe it and pop over once in a while.

Take a look, but the team that they put together.

And it's just, you know, it's literally people from the accounting department

and people from the...

Like a bunch of people from the building, we put them together

and getting those vehicles in and parked.

And, you know, hopefully the people show up on time

because when they don't show up on time

and they don't get the spot that they anticipated,

that becomes a customer service issue.

What's the biggest message you would like to give anyone listening

that is a future feature vehicle person, builder, recipient

to understand or deal with or know before they show up?

Or the seven things, if you have...

So again, I go back to it's about the products.

You know, your car's fantastic.

At the end of the day, we're hoping that it's going to represent

what can happen in the aftermarket.

There are certainly vehicles that are just completely banged out of steel

and are works of art,

but they may not have any aftermarket product on them.

And for us, I think that's really what we're trying to achieve.

We're not concor.

We're trying to achieve this obtainable unobtainium.

You know, a $400,000 bill is unobtainium to a lot of people.

But they get the obtainable goal when they look at it and go,

okay, I can see an application on my car.

I can see an application on just a regular car that I can drive daily.

So that would be the thing is represent really the industry along with yourself.

And I think a good build will shine.

You know, you can walk amongst cars and just be like, oh, that looks cool.

Like stance, like everything about that car is cool.

It's got a roaster shop chassis out there.

You say that, yeah.

Yeah, look at the way that thing sits.

Well, from a logistics standpoint, though, of like they're in

and they're going to show up and deal with you or your staff sitting in that parking lot.

What's the checklist of like, you're going to summer camp.

This is some things you need to know.

Have your confirmation and show up on time.

Show up on time. Be a little patient.

And I'm not going to brag, but I think I can park a car standing in front of it

better than people can inside it.

So a lot of times I'll tell somebody, I'm like, okay, you're going to have to trust me.

Forget everything you've known about driving.

When I go this way, you turn the steering wheel that way.

When I go that way, you turn it the other way.

And I literally can get a car on a line just by doing that.

And a lot of times people are like, I need it in an angle where it's like,

we're going to park it and it's going to look great.

And there's really not a bad spot.

There's a lot of times people will get out of the car and they'll be like,

nope, not doing this.

It's like, well, hold on a second.

This is where everyone's going to walk.

And they just don't see that.

So it's this trust the force would be another recommendation.

Another important one, too, is that...

Have gas in it.

Well, heavy front brake bias and a high idle.

And polished concrete floors or carpet, not a great combination.

I mean, the amount of guys I see that I've been in the industry long enough to know,

if your hand on the shifter, if your hand near the key, these are fresh vehicles sometimes.

You can hear it.

Yeah, you know what's about that.

And they put that thing in gear and the tires are whoop.

And then it's just idle in it like 1,800, 2,000 RPMs.

This is going to be bad.

They go to turn, they hit the brakes and it's just...

Yeah.

Or somebody that's in the middle of a booth.

On carpet.

And they kind of crank it.

The wheel all the way.

And the carpet just...

Yeah, that never fix forever.

It never fixes again.

Well, you're talking about placing the cars and kind of knowing the flow because you

know the flow, literally.

Is that...

I wanted to ask this earlier.

When you have booth selection, you have seniority, right?

And you've got picks.

So they're saying, I want this booth.

You know beforehand, you know, this one's...

You know, okay, we got this many 20x50s and we got this many there.

And they probably are going to one in this area.

And you can kind of see that pre-layout before anything's filled out.

There's some things that move around and change.

And you're like, well, you could have this spot.

We're going to go up a few...

Everybody kind of that's exhibited there knows that draw.

But from a show promoter, a show flow, like circus wrangling of like doing that,

you don't really have a lot of choice of being like,

I really would like to have this booth at this door because that's going to draw.

You don't have a lot of freedom.

Is the car layout and feature vehicle your freedom where you can be like...

Draw flow and you know, there needs to be a little bit of pop here and then some of this there.

A little bit.

If you look at the show as a magazine, and this goes just back to old school,

Peters and Days and you know, attributed to starting the SEMA show.

If you look at it as a magazine, you're going to want the coolest car on the cover.

So you know these areas, they're going to be highly photographed.

Last year, we knew that new entrance unit that we built and Chip did all the artwork for.

We knew that was going to be a huge photography opportunity.

So you put certain cars around there.

So that's the cover.

And then you've got some inside cover and you've got some spread.

Through the show, we've got these vehicle locations that are like that.

But at the end of the day, a magazine's got tons of vehicles in it.

And that really is the rest of the show.

So it's not us really grading anything as much as it is what we're presenting.

The product that we present as the industry's trade show is going to have these marks of authenticity and coolness.

Yeah, I mean, you're not, even if you're creating a museum, you know, a fine art or,

you know, the Peterson or whatever, you're not grading cars.

And but you also are creating a flow, you know, a natural progression of this one's

going to be a pop here.

And then this kind of makes sense to have these there and stuff.

Is there any of that?

Is there any opportunities?

And can you do any of that on exhibit or space stuff where you're like,

this space I know is going to be something I know you want to be here.

Is that ever a thing?

Or can it be?

You have a lot of those conversations.

Unfortunately, what happens sometimes is when you want to make a recommendation to somebody,

they tend to think it's for the worse.

Like, oh, this isn't going to make your life easier.

We do a lot of that, though.

But the, you know, the floor plan starts as this grid and you talked about kind of what

happens before the space selection.

Tom and his team actually spend about three weeks going through that every application

that comes in.

I'll we'll call it at that time 2000 of them and pretending like they're the exhibitor and going,

okay, it's roaster shops picked time to pick.

We think we think we're going to pick this one.

We'll draw that space right there.

And you guys are right most of the time.

And they go through and they go through that process.

And I don't know what do you guys get it?

We just got to write the check.

What do we figure you're about 80% right?

Something like that by the time it comes down to it.

And every once in a while we get we get in that that war room.

And yeah, I say, you know, you're on the clock and somebody up turns the apple cart and goes,

you know what, I've always been over here.

I think I'm going to go over here now.

And it becomes problematic because then the person that had that spot goes,

they told my spot and that person moves.

They stole and kind of dominoes down.

But he's seen the shuttle launch on the Game Boy.

It's no big deal.

He'll fit that L shape right where the rectangle goes.

But it's just, you know, it's a it's a it's a grid of, you know,

a bunch of 10 by 10s that Tom and his team turn into the different sizes.

We do some manipulating during space selection.

If somebody needs to go up or down a little bit and then take into account,

you know, the what he needs for for aisles and fire marshal and all that stuff.

And then it eventually comes together.

We're lucky though that we do get to start with a blank canvas because a lot of shows

are kind of where you were last year or you pay for the high place.

And our industry is not that where if we had people that like, okay,

I'm just going to I'm just going to buy this spot at the, you know, the best location.

There's other companies who have been in our industry for 50 years

that maybe can't afford that and they get edged out.

So we've been really fair and simple with our seniority points is one per year.

But I like the fact that we change our floor plan.

We literally start with it blank and we change it every year.

So I like to call it familiar but evolving.

So, you know, Roadster Shop is going to be somewhere.

It's just a matter of where they're going to be.

It's not the same place, the same size, the same thing every time.

Right.

And we do that, you know, 2,000, 2,500 brands.

Yeah, to heart when Warren and Selina, in fact, don't you want to get a little bigger?

I bet I think you guys need to do a little bigger.

I just a touch bigger.

That's not how I heard the story.

I mean, well, it's not.

We're bringing more cars, we need to get bigger.

Yeah, you're right.

And we're doing our party outside, right?

Yeah, yeah.

We say lots of things.

We got close.

I know you guys are going to be in good shape this year.

Yeah, we're good.

Yeah, we're looking for her.

What are you talking about?

You mentioned the Ford booth.

The, you know, we've had the conversation before, I think with Spagnall as well on the OE's

landscape changing and, you know, stuff Ford's Ford racing, I think more sports racing,

whatever the new name racing Ford racing, Ford racing now.

Yeah.

Brilliant.

Got to change your name, you know, whatever.

Anyway, they're they've got their space.

So does that

you had to deal with what you've had to deal with, right?

It's changes.

Now that you've had a few years with that and the change of landscape,

obviously you'd love to have probably Ford and Chevrolet back in their other spots.

But what's the positives?

What's the negatives?

Is there any change?

Is it just because you've, we look at it as, you know, we talk about almost like a prison

environment as soon as you change things up, the inmates are going to, you know,

holler for no reason.

What's your take on it now?

Yeah, I think it's going to stay that way.

Well, I think the auto show landscape in itself has gone through a major change.

I mean, you know, none of those shows are what they what they once were.

And we're having a lot more conversations now where automakers are looking at the Seema show

going, Hey, this is an opportunity to reach this enthusiast audience to them.

All 150,000 people at the show are a potential customer.

The media footprint that we get is is as big or bigger than almost any other event.

So we're seeing some, some unique opportunities.

For instance, last year, we had two concept vehicles and OE booths.

And that's not something the Seema show has ever really known for.

That was, you know, really reserved for the auto show landscape.

Right. So we've got some concept cars.

And then we're starting to see some new vehicle releases from some of these automakers.

And, you know, I'm already in conversation with two automakers that currently aren't

actually three that currently aren't participating at the Seema show

about next year's plans to do some vehicle releases at the Seema show.

So, you know, to answer your question, I think we're going to continue to evolve the automakers

when I have these conversations.

And I kind of work personally with the automakers.

The Seema show for them, I like to say is neither, you know,

what do they say, fish or fall?

It's not an auto show, but it's also not the Texas State Fair where they're just looking to put

butts and seats, you know, take people around in trucks.

It's somewhere in the middle.

And they're starting to recognize that the value of both the enthusiast audience,

the media, and the opportunities with things like Seema Live,

where we reach a global audience to spread their message.

So these conversations are happening.

I think you'll see some growth in the automaker space in the coming years.

It's funny, we've talked about it on the car show side of things.

You know, the takeaway is that car builders and car people,

they're going to find something to bitch about regardless, right?

And it's really funny when you hear, you hear all the backlash on, you know, I mean,

Ford's not going to be there.

I don't, I don't even know if I want to exhibit there.

It's also some of the same people that were buying for boost space or like,

well, I can't get that space.

You get those OEs out of there.

There'd be more space for these builders, you know, and it's the same guy.

It's like, well, I don't know if I'm going to go back next year, Ford ain't there.

It's like, well, it doesn't affect your, maybe your booth at all.

But we all going to be, we're going to bitch you complain.

Human nature.

Yeah, just what it is.

It is what it is.

But at the end of the day, it's just this incredible industry gathering.

And I think when you, when you get, you know, from the minutiae into this

overall just umbrella of what happens, it's, it's just incredible to watch.

It's amazing.

You know, and, and I think we, we can easily get back in there and just, you know,

talk about OEs or talk about, you know, different aspects of the industry that are changing.

But again, my knee jerk is always just to go back to are there conversations happening

and what are those conversations and are they propelling the industry forward?

And it can be anything from what Karen and her team are doing in DC to what we're doing

in our emissions and ADOS and all of that stuff.

It all just kind of rounds itself out right that week.

So we look at it as, as like you said, a living breathing thing and it's going to change.

But we continue to evolve it and keep pushing it forward.

It's phenomenal inspiration for the entire industry.

I mean, everybody comes back from seeing the first hungover and a little bit worn out,

but then it's always instantly inspired based on what you saw there and what you're going to do.

And it's just more fuel for the, the fire to come back next year.

You mentioned we've been doing this shit by 24 years, all of us around about the same time.

And that's the only event.

There's a lot of, you know, decent events out there and good events stuff that we look forward

to and stuff that we're still doing.

That's the only, SEMA is the only one where you come home from it completely sick of Vegas,

completely tired and wore out and you get back and you run into either friends,

family or coworkers and must be nice.

Been out in Vegas all week, been to SEMA show and you just want to punch them in the face

because you're like, you don't know what you're talking about.

But as soon as you land that next year, right, there's this excitement, right?

And then as soon as you walk in for setup and all that, start seeing the stuff,

there's that excitement, that adrenaline that starts pumping.

There's, there's very other few events, even the ones we still do that you get that like

shock that lasts four and a half, you know, three and a half days.

Because about right about halfway Friday, you're like, all right, we've done it.

The adrenaline has wore off.

I've drank all the energy drinks.

I've drank all the bourbon.

But it's still, it's, I don't, is it still that way for you guys as long as you've been doing it?

100% you know, Josh.

So first of all, Tom and I are out there 17, 18 days.

Yes, yes, must be nice out there.

It's awesome, it's absolutely awesome.

There's not enough bourbon.

But I think it's the same thing every time, you know, we have a little different perspective.

So we're, you know, we get to see the complete blank canvas and then that city getting built.

And for me, it's always funny because I'll, I'll walk somewhere and I'll walk the same

path a couple hours later.

I'll be like, how'd that get there?

And some whole, you know, structure had been built in three hours.

It's always amazing.

It's made rolls an extra display and they weren't supposed to have.

Always amazing to just to see this, this city get, get built on the, on the campus there.

But it still amazes me every year.

You know, you go in that hall about four o'clock on Monday,

the day before the show opens, you look around, you go,

ain't no way this thing's open in the morning.

And then we always say, we have a saying and we say,

the SEMA show opens Tuesday morning at nine o'clock because that's when the SEMA show opens.

Not necessarily that we're ready.

It's just that's when it opens.

That's when it opens.

But it, yeah, four or five o'clock on Monday, you're looking around going away.

There's no carpets in the aisles.

There's things being, I mean, they're like, and then Tom likes to say that.

What is it? The, the trade show fairy dust comes and magically sprinkle the fairy dust overnight

and carpet gets down.

You're in the same boat as all the builders trying to get their cars there.

SEMA show opens Tuesday morning in regards to you ready or not.

If it didn't have to open Tuesday morning,

maybe they probably would open until the following week.

But the fact that it just, it has to open, it's open enough.

So, so there's, there's comfort in that for me.

And I've talked to a lot of builders where they don't understand, you know,

Monday afternoon, they're like, there's no way this thing comes together.

How are you so calm?

And it's because out of the quarter of my eye, I see that the aisle carpet rolls.

They were supposed to get there at noon and they're there.

You know, I see the crates getting empty stickers.

So I always tell somebody like, if I worked on a car and took it apart,

I would have a complete anxiety attack.

Like this is my, this is our build at SEMA.

This is what our events team does.

So we see all this.

We're at the center of this vortex and it's calm in the center.

And you, you're working this plan that you've worked on for three years

because we're doing these shows two or three years out.

And it's all just kind of coming together.

So there's this, this cool factor that happened.

So it affects, it affects me different.

Where my, my adrenaline starts to pump when we go in for our pre-show meetings

and we meet with the hotels and some of the vendors in town and,

and we start to hear, you know, from taxi drivers like, Hey, what are you doing here

for business or pleasure?

And it's like, oh, we produced this automotive event at the convention there.

SEMA, there's going to be 160,000 people there this year.

Like the taxi people know.

Oh, they're definitely know.

I mean, the whole, it shakes up the whole city.

Yeah.

Restaurant tiers.

And they're all so thankful.

So you go to this, this pre-show meeting and you're trying to tell

all the local hotels and restaurants, Hey, we're going to be a little noisy for four days

and we're going to do our SEMA cruise at this time.

And we're going to have a concert in, in the bronze lot with SEMA fest that goes till 10.

And they're thankful that we're there.

It was like, bring that money.

Come on, let's do it.

Yeah.

So there's a few bucks coming to stimulate the local economy there.

Yeah.

And, and I think it's our, it's, it's our industry.

Like our industry is not seen, you know, it's seen more than money.

It, it's seen as this, this group of people that has embraced this city and, and really

wants the whole thing to work.

And it's not disruptive like some other events, you know, where people will come in and, and

they just tear through the city.

So that would be a all star weekend.

No, I think it goes to different city.

Yeah.

I think our economic impact report is only rivaled by the cowboys, you know,

when they come in for the rodeo, I think.

Really?

They probably drink more than us.

How's the construction show do?

Construction.

Really well.

Yeah.

No, it's a really big, really big show.

And I don't know where they, from an economic impact standpoint, where they,

where they rank, but I just know, we know, we, we usually rank pretty high with the city.

Yeah.

A lot of drinkers and partiers dumb on the money side.

That's when like Friday, Friday, mid afternoon, evening, when it's really popping off and

then Monday as well, that's my, I've always walked through there and I'm just calculating

all the Freeman Dreyage.

I'm like, oh, wow, change, change, change.

Big boost getting set up.

Yeah.

Lots of crates.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, no, but our milestones are, you know, getting through that feature vehicle, move in

weekend, um, and then, you know, Tom and I always like to check out the, uh, the marching

band that comes down the front of the, I don't know, you guys have probably never seen it

because you're in your boot, but there's a marching band that comes down and that's

kind of like the kickoff kickoff.

And then I got to get through about two o'clock on Tuesday.

And if I get through then most of the problems have been solved by then and I can walk around

and yeah, yeah, I don't know if I ever enjoy the show.

It's funny because people will ask me, did you see that or did you see that?

And it's always probably not.

If you ever see me walking around the show, I'm on a mission to go, to go somewhere.

And I always claim that I'm going to set aside some time to browse and just

look and it never, ever comes.

Every once in a while we'll have some celebrity or somebody that needs to get

taken around the show after hours.

And that's been my time to be like, okay.

That was, you know, I'm showing this person some of the, some of the bills and that was

been my time, but during show hours, forget about it.

You ever get like Bert Reynolds or anybody like that?

You can show around after hour back in the day.

I mean, who's the, what kind of cool celebs if you tour around the show after hours?

So one of my, one of my, one of my favorite stories was, it was a Thursday of the show.

And I get, I get to go back to my room because we're going to get ready for the

SEMA bank with that night and I'm convinced I'm going to get an hour to kick my feet up

before I put on my suit and go down to the, to the show.

And I get a call right when I get to my room from my, my former boss and he goes,

the band kisses here.

You got to go take him around the show.

That's cool.

And it was cool.

I could have had less interest in doing it this time because all I wanted to do

was kick my feet up before this.

So honest, so honest.

Yeah. No, it's, we get a variety of folks that reach out to us and wanted to come to the show.

I was a, last year or two years ago, Tim Tebow was one of our guest speakers and

he was really interested in checking out the cars.

So that was a good one.

Yeah.

Is that, is a lot of those celebrity things you have no notice?

It's kind of, it's curve balls.

We're like, how well we got to do it?

Are the ones that don't show up?

That's what I was going to say, they're not making it.

Probably.

Yeah. We'll get, you know, we need, so-and-so needs in.

They need special security.

Private entrance.

We need a badge that has, you know, other alias on it and all this stuff.

And trade full of green eminence.

Yeah. They're the ones that, they're the ones that don't show up.

And then to your point, we'll get a call an hour before somebody needs to get in the show

and Tom and his security team figured out.

No, it, our industry has celebrities.

That's the weird thing.

Like I was, hey, think we are.

Celebrities.

We were, the show again, it is self-declared.

This living, breathing organism, right?

And, and it needs to act and sound and feel a certain way.

So we were breaking down the show on Thursday night and we were moving stuff so we could

set up some bleachers for the SEMA crews the next day.

And there was this line of people, had it been 30 people in line.

It's dark and there's a guy sitting in a chair and 30 people standing in line and all the,

the display rigs had moved out so we could put bleachers in.

And I walk over and it's Chip Foos and he's, he's doing drawings.

And I'm like, Hey dude, we got to start moving bleachers in.

He's like, I got about 30 more people and then we'll be out of here.

And he was not going to leave, you know, and it's, it's those types of stories that I think

are really cool where you've just got these, these industry icons where people just want to

learn from them. And it happens in the booths, it happens in the aisles, it happens all over the

show. And it's fun to watch. What's the story to be told this year?

What's SEMA, what's stories SEMA telling for 2025?

So it's really about new product innovation.

And I think, I think as we go and we look at what's happening right now in the marketplace,

there's this cloud of, this nebulous cloud of uncertainty, probably an overused word right now.

And we saw this in 2020, we saw this in 2008 when there was an economic downturn.

We saw this coming out of 9-11, but the innovation never stops.

So you have this nebulous uncertainty that's happening, but people are still developing

products. There's still going to be this, these new products in our showcase and,

and right now we're pacing ahead there. We're pacing ahead on vehicle builds than we normally

would be. We're pacing ahead with Battle the Builders. Our SEMA live product is, is getting

more interest from, from people year over year to what we work. SEMA Fest is, is off the charts,

more evolved than, than it ever has been. And what we're going to do in that lot with Optima

and some other automotive activation. So it's this, this innovation that just never stops,

that we get to showcase. So I'd say that that's really the message this year is,

you're going to be able to come find new stuff that's going to propel the industry forward for

the next five years. Do you think all of this uncertainty that everybody that's overused,

that everybody keeps talking about, besides maybe a little bit of continued tariff hits

and uncertainty about a potential, you know, interest rate change,

is it mostly the uncertainties because everybody keeps talking about uncertainty?

Like what's the actual uncertainty? Uncertainty breeds uncertainty, right?

Well, that's, that's my point. It's, oh man, you never know what's going to happen. Everybody just

keeps talking about, yeah, it's just, we've been the same thing. You go to car shows and it becomes

one of those things. Man, how's it going? I mean, just busy. You know how it is. Oh yeah, busy too.

But neither one of you like said anything. It's just the thing to say. And then it's like,

yeah, you don't never know what's going to happen. I just don't know what's going to happen. Well,

you mean about what? Like, right, what is the uncertainty? Can you tell me?

You know, I don't know. It's, it's obviously been a weird time, right? The market's

up and down and up and down and sales are up and down and up and down. And it's,

but to your point, like there hasn't been any, there's nothing major affecting it short of the

conversation of uncertainty. I mean, there's contributing factors here and there, but I think

that's probably the largest one is just the amount of people talking. Well, it's media breeds it,

you know, people breed it, the conversation about uncertainty keeps breeding it, but knock on what

we have. No world wars. We have no pandemic. We have no major upsetting, except the fact of saying

everybody's uncertain. So it's going to be time, right? Time is going to give this uncertainty

certainty. And the same thing happened in 2020. It's like, go home, you know,

those t-shirts is as mass, like all of these things. It was like, really? Why are we doing this?

It's like, I don't know. We don't know, but just do it, you know, and, and I see a lot of equivalent

to that where you get through it and you go, okay, that wasn't crazy. Like everything kind of,

in our industry actually thrived during those times because people were, of course, were able

to get an influx of cash a little bit and they had time to work on their hobby. Whether you said

screw credit and debt, I don't care, made the world's going to end. From a timing perspective,

it, you know, was a little hiccup for us because we're asking people to buy their booths in February

and March when all this stuff was swirling about the 100 percent tariffs, 150, and nobody knew

what it was going to be. So it's kind of this inhale of, hmm, I need to commit to what, and what

I'm doing in November and February when there's all this talk of, I don't know what, what the,

you know, financial landscape is going to, going to look like. But it started, it settled down. I

guess maybe getting a, instead of getting a 20 by 40 booth, they got a 20 by 30 booth. And that

made them feel like they were had more control over, you know, over the situation. But the,

as far as number of brands that we'll have at the show, it'll be equivalent or more than we've

ever had. I just find it interesting that, you know, you talk about media, social media, and

it just becomes the topic and the narrative. It's just, it's just to, just to upset the

apple cart for no reason. And you can't ever pinpoint, you know, people talk about the market

and they talk about the potential of interest rates, but the market has to do with, because

everybody's talking about the instability in the market and it just continues to go. There's no real

driving factor of uncertainty, except everybody's uncertain about what's going on.

The immediate is just, you know, the immediacy of the message these days, right? So you talk

about the media landscape and you know, you and I have talked, you know, my background was in the,

as in the print media and hot rod and motor trend and all the car craft, all the magazines you talk

about super street and all those, the message wasn't immediate, right? Took a month to get out.

Yeah. So you didn't have this, this world starting to start your action. Yeah. They say never waste

a good crisis, right? So this is, this is one of those things people are talking about. So it's

like, Hey, why aren't you going? It's like, I'm uncertain. For me, I'm in California. So I'll

say $5 gas. I don't know what it is in some other regions, but it's close to that. Okay. So, so

I get, I feel lucky if I'm paying under five. But in California, we get the privilege of paying

more than a dollar in tax per gallon for gas. But that said, it was like, Hey, when, when gas goes

above five gallons, like bad things happen. And gas would go above five gallons. And I was like,

Okay, I'm still doing my thing. I'm still buying groceries. I'm still doing my thing.

And I think this is similar to that where there's this, this nebulous of uncertainty, but people

are still doing their thing. And their businesses is going, they just can't forecast it the way they,

they want to maybe or with the certainty that they could. So, so again, I think we'll get through

this process and we'll come out the other end and we'll just go, Okay, if that ever happens,

again, we'll know what to do. I think our industry tends to thrive in those years,

because it's like when sales are down a little bit, we're a creative, innovative industry. So,

you now have time to come up with new products. And then it always seems like the year after

that, it's like, wow, there's all this cool, amazing new stuff that it that sparks a whole

another surge in the industry. And yeah, I would expect that. I would expect that exact thing

to happen. And we're starting to see it now. I think the next couple years are going to reflect

that for sure. I think everybody was running wide open for the last four years and taking

a little bit of a break now maybe and spooling back up with, Hey, we need to get back to those

numbers. And we need new product. We haven't come out with stuff in a while. And there's

a ton of ideas out there. And right, if you have a little bit of breathing room,

that's where this industry thrives. I feel like you're exactly. We saw the 2008 2009 deal, you

it weeded a lot of people out, but the people who could survive just buckled down and it bred

like just awesome new products. Like it was like a tidal wave of new products and innovation that

followed it because it was stale before everybody was hanging out. They were just keeping up with

sales. Everybody's busy. They're selling the rocket and rolling. It's the same old, same old.

And then you invest in new stuff because what you have is selling and you can't keep up with it. So

yeah, I think you're going to see it at the show. You're going to see

the companies that are there exhibiting are going to be doubling down on what they've got.

And the people who are going to show up are wanting to have these conversations. So it's

going to be, I just see markers. I think it's going to be one of our most productive events

we've ever had just because the folks that are going to be there are all wanting to be there.

There's no like, oh, I had to go or we always go. So I just went, it's going to be this perfect

storm of I want to have this conversation in this environment because the next two years,

I know if I'm here now, the next two years are going to be better for me. Or if I sit it out,

the next two years are going to be more uncertain. That's the type of attitude that you should have

and I would be more fine with to your point of like, I wish and I'll get off of this topic.

I should say I know I've been harping on it, but the uncertainty thing, like don't just say

I've got a little more time to think, right? And I'm thinking about what to do next because

uncertainty, you're saying in a way that there was a time that you were certain,

because there wasn't a time that you were certain in the last 15 fucking years, because

through COVID, you weren't certain about anything through the peak of sales in 21 and 22. I said,

COVID again, LA's got to take that out. It's four times. But you haven't been certain. When in life

are you certain? When in business are you certain? You've been so damn busy, you can't think, right?

And now maybe you have a little more time to think. So you're trying to prepare. But don't

say you're uncertain, because that is basically saying that there was a time that you were certain

and you're not. You can't be physically impossible to be certain that what trajectory that you are

on in business is going to continue. Yeah, I think the industry is probably built on a bunch of

uncertain people. I think this product is going to be cool and it going to work. Exactly. You

know, and I'm going to take it to market. And I think that's a great point. That's exactly why

the Seema show is where it is and does what it does. Because we have this board of directors

that's a bunch of type A personalities who have built a business or they're supporting the

racing industry or the performance industry. And a lot of them are racers themselves. You're

like, Hey, we want to take a chance and we want to do this parade of vehicles. What do you think?

Yeah, make it the best. We want to do this Seema live thing. We want to, you know,

explore the Seema Fest and look at this consumer element. These guys, I wouldn't describe them

as risk takers, but they're, they're, they're right there. Yeah, where it's, it's, let's,

let's push the envelope, I think is a better way to describe it because you've got to get on that

edge in order to be the best. And, and we've been really lucky as Seema staff to be able to

have this group of people where we say, here's a concept. What do you think? And they go further

develop and we go back and further develop. And they're like, Yeah, let's, let's, let's push that

edge. There's, there's only one thing in life that you can be certain about and that's don't do

nothing and nothing will happen. If you don't do anything, you can be certain that nothing's

going to happen. Other than that, you can't be certain. So quit saying it's uncertain times.

I'm done with it. That's his best piece of advice. It just came out tonight.

Tell me when the certainty happened. You think fall of 2019, people were

certain that 2020 was going to be a banger year. Was there a single person that was certain

of what their future was going to be? Let's document the certain times.

We're in 2025 right now. I'm certain 2016 was a good year. I'm certain it was. Yeah. Hindsight is

always certain. 100%. I'm just going to answer every one of your questions. I'm uncertain.

I can't stand, I just can't, as we've talked through it, I've gotten more and more agitated

with the word of I'm uncertain. Maybe floated in your business. When somebody asks, like,

once my car going to be done, you'd be like, yeah, we're kind of uncertain. We're uncertain.

It's uncertain times. It's in a world of uncertainty. How certain can I be?

It'll certainly get done. It'll certainly get done. Well, we talked about the new direction

scene. What is new that you need to let people know about? I mean, we're talking,

there's hundreds of thousands of listeners right now. I mean, it's most of Australia,

all of Southern Canada. I'm surprised, dude, at the show I ran into quite a few Australian listeners.

I know. Yeah, at the triple crown. Let me know. Let me know there from Australia,

and they didn't appreciate, like, my comments. I said it will never happen again. I love the

folks from Australia. New Zealand, they're a little different, scrappy. There's, there's people

that out there that need to hear whatever message is like, Hey, just letting you know,

security check in is going to be this, some things to be prepared for. Security was great

last year, by the way. And when I was anticipating a colossal disaster, I even had a like a fake

gold badge that I was going to go in the back just because I didn't want to wait in line.

Probably shouldn't say that there. But it was, it was the inside voice that went out again.

It was really, really good. Is there, I know there's going to be a changing landscape again

this year with entrance and doors and stuff. No, hopefully you don't notice. Don't notice.

Hopefully you show up and it seems familiar, but, but changing, but different, familiar,

but evolving is our goal. And again, I, you know, it's, there's going to be new stuff in the front

where, you know, in the past, we, like last year we had Shell and, you know,

Hoonigan this year is going to be in silver three and often was going to be doing some

new stuff in the bronze lot. So horsepower, rodeo will be over in diamond, you know,

Radford racing school is going to be over there too. So it's, it's one of these things where

certainty, we know there's going to be outdoor stuff, but it's going to be evolving. It's going

to be new. And I think that really is the, the crux of all this is that the industry

continues to evolve and we're showcasing what's hot. So, so when you look at Simifest, we've got

three new bands, you know, it's going to be neon trees, the black crows and the Queens of the Stone

Age. So, and we're getting great support for that. But at the same time, we're going to incorporate

better lighting so that we can showcase the things that Optum is doing in that same space.

And our hope, and we achieved it in 2023 is people are going to be able to go from,

from music to automotive in between is going to be a car collection that they're not going to

see every day. So it's going to be this, this convergence of automotive and music.

What's this, what's this timeline and chain of events? You're going to explain Simifest a little

bit more for me and most of the listeners. To Friday, the show is open to the public.

You have the parade. Yep. And then when Simifest with this. So it all sort of overlaps. Okay.

The show itself is B2C and B2C on Friday. Yep. B2B and B2C on Friday. And that goes till four.

Simifest is going to start at three. But there are people who are going to be able to go to the

show and then go into Simifest, right? They bought a ticket that will get them into both.

And then the Simifest starts at four. So it's, it's this opportunity for people who want to go

to Simifest but see the Simifest. They can get there at three and they can go see the

cruise and then they can come into Simifest. So we overlap it on purpose. We've done that for

years with what we do at the end. But it's, it's this really cool opportunity to be able to see

everything we do. And, and there really is no, there is no secrecy to it because you can,

you can go into the show, you can see the cruise and you can, you can attend the automotive music

event after. Have you ever given any thought to naming one of these events something without the

word see minute? That's a great question. We, we went through a lot today. That's a great question.

Going through the naming of Simifest was

a lot. It reminded me of, you know, when an automaker just, you know, has a new vehicle,

like, what are we going to name this? I get it a hundred percent until you run through them back

to back to back to back. I know, but it's like Spaceballs the lunchbox, Spaceballs the vacuum

plane. But if we were going to do like Carapalooza, right? And say this is a, this is a mix of automotive

and, and music. Right. Carapalooza at SEMA. Well, you'd have to throw a SEMA in there,

right? Because it just has this brand recognition. So I will tell you this with certainty. Every

single time we name something, we consider a non SEMA name. But at the end of the day, it's like

our SEMA live, you know, our live broadcast. What, what is that? You know, in two words,

we tell you what it is. What is the SEMA cruise? It's this cruise of cars that come out of the

SEMA show. You know, if we just called it like the ultimate cruise presented by whoever, it wouldn't

have that same like bucket list. I got to see that. Where is it? Where is it tied to the show?

It just saves us a lot of time. But it's interesting because when we talk about all of the things we

do, you know, from SEMA plus to SEMA pack to SEMA cruise to SEMA garage to, you know,

heck SEMA at that point gets almost forgotten. Sometimes there's a word that could come before

SEMA. It could be battle of builders at SEMA. I just can't imagine. It's fine until you start.

When you start listening, you're like, holy shit, the amount that you've got to keep track of.

Yeah, it's got to be a nightmare like the file arrangement looking for something because it's

all SEMA. Oh, and then it's acronyms after that. SEMA, BOTB, and then it's trying to find the files.

Work here or something. Remember those accolades we were throwing at RJ before? We got to take

some of those back. Come on, RJ, come up with something new. Who thinks the music for the SEMA

Fest? So it's a great question. I got a plug coming up here. Because a lot of people think

a lot of people think that old irrelevant people like me do.

Where we are now, and I hope this doesn't trigger you, but there's an AI generator that knows who

our focus group is that we want to target, who our demographic is to attend both the SEMA show

and SEMA Fest. And we're able to take bands and we're able to run it through and see what the

popularity and overlap is. So when you look at the Black Crows as an example, they have a tremendous

overlap with the demographic that goes to our show. But Black Crows fans are also fans of Queens

as a Stone Age. And neon trees fans are fans of Black Crows. So we didn't get to this by accident

and just be like, oh, here's three cool bands we think would be good together. And it's my opinion

or someone else's opinion. There's certainly a lot of opinions. We have somebody who buys the

the talent and negotiates that. And that's his job. And they work on events all over the country.

But you create the target. Well, yeah. And we're really fortunate where the vendors we work with

are doing the big events. Lollapalooza, on down to things that happen up in Napa Valley.

So so I'd say our audience is picking the bands. And we noticed that last year,

where the guy who was doing our digital marketing is like your lineup right now is is really good

with your demographic. And and and this year, I said, OK, how do we make that guy happy from the

start? And we got him involved. And we're like, how do we how do we pick a lineup that that our

demographic is going to like? Right? It's like funny, you should ask. And he showed us how we

could do it. So that's crazy. We're going to see how it goes. But but that could be a silver lining

for AI. You know that AI did not put out Florida, Georgia line. It never suggested Florida, Georgia

line ever. I'd love to see now if you if you drop that target audience to just the SEMA trucks out

in the front that didn't have a drive shaft, Florida, Georgia line all day long. That would have been

the tarp that would have been the absolute percent, right? I don't like Florida. I don't know if

that's what worked through your AI deal. But goodbyes, the guys from the band Chevelle figured Chevelle

at SEMA seems like the perfect fit. Yeah, it's kind of tight pants were in hipster. So I don't know

if they could like the rest of the market covers some Beach Boys to get the whole demographic

all the car stuff. I mean, the band name does make sense. I mean, Chevelle at SEMA.

They don't sing at SEMA Fest. No, they really should, you know, because they're car guys.

Talk to him about that. Maybe you and Sam just spurting his ear. So what do you get in return for

that plug? Nothing. Maybe front row seats. I don't know. Wow. That's quite a there's some certainty

and maybe. Yes, certainty and maybe. You know what? I'm certain he's getting something out

of that plug. That's what I'm certain about. I'm checking out the crows. I'm looking forward to

that's good. I saw them about a year or so ago at a festival, but they were drowned out like the

audio is really bad. Okay. So you couldn't really get I love the crows. So I know they perform great

live. It just was a phenomenal show. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. Yeah. And one of the one

again benefits we've got is we've got a small area that we're doing it in. So if you're on

audio file, this is a great place to listen to a concert because it's a confined area and we can

literally target the sound to the audience. The audio is a little hard to handle, maybe.

This is kicking my heart. I'm certain I don't like that.

It's I like how you tried to hip it up and try to the crows. Yeah, I'm a big fan of the crows.

It's the black crows or the crows. Is that the cool way to say it? It's just the way you think

it's the way you said it. Are the band. What's that? Both. Yeah. Where we are now is is wherever

you are in the in the channel, right? We've got manufacturing, distribution and end user all

attending an event in the same week. That doesn't happen a by accident or be very often. Right.

So no matter where you are in that channel, if you make a part, you distribute that part or

you use that part, we've got an opportunity for you to be able to come and share in this automotive,

this industry, this passion, this this homecoming that we do every year. So I think that really is

is truly the message is we've changed it so that we're able to have this entire industry

be represented and no matter where you sit in it, you've you've you've got an opportunity to come.

What's the artwork theme this year? Is chip doing the art again? No. Okay. So the artwork

that's good because chip won't do this podcast. So we're not like we're not going to give chip

anything. The artwork is really cool because we started with Max Grundy. Oh yeah. Yeah,

and people were stealing the registration call. They call it a kick panel. But like when you walk

up to a different than your kick pad, we stole those full trans full transparency. I may or

may not have one. I saw your stuff down. The first thing you notice is he's like, oh, he signs

like familiar. But we should have hid those. We went from from Max to Ed Tilrock. And then we'd

Alex Carmona. And then we did chip. We haven't announced it yet. But very soon, we're going to

announce and I, you know, it'll just be between the five of us. Is that cool? Yeah. But it's going

to be Larry Chen. And everybody's listening. Yeah, just turn the arm. Don't listen just for a minute.

Breaking news. He's amazing. Well, the cool thing about him is he's he's looking at our industry

from a completely different set of eyes, but literally from a separate lens, right? Where

everyone else was doing drawings or Alex was carving incredible outward artwork out of wood.

Larry has just a different canvas. So it's given us this this new way to be able to reflect the

industry to itself. And I was pretty excited with Chip's artwork where he had a what I call

Easter eggs. But there was a there was a piece he did that was a welder where he had coins stacked

on each other and then the person welding. And like, if you're a welder, you know,

you're trying to stack, right? So it was this inside joke. Larry's going to have a lot of those

inside jokes where his artwork is going to be one where it's like, okay, that car that's that's

going around that corner drifting with the two front tires off the ground are because it's

because he has so much horsepower that it and I know that car and I know that driver and I, you

know, that's the type of thing that that he's going to bring to us. So he's going to be our artist

for the next three years. And we're doing some cool stuff. That's awesome. Yeah, it'll be fun.

Took completely different takes. So this would be all photography based and it's all going to be

photography. It's a completely transition. Everything's been line work and you know.

Yeah, so some of it's been black and white or some of it will be black and white. So what will

we color? But again, it was this this evolution of familiar but different. Yeah. And and there

will be art and there will be people that will steal the signs and there will be people that

will come in the environment and be like, I don't know why this is cool, but it's just cool.

I mean, let's face it, you're not going to reuse them again next year.

You know, you're doing a good job if people want them, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. As long as they're

not pulling them off the ceiling or the wall six o'clock on Friday. Yeah, you just when they

cut them down nine o'clock and they're going in the trash. So pay the Freeman dude, you know,

T shirts and a couple cigarettes. Yeah. When is the construction done fully at the convention

center? Supposedly. So when are you certain? Are you uncertain? I would have put a date on it.

I'd say probably January 1st, like right after our so next year, we're close construction free zone.

Yeah. Yeah. And they're not they're not touching central.

They're touching central right now. Oh, so central will be all new like the outside of it. Yeah.

Okay. Inside is lighting and only lighting. And I think they're reversing bathrooms and,

you know, okay, little ancillary stuff, touch up stuff. They moved a couple of pillars just to

with you guys. They are moving entrances as we speak. So but so that's going to that got done.

And we got lucky where we found this, you know, coming out of 2020, we found this opportunity.

We were the largest attended trade show in the country in 21 22 and 23.

That helped our negotiations with the convention center, where they had originally pitched us

in 2021 that central hall would be shut down during our event. And we explained to them

that that would not work. Well, what is those? What a it's problematic. I don't want to get

into too much inside baseball. You can't. But what are the negotiations like with that two powers?

Because on one hand, like you said, we are the biggest for three years. We don't like your

proposal. On the other hand, I would have to assume is like, but what are you going to do?

Like where else are you going to go? So that's a very big arm wrestling. It's a very big like,

well, we could find some place and they're like, we'll find it. You're like, we will.

Yeah. So really, it comes down to removing any emotion from it. Okay. And just doing it with

logic. It just doesn't work. So it's like, okay, here's the impact it would have on us.

And let's look at the impact it would have on the city. And really, when you look at a convention

and visitors authority, the revenue is derived from hotel stays. So when you get there and you

talk about it logically in Las Vegas convention center in the convention visitors authorities,

an incredible partner, they get into your business and they go, okay, so this really

affect you that way. And it's like, yeah, it would have this this long standing effect. And

we were successful over a number of years. It doesn't happen in one meeting. It's,

it's meeting after meeting after meeting and reminding and reminding and reminding.

But at the end of the day, they acquiesced to what we were talking about. And it was a big win for us.

So we were able to keep all the halls open from 2019 until now. But after they're done,

right now central halls shut down. They're going to open that up probably

mid September, hopefully. And then they're going to move over south. And they're going

to do south before we get back. There's there's holes right now. I was going to say that's like

the whole black holes in the in the parking lot that they tell us that will be there's a 40 foot

deep hole that's like 100 by 100 to their credit. They've always come through. That's how they got

to the Camaro board underneath it. They got it had to get to it. Well, I was going to say,

did you send a letter? You're welcome letter to like CES and the construction, but I assume

they weren't so lucky in some of these layouts timing wise. No, they've been pretty lucky to

Well, then you should have sent them though. You're welcome. Yeah.

At the end of the day, there's there's certain shows that move the needle and one of them is

that construction show. It happens every three years. They're really big on innovation and they

they're probably the largest city wide in terms of Las Vegas. And they do a tremendous job.

But we work together, you know, when we're when we're looking at what we can do in the building or

or, you know, certain things that we can do from an event standpoint. We all work together in that

respect. You know, so it's it's great to be able to help foster people going to Las Vegas

for a business reason, because heck, we moved the show to Las Vegas in 1977. Leo Kagan was our

our chairman of Vegas was different in 77. You did not move a B2B event there.

And you did not move it out of the Anaheim. But to Leo's credit, until he couldn't come to the show,

he was at the SEMA show every single year in his booth, every single day. And to a point where we

would go pick him up in his room and make sure he was able to get there. So, you know, he did it

until he was triple digits old. And that to me was a selling point where this guy's so committed

to our industry that a former chairman of the board who we credit with making the decision to move

to Vegas, never stopped going to that show until he couldn't. That's wild. That's crazy.

But the exhibitors, the stories go that the exhibitors thought he was crazy because they were

concerned that people are going to come to Vegas and gamble their money away and not have money

to spend at the show. You know, and that's, you know, we're going back to the, you know, the 70s

there were order writing was a major part of the show back then and exhibitors were like,

you're crazy. People are going to throw their money away. We're not going to, they're not going

to place orders and turns out he was completely wrong. They were completely wrong because the

customers were fine. It's the employees that gamble all the money. They don't show up the next

day. It was the uncertainty of whether they're going to gamble or not.

Certainly not going to win the stories amongst exhibitors of lost, lost employees.

There's so many lost employees and, you know, college sponsorships. What would you, what would

you call that? Real estate license sponsorships and stuff like that. Yeah. I had an employee

back in the publishing days that went to his first business trip for the company was the

Anisary Nationals in Louisville and he lost his rental. He lost a rental car. I mean,

and so that show is easier than you think.

Just like physically lost it, misplaced. There were several stories that took place as to

how this happened, but it turned out that he, when he came back, I made sure he had plenty

of time to go find it because no longer was employed. You can't do that in your first

business trip. That's that's bad for him. I mean, no way to the third or something, right?

Yeah. That's a podcast in itself right there.

The old Scott Sandoval still holds that. He's thinking

holds the crown on that one. He put one on top of another one.

You know, getting a little spicy in the parking lot. Yeah. At least he knew where it was though.

Oh yeah. Everybody knew it was. Yeah. Cause their show knew it was. It wouldn't move anymore.

Sure. His company knew it was.

It's fine. You know, we talked about, we talked from a, from a shop standpoint,

like a car builder, you know, exhibit or whatever. You've always got those first group of guys and

you're like, look, this is the deal. You're going to pace yourself long week. It doesn't, it never

fails. There's the, my team gets a little laugh when they get the speech every year and it goes

like this. Don't be that guy. Yep. That's it. Don't be the guy. And I've had to, you know,

change a little bit. Maybe don't be that person, you know, because, you know, Selena, you know,

but, but the message is don't be, don't be that guy. So don't be that guy that everyone's talking

about the next day. We have a slightly more colorful version of that. Yeah. It's a little more

pointed speaking from experience, but it had your point. It just not work.

You mentioned the insurance changes. You want to let that be a surprise for everybody,

or do you want to talk about it for South Hall entrance central? So central hall,

we're going to have two different entrances, not the same as well. One of them would be the

same as last year. And one of them is, um, is right now going through approval by Clark County.

So they had told us all summer long, it was going to go to this destination and then they moved at

30 feet. So we're still working through, we're still working through that. But from the outside

looking in, you're going to, you're going to see some entrance treatments where you'll know

where to walk in. Um, the cool thing is the construction is looking really good. Um, you'll,

you'll be able to see how it matches West Hall with, you'll be able to walk inside pretty much

from South Hall all the way to West completely indoors. Um, they like it so much that they're

going to put that facade on the front of South too. So that'd be cool. Um, they weren't planning to do

that, but, um, so the answer question, we thought we were done with construction and

not so much. No, yeah. So you're, you're uncertain of how to get in. You're certain that there'll

be a way to get in. Certainly be. Um, but yeah, the it's, there's no, this is not for the faint of

heart because there are literally holes in the black top that we're intending to use. Um, there's

entrance, entrance areas that we're hoping to use that aren't ready to go yet.

When's the last time you've been on site? July. Yeah, we were there in July over the,

that was a new exhibitor summit. Yeah. That was the SEMA new exhibitor summit. Right. You got to

make sure you actually have, we do call it. No, we don't know. We just call it the exhibitor summit.

There's something without seeing this, the opportunity.

That's a miss. Just dropping the ball. That is, we've talked about it on a couple of podcasts.

I think with yours and with, um, uh, Spagnola that if you've never exhibited

100% great boot camp, talk to a couple of people make you feel comfortable and you're like, all

right, well, yeah, it's not going to be brand new when I get there. No, it's a huge deal. We help with,

with really what people are looking for. And it really comes down to fundamentals.

When you look at an attendee and what they're trying to do, they're looking for what's new.

And a lot of times as, as an exhibitor, you may put your new product in the back because it's

not your best seller. Um, somebody who comes in and is familiar with your products, they're

really just looking for what's new. So it can be this aha moment where we're like, take the new

product and put it in the front. And all of a sudden you're going to have these crazy conversations

with people looking for what's new and you made it easy for them to find. Um, and I just distilled

that down to something that's pretty basic, but it really is this knowledge of what's the SEMA

show like from an attendee experience and how can you build your exhibit to meet that need.

And I think that's, that's good with anything like understand who your audience is,

understand who your market is, and then build your product to be able to satisfy what they want.

So with the show being two months away and most people in our industry haven't actually

got their plan together. Yeah. What is one example of somebody who did it really well or

piece of advice for vendors to do something really well? You know, you can save, we joke a lot,

you joke a lot, um, about Freeman expenses. There's a, there's a line in the sand where

the price goes up 30. October 2nd, by the way. Yeah. 100%. If you watch in between before October

2nd, you're going to save 30%. So I totally get it is Freeman expensive. They are on October 3rd.

By more 30%. So really planning is, is one part of it. Um, and just being able to get it done

a little bit early. And then again, I just go back to rehearsing what it's going to be like,

you know, if you, if you're an exhibitor and you've got a shop floor and you can

literally tape it out and go, okay, we're going to have our desk here and who stands where.

You know, the, everybody at an organization has somebody that can have a 15 minute or 20 minute

conversation with a complete stranger. Don't let that be your first line of defense. Have the

introvert somebody like me that's like, Hey, how you doing? Are you looking for something? Yeah.

You know, and then I can forward it all on. So it's really like who's going to be where in the

booth? What's the booth look like? How featured are the new products? Because that's what people

are truly looking for. And then if you have a really cool build, what do your products look

like on that build? You know, is it about the car or is it about your products in your booth?

It should be about the products. You know, one of my messages at the exhibitor summit is kind of

pre getting to the show. And I call it the anti field of dreams process, where you don't feel

dream if you if you build it, they will come. And I was go, you can't just build it. You can't

just build a booth and show up and hope the people start flocking to you because the competition

for eyeballs of the SEMA show is ridiculous. So my advice is always to do as much reach out

prior to the show as possible with, you know, your lead list of customers, your current customers,

former customers, prospective customers, and just let them know that you're going to be there,

what they could expect. And then you'd like to spend some time, you know, meeting with them.

You know, one of our big exhibitors in the South Hall is a wheel

equipment company. And they really do a good job of creating separate collateral pieces for each

customer that's coming, setting up hundreds of appointments and their meeting rooms in their

booth. And, you know, they really, they really do it right, but really just doing some planning

before the show. Because if you just, you know, send your booth, have your booth built,

and show up and wait for the people to flow in, it's probably a miss.

Yeah. And on your point, it seems counterintuitive where if you invite your current customers or

your current prospects, it seems like, well, I'm looking for new people. What happens is your

current people may not come see you. Because they're looking for what's new as well, right? And

they're a current customer of yours. But when their colleagues call me, they're like, you

want to see me this year? It's like, Oh, yeah, I'm going. I'm for sure. I'm going like, that is

what helps. That's what spurs the news. So if you have 2,000, 2,500 companies telling the industry,

hey, I'm going to be here to their customers, exponentially, everything goes out. And that's

the magic. And that brand pride is the real thing. You guys know that just from the awards and

party you do. People love to be like, yeah, associated with it. Yeah. I got a roaster shop,

Jesse. They love that brand pride and just to associate themselves with that. So just

having folks like that wander through your booth, taking pictures, posting them,

it just helps everything. The standard questions brought to you by the Standard in Wheels,

HRE. We've done standard questions before with you, Tom. We've changed them up a little bit.

Now we're going to do them both together because I don't want to need preparation

happen. So we've changed them up a little bit for everybody to enjoy. First up is

your most memorable law enforcement interaction story.

At the SEMA show? Just in life. Extra points for a SEMA show. I don't answer questions.

While you're thinking, Tom, I've got one. So I mentioned to you guys in the past that I worked

in the boat publishing business for a long time. So this was a Power Boat magazine. I was working

with the owner of Baja Boats. He was a friend of mine. And he had brought a boat out to California

that we were going to do some testing on. And the boat shows up. And for some reason, he was

pulling it with a U-Haul pickup truck. Not like we'd never had plenty of trucks around. I don't

know. So if a U-Haul pickup truck and we run it up to the lake and we go to launch it and

the boat's got no key. And it's got no registration because it's a factory boat.

And he's like, no problem. We'll hotwire it. And this seems Courtney Smith, his family owned Baja

Boats. And we're on the launch ramp with a brand new boat, non-registered, being towed by a U-Haul

pickup truck. Hot-wiring it. And the sheriff comes over and he says, what's going on, fellas?

That doesn't look good. You're probably not going to believe this. But

we didn't steal this boat. But that was an interesting one to work our way out of, for sure.

Josh Misher was not around for this photo shoot. Josh was not there for that one. That was family

and performance boning days. I have a good Josh story. I put him up in his helicopter, his first

helicopter for his first helicopter shoot. And we're in Miami Boat Show and he's doing his

first helicopter shoot. I'm up in the helicopter with him. And the next thing I know, he pulls out

the clear plastic bag. And that doesn't bode well with me. All right. All right. Listen,

I'm what they call a sympathy heaver. Okay. See here or smell. I'm going and I look at him

and he's got the clear bag. I'm like, and I tell the pilot, don't do it. So he actually ended up

getting one of those photos in the mercury cruiser mercury racing calendar. He got one of those photos.

So awesome. Nice. Yeah. Always love Josh. So I may be entertained. You have an articulable

though show up in my feet. So I would say mine is more we had this heightened awareness

starting after the Mandalay Bay tragedy. And I got more and more looped into what we do

as a higher level of security that a lot of people don't know anything about.

But rest assured, we've got many levels and lots of departments working on stuff. And we had a

threat from somebody that an exhibitor called us and said, hey, we had a person call us and said

they're going to come to the SEMA show and they're going to do bad things. And I didn't do anything,

but our system turned on. And we followed this person from Greece on an airplane to Miami.

They knew exactly what he did in Miami. And I got a briefing on what he did and what he went

and what he ate. And then he got on plane and came to Vegas. And you know how you're walking

off the plane and there's rooms that have like doors. Somebody took him in one of those rooms

with a door and tried to figure out what was going on. And for me, that was one of those things where

I get to be the person that hears about the threat. But there's way more capable people

behind the scenes that are making sure that everybody's safe. And just knowing that that

type of thing exists and getting sort of a heat map of what's happening in Vegas and internationally

before we go into the show and knowing what's happening, I'm confident that we have a safe

environment. And really for me, that's a law enforcement thing that I don't dabble in. We

have the experts that do it. But yeah, I'm certain, very certain that our environment's safe. And

it's important these days because so many weird things can happen. And and we've got this this

58 year track record of of an incredible event. And we're going to keep it going. That's awesome.

Is it like shocking how capable those people are? Like, I'd imagine there's so much more

behind the scenes than we all know about when it comes to following how thorough they are.

Yeah. And how it switches on a dime, where you're talking to somebody about their bourbon

collection. And then the next thing you know, like, Hey, I just want to bring you up to speed

on a stat. And it's like their voice changes, and it becomes a very SOP oriented, you know,

it's this protocol that they're following. But there's comfort in that. And really,

when you talk to some of the law enforcement folks, there is that comfort level of, Okay,

here's what we do in a crisis. Here's what we do here. And and again, it's it's a heavy thing

to to worry about. Right. But there's a tremendous amount of planning that goes into it. And again,

I'm certain our events in a great place, because we spent a lot of time on that part of it.

That's great. That's crazy. Best shoes for SEMA. Wow, wildcard. Well, the answer is a

different pair every day. We figured I've heard that. Yes, changing them up. Yeah,

not every day just don't wear the same shoe back to back. Let's go in with those

sketchers shape ups, which he's had pretty good luck with. They've done coming from the guy that

wears Tom's. Yeah, stop it. That was years ago. You want it? It was one pair. All right, you're

back. So I'll answer it. Because I hate talking about shoes, but I'm totally into shoes.

Um, if if somebody told you you were going to walk 110 miles in 10 days,

what shoes would you put on your feet? And that's what I would do.

So there's that, right? There's little yellow cards. But I like to have two a day. I like to

switch it. Oh, midday three o'clock. Yeah. So under my desk at the SEMA show, there's always

another pair of identical running shoes. And and there's something about putting on

a cool pair of shoes changes at all can change your disposition. I don't like it. That's why I

change up the next day because I don't I want to have a full 24 hours for those things to return

back to normal. Definitely. Yeah, I don't know if I've found the right answer to that because

sometimes I'm I'm still a fashion before a function guy. Yeah. That's why I see you in those

Tivas. I was going to fire a shot. I can't say I can't say that I'm I'm portraying that today, but

but yeah, I turned to the Allbirds a couple of years ago and then I started feeling old wearing

those. So I have them on today, actually, but the Allbirds are considered old. I mean, that's

relatively hip. For the Australian listeners, I guess. Yeah, we've got it. We've got an employee

that dabbles in the US. If you you come into the Roadster shop booth as a man wearing a boots,

you're going to hear about it. That's something you can be certain about.

If you come in first vehicle, we want to we're going to try and guess you

worn. All right, there's you're going to get some hints. There's I'll give you some hints,

but there's zero chance that you get this zero chance. Pretty good. I listen to a lot of episodes.

Okay, there's zero chance that we get this. I grew up around here. Okay. All right. Turn 16

in 1978. Right. Yeah. My dad was in the car business. He worked at a dealership dealership.

Which dealership? Buick. No, this was a Dodge dealership. Mr. Norms, Grand Spalding Dodge.

That that dealership. Just just a just a normal little small dealership. Yeah, Mr. Norms.

Funny story. Kevin Oste just sent me a photo recently of somebody that posted something

about a car that they purchased and had my dad's business card on it. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's cool.

That's really crazy. Anyway, so sorry. Here's my hint. He would oftentimes purchase trade ins.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. You're getting a weird trade in. They couldn't sell.

He's he often purchased. He'd often purchased trade ins.

In 78 tough era. If it's 78, it's a trade. And I mean, yeah, 79. I would call it.

Yes, you're mid 70s. Maybe early 70s for 80, 80. I turned 1680 to age me. So there you go.

All right. 76 or 76 guessing. He said zero chance we're going to get it. We'll see.

They have a van again in 76. No, it was no. It came out 80, 80.

You're in the Chicagoland area, though. Dude, nobody's driven those.

You maybe they couldn't sell it. So that's why you had to take it off a lot.

There you go. Shit. I'll throw out another one. I'll throw out another hand.

I wish I had this car today. I wish I had it.

All right. Well, that doesn't help me at all with this shit, but I'm just going

completely out there on a limb. That's the Volvo P 1600.

I'm just going. It's out there. I'm throwing out there. Interesting choice. Yeah.

Yeah. But somebody coming out of that into a dodge. It's a little shocking. I could see

like family. This young guy having to charge his family got to get rid of his sports car.

I'm going Vega mid 70s Vega. He wishes he had it today. Who wouldn't want to Vega?

That's a cool car. No, I don't know. That came in the shop for this. Yeah, that was cool.

It's pretty cool. I'd rather have a maverick. Did they get it?

Did you do this when you're on the first time? No, we have not done. This is new.

We're going to we're going to him next. Okay. I'm going like mid 70s, early 70s, Ford LTD.

Easy big car. I don't think we struck. No, I don't think he said zero chance.

He said zero chance. I think the Vega was kind of close. Okay. 65 Corvair Corvair. Okay. My first

my first car. I similar roof line to the Volvo P 1600. Hard top Monza.

I hated it because I was embarrassed because I've got the oldest car in the school parking lot.

You know, my buddies, my best friend, who I actually had lunch with yesterday, he had a

79 Firebird formula. Swapped to manual. Like he had the. Yeah, that was way cooler.

He had the car and I've got this red kind of rusty ish Corvair that, you know, shifter on the

on the dash, you know, rare, you know, rare engine. The heater never worked. You know,

nothing ever dripped oil everywhere. But I'd love to have that car back right now.

Be cool. They are cool that with the little bubble top on them, not just someone to bring

a trailer today, that it was like 700 original miles or something going for like, you know,

big money. But that is a cool car. Classic car studios is building a really red one. Yeah.

I think they put they put the motor in the front, right? Is it twin turbo? Yeah, motors on the front.

You know, I mean, every once in a while, I'll go to a bunch of car shows out by my house and

there's always like two Corvair guys at every at every car show and I always find myself walking

over going. What could have been you were born and raised in what area of the country? I was born

and raised in northern Virginia, right outside D.C. Oh, okay. Well, northern. How far out of D.C.

Five miles. Oh, okay. I was gonna say if you're too far in northern Virginia, then you didn't

have a car. Well, that's West Virginia. Wrong, Virginia. What year era was turning 16?

That's a great question. 16 plus from where you were when you were born. 82. Okay. 82.

You bought it? Are we talking first car? You're very first car. I didn't split with someone or

I did split with someone. I grew up with three sisters. I had to I had to partner with a sister

on one. Okay. Well, that man, that's a that's a first that throws us off. Three years later,

I bought one myself. We're going to go the first one you bought yourself. So that would be 19 years

Yeah, you were working. I was I was doing construction work and I made a deal with my parents that

anything I earned after an eight hour day could go towards a car.

So I was working on a construction site. Okay, the people that own the construction site had a

shopping mall. So I took care of the landscaping at the shopping malls till nine o'clock.

Well, it's obviously a pickup truck. It's two wheel drive. That's 100%. That was work work. I'll

give you some hints. It was a it was a game changer in in a performance category. Oh,

did they make the Taurus SHO back then? So this would be 85 is when you bought it

three years after you turned 16. Yeah, 85, 85, 86. Yeah.

What's something fuel injected? Be the first TBI of something in 86.

Be Camaro. It was not domestic. Oh, what was a game changer that was not domestic? BMW.

I got I got about I don't I don't mess with the non domestic. So that's a three. It's a three

series BMW. That's why I'm going with it. Diesel rabbit. He said game changer in performance.

It could be the first diesel rabbit they made. It's not a game changer.

Then number one, you have nothing. If you're if you're that's fine. I'm Stonewall. I'm going with

Mercure. So it was a Volkswagen rabbit GTI. It was not diesel. But that's close. 83 was the

first year for the GTI. And it was a game changer in performance. The GTI was the original pocket

rocket. Yeah. And it's kind of spawned the dodge cold, I guess you could say a little bit. But

I chased that GTI feeling. And and even to this day, I drive a little m 240 that

I've you know, gives me the same electric buzz when you know, it's a stick shift to and

that was a stick. And if you kept it in the power band, it was a fun car to drive.

That little GTI, though, that that shifter was not great. No, that it was this a stick.

It was just literally a stick that went down in a hole. I've driven that car a couple of times.

A friend that had one. It was better than all the water cooled. There's way better made better

sounds. Yeah, I think somebody was close on the first car. I actually bought myself and I had to

have it. And my dad couldn't understand why 76 Cutlass Supreme, bro ham, bro ham. We call it.

I call it bro ham, bro ham. Yeah, velour interior, leaky sunroof. Most comfortable seats. I had

to have the 76. I had something I had to I had to have that car. And I don't know why I know.

Did the headliner start falling? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Push tax. Yeah.

Spray glue and stick it. I wonder what vendor was that made those. They had to have just went out of

business like the diet, the like faceted ones. Yeah. Yeah, I just figured the guys like with this

put they put the sunroof and they kind of just cut it and went like, oh, and tucked it in and

put that you channel back in. All right, cars for the sea. You did, if I remember correctly,

favorite car movie was gone in 60 seconds last time. Which is a great if you would like to change

that you can if you want to stay with it, you can you have to answer.

All right, I think this one is probably overused. But it's just from my from my era. We kind of

touched on it with my my buddy's formula. It has to be smoky in the bandit.

No, that's great, because that is one of the best segues that there ever could be to

let's get back to God in 60 seconds. No, because interestingly enough, on my flight home from

the Triple Crown next to Angelina Jolie. No, out of Nashville. I didn't come prepared. I didn't

download anything. So I get on their Wi Fi. What am I going to watch that I can? I don't want

to start a new release movie and not finish it short flight. So gone in 60 seconds is on that

man. I haven't seen this in years. So I watch it. That's a great movie. It is a really good.

There's so much like the opening scene that they did a really good sounds are amazing.

Really good job with how like factual it is. I mean, there's some like goofy stuff in it.

But for the most part, that's a really, really good movie. So back to the segue.

Yeah, what's the next question you got? Is there any more?

Yeah, we got one. We got one great sound. One great question. So you said smoke in the bandit.

Interestingly enough, our newest segment and our fan favorite question is very simple.

Bert Reynolds or Sylvester Stallone? Plain and simple.

I think this one is is pretty easy for me. And I did mention, you know, smoking the bandit best

best car movie. But I could name every word from every rocky movie.

That's what I love right there, because you're sure smoking the bandit good movie.

That doesn't mean that Bert's a superior being Stallone dominates.

Except the fact that Stallone. We don't need to keep talking about it.

You realize he also had a 79 black trans am with the gold in Rocky 2.

The same exact year that smoking the band. Come on, dude.

Google it and see which one came up first.

Smoking the bandit did. Yeah, but like 20 years.

No, it came out. It was both of them were 79 in thing, but smoking the bandit came out in the

beginning of the year. Okay, just it's just it's odd. Also, both of them, you know, had

big rigs in their movies. It's snowman driving one, Stallone had to drive one. There's a lot of

weight, a lot of copy. I'm sorry, would you say Stallone driving one? He drove it.

No, he acted like he was driving one. He's an actor. He drove it. No, he didn't actually drive it.

So Stallone, I gotta go. I gotta go. It's gotta be something around this area up here.

It's nor this could be mid accident. Something like that could be to you.

Yeah, I'm going to go Stallone also. That's good. I'm getting my ass kicked here.

I gotta tell you, it's the fact that you wrote the movie. Yeah, you know, like when you look at

Stiller and Affleck and that they wrote that Goodwill hunting movie. It's pretty cool. They're

not the best actors in the world, but for that to come out of a creative mind, yeah,

then have the stick to it, to figure out a way to get it on the screen.

You beat enough people down. I mean, 100 tries. Finally, somebody's gonna make it into a movie.

I mean, it's just like whatever it's gonna take to shut you up. Damn.

How many smoking in the band? It's worth it.

Three, four, four, seven. You're going to count all of them. Yeah,

there's three good four good ones. I have good ones. No, five sucks.

Five was terrible. I'm with you there. I'm not a big fan. I bet not a big fan of five.

Yeah, five was the worst one. Rocky Balboa was great. Rocky Balboa is amazing.

Yeah, I would give you that. Great movies. Creed 2. All good movies. The end of Rocky 5,

arguably one of the better. I mean, the whole the movie is a whole not real good.

The Street Fight scene? Street Fight, yeah. It's not better than four.

No, yeah. Four is great. Four is the best. I've got one that ties into both of these that

somehow you two have both missed. Driven. Sylvester Stallone. That Mo Moreno. IndyCar driver.

Yeah. Bert Reynolds is the team owner. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so Stallone worked for Bert.

Stallone drove. Bert didn't. And as an actor, they both were acting. They neither one of them did

anything. But Stallone's way more badass in the movie. But the director cast did the boss as Bert.

He's like, you know what? You look more like an authority figure over Stallone. With the

horsepower of SEMA, is there a possibility of reaching out to Stallone, getting him out there,

showing him around? I mean, we're not going to do it for Bert, unfortunately. But first,

Stallone, maybe we get him out to SEMA. Extent, roll out the red carpet. He's a car guy. I don't

know if we should do that. He's a car guy. He's always invited in case you want to meet him at

the end of the red carpet. I mean, I like his movies. He's been a great actor. Stallone or

Florida, Georgia line. Who would? No, neither one. It's still on still bad. At least we would fight

eye to eye. Hey, we had a win. We had a win tonight for teams. Hey, you did. That's you've come off.

You deserve that because you guys have come off some some serious losses on the whole

Bert Stallone thing, especially at the show last weekend. It was pretty obvious that Stallone was

winning that one handily. But I think that right now it's the tally. Elio put the tally up. It's

either tied, but I think Stallone might be in ahead. The double wins here is going to put it

to Stallone's edge. It really is a very nuanced question when people ask because there's a lot

of talent and a lot of excitement in our age youth for both of those actors. But there can only

be one winner. Yeah. That's vision. It's just vision. And I think that's when you start to think

about, you know, taking it back a little bit to the show, like what's the show going to look like?

What's the user experience? What's your booth experience going to be like? Somebody's visualizing

that and success is going to be able to see that on the show floor in real life. And

for somebody to have the vision of that, it's like the guy that did the Hamilton musicals.

Oh, yeah. Every single war. Like, how do you have like, how does that come out of someone's brain?

Because all I'm worried about is cars and events, right? Yeah. I can't imagine that sales pitch

for the first time. You're like, no, trust me, I'm going to wrap it, right? And people are going to

love it. It's going to be Broadway. But it does come down to this artistic vision and really this

fundamental basic of here's what I see that I think is cool. I want to share it with people.

And when you look at what we do at the SEMA show is this, this incubator of ideas. Not all ideas are

good, right? And you've referenced some of the vehicles that we've got there that may fall in

you. And if you guys remember the first time you saw a 20 inch wheel and you're like, there's no way

this is gonna, nothing can get bigger. And then you saw 26 and then you saw 30. I remember,

I remember the first time I mounted a 17 inch wheel. And it was like, mountain to 21 a chance.

But that's like, I can't, I couldn't. No, I couldn't mount a 21 inch wheel. That's dude. Don't

be an ass. I just, you're going into it. I just brought it up. I just being an asshole is what

I got defeated this weekend by a 21 inch wheel mounting job that I I couldn't do.

It was it. It was the 20 that that broke me. So anyway, I but no, to your point, the 17.

It was like, yeah, this is it. Then there was an 18. Then there was a 20. And it just

yeah, and the rest is history. It's this constant evolution. You know, we were talking

about earlier where it's just the industry doesn't stop. And and you're gonna, we're gonna figure

out a way around it. You know, when, when regulation comes in, and they say, you know,

you've got to do this, you got to do this, our industry has this history of just making it better.

It's like, okay, we need to lower emissions. Here's a way we can do it. You know, here's hydrogen,

here's synthetic fuels, here's electric, like it's all represented in our industry. And we're

showcasing it at the event, but it's different ways to think of the same problem. Like, how can

we tackle this? And, and really, the end user gets to win. But yeah, because in the industry,

the rest of the industry adapts, and we've seen that happen over and over. I mean,

we're just talking about 20 inch wheels. Now, if you go to buy a new Audi and doesn't have

have 20 inch wheels stock, you're upset, you know, what's the base model? Yeah, you know,

what's going on? Or even, you know, when, when the back of the seat audio systems are big, you

know, that'll start in the aftermarket, you know, with all kinds of different engineering going on

to people, whether to put it in or hang it or whatever. And then, you know, three, four years

later, that stuff comes to standard in a OEM vehicle. So the whole industry adapts to the

to the aftermarket, the ingenuity of the aftermarket. I think that's why the cars are so

important for from my point of view. Anyways, you just saw a 20 inch wheel,

probably walk past it, see a 20 inch wheel on a car, it's a game changer, whether you like it,

or you hate it, maybe that's too big, but it got you into going to 18s from 15s, right? Or it

inspired somebody to go a complete different direction and try a different style of wheel

in a 20 or yeah, different finishes on it, see it on one car on some new, you know, high tech

supercar and we can incorporate that into an old muscle car or it evokes thought and emotion,

because you you took that product and picked a direction, whether you like that direction

and want to follow that, or you absolutely don't like that direction and want to go against it,

it evoked the emotion because you took the product, somebody took the product

and took it to the next level versus it being stagnant as the product, because then there's

nothing for you to agree or disagree with, you're just like, well, that's a wheel,

can't wait till I see somebody do something with it so I can agree or disagree with it,

you have to, it shows the innovation and inspiration and gets everybody's mind

thinking on what they want to do next, right? Yeah, but think about that as an industry,

like we literally reinvent the wheel on a routine basis, like what can this round thing do?

What can it do different? How can it serve us? It's crazy to think about how long that's been

around and how we continually keep modifying it to serve the need. We were just the guys from

HR, you were out here yesterday and we were just chatting with them and they're just kind of casually

dropping some of the new technology and the innovation, and you're like, dude, after all

these years, how do you keep, I mean, like wild new stuff that's so different than what's out there

that's probably coming soon, it's just nuts that that's, yeah, but when you when when they explain

it, you're like, oh, shit, like, yeah, it makes perfect sense, wonder why somebody didn't think

about that before, but it's the re, it's the rethinking and it's the ingenuity, it's the

pushing the envelope. Sure. Because you have to. You have to. You want to, you have to, I mean, it's

it's all full circle. Yeah, I mean, the the butt dyno and the in the gas pedal win, right? You're

just you're just trying to you're trying to make it perform better and and just fit your need better.

This is a this is coming out. I think this is going to be the 22nd. So you're looking at September

22nd. You're like five weeks. If you're listening to this now, you're give or take five weeks from

the show open. Yeah, that might as well be tomorrow for us. So you know, we do get to a period of

kind of everything is ready to go. You know, and all the signage has been ordered and our truck

our truck has left the left the building and the staff we get to a point where just it becomes

just get me there. Because we're so much better at resolving things on site than projected problems

at a time. And I'm just just let's just get on site. We're really resourceful, really good at

getting into everything handled. But yeah, it's probably a pretty insane toolbox or the fixers

that have come in over years. Yeah. At the same time, though, part of my call it entrepreneurial

background is five weeks is a lot of time. You can do a lot of stuff in five weeks. There's still

time to register. There's still time to buy a booth. There's still time to do a lot of stuff.

You know, if you're doing a build and you're starting in five weeks, it's probably tight.

Yeah, it's been done. How long do we take to build that Colorado?

I think we got the truck. I want to say it was August 1st or September 1st. Yeah.

You can do a lot. So as this one goes, is this airs? If you have interest in coming to our event,

in any capacity, we can still accommodate it. You know, our goal is really to never hang the

sold out sign. You know, it's just to hear it out. Yeah, because again, it comes down to

people talking to people and being a part of the conversation. And you can either be part of the

conversation or you can talk to somebody who was there and ask what the conversation was.

And I guarantee you that's going to happen. Like these people are like, I don't need to go every

year. As soon as the show ends, they're calling somebody like, what was it like? How to go?

What were people talking about? What was new? Absolutely. You know, they want to know what

happened, even though they don't need to go because, you know, it's too particular, whatever it is.

Yeah. It's like, no, no, you, you, you, you weren't in the conversation, but you want to be part of

it still. And I think that's the, the kicker is be part of the conversation, you know, be there.

And any, on any level, if you're truly passing about automotive, this, that's where it happens.

So be there when it happens. Yeah. Some of the best stories we hear are what we call the serendipitous

conversations, which don't happen in a booth, don't happen in a networking event, but they happen in

line at Starbucks, you know, and the guy behind you is like, what do you do? What do you do? The

next thing you know, we get these stories, you know, I wrote the biggest deal of the show in

line at the Starbucks, you know, and if you're not, again, if you're not there, those serendipitous

conversations aren't happening. Yeah. Oh, we, we, well, Josh always says, actually,

if you want to be in the right place at the right time, you got to be a lot of places.

Exactly right. Yeah. It's everything that's ever came successful or positive to me. And most

everybody that's talked on this podcast over the last 200 and something episodes or whatever it's

been, it's always been right place at the right time. You know, there's always that story. There's,

you just got to be at a lot of places. That's how you hedge your bets.

Although they said you make your own luck, right? Right. Oh, you were lucky because you were there

and that person was there. I was like, well, you were there 50 times. I chose to be there.

And I asked the guy in Starbucks what he does. Right. He happened to tell me he,

you know, does this and that's a stupid order who gets whipped cream. And then he turned around

to me and we struck up a conversation. Exactly. I can say I've never been in the Starbucks line at

the convention center and you don't drink coffee. I drink coffee and that's a tough line to

there. No, there's a hot tip. Hot tip. There's two lines go to the right and nobody knows about

a line that goes. So as you're facing that Starbucks, everybody hot, I just ruined the hot

take for everybody hard, right? Just you'll see a big line. Just pretend like it's a two-lane

road and go down the shoulder and you'll find your way up there. I usually don't even attempt it.

I have to bring a coffee. We generally get dropped off at the hotel next door and then we go to that

Starbucks there, but even then it's sometimes a little sketchy on the way. Oh, with the

Renaissance? Yeah. Or usually we get a coffee at the hotel, whether we're at the Cosmo or whatever,

and they serve it at 700,000 degrees. So by the time you get to the convention center,

if you haven't spilled it on yourself in the cab on the way there.

It must be the only temperature you can brew coffee at in a public place. Lava.

This is lava. Guys, this has been absolutely amazing. Fun time. It's better doing it in a person,

right? Absolutely. Thanks for having us. I always appreciate the trip to my hometown.

Yeah, you get Portillo's while you're here. For sure. So this has been a food trip for me.

So I had, we had Portillo's for lunch. I had Lou Melnotti's yesterday and we're going to

Bill's Pub from here. Nice. Bill's is where it's at. I grew up with Bill. I grew up with me and

my family with Bill's Pub. That was our go-to. Hot dogs or beef sandwich at Portillo's. What do

you mean or? I go, listen, I go hot dog appetizer. While I have my hot dog appetizer, I let my beef

decant and open it up. You get it dipped? Yeah. No, I go extra gravy. I don't go full dip. Gotcha.

But yeah, that's got a decant while I have my hot dog appetizer. This is a connoisseur.

This is good. Sports. Decant your beef. I like that. It was a whole process.

You've learned all this. Bear with me here. I'm going to unwrap my beef sandwich before I have my

hot dog, but then I'll eat the hot dog. Wow. I've never gone the dog and the beef. I'm usually a

beef dip with sport peppers. There's a problem. If you don't, when you don't get that, that yeah,

you're going to have this home cookin right now. There is a Portillo's in Buena Park in Southern

California. It's Portillo's out there though. It's not the same. So I have kind of a 20 minute

roll. If I'm within 20 minutes, I'll go there. But yes, we're getting the deep dish. Does the

quality hold up out there? Same? I think so. Yeah. It feels the same. So I made Tom have all the

good home cookin. It's good. I had the beef. It was good. I went sweet pepper instead of pepper

this time, but it was good. You can tell. It is good. I can't imagine where this or situation came

from. He slid at you like you're home. That's a lot to eat. But then we went out to, we were at a

concert last week. Oh my goodness. I was craving hot. I've been eating like healthy a lot, but I'm

like, they were at a concert. They got hot dogs. We're in Chicago. Crab two hot dogs. Hot dogs

sucked at the concert. So we get out of the concert. I'm like, that looks like a good hot

dog stand. Love the Chicago hot dogs stand. We're going to go there. Two more hot dogs.

So that's four hot dogs in a couple hours. So keep going. Then we flew the very next day to

Nashville to go to the triple crown show. And then the awful house. No, we went to the city

and had hot dogs. Oh, yeah. But we had hot dogs at the show. And then we went downtown and got

more hot. You had 12 hot dogs in literally less than 24 hours. Wow. That's the occasion. I heard

that's a good show. I haven't been. I haven't heard that's a really good show. There's some

weather issues maybe this year, but it would rain on Saturday. The weather didn't cooperate,

but people powered through it surprisingly. But it was it's a great show. Wish the weather was

better. But did you hear how much those hot dogs were when we came out of the red foam booth?

Eden paid for him, right? Yeah. I don't know. They were $20 a hot dog. Really? Yeah. Huh.

It was good. It was over $100 for just those little hot dogs. Late night hot dog after a

couple cocktails on the ride home. It's I don't care if it was $50. I wasn't paying for it anyway.

Big money. All right. So I want to do a shout out to the Midsummer Night Dram. That was

we got to talk about it anyway. Let's let's we have to we have to give the shout out. It was

really good. It was it was great. I've not had it recently. And it was a little cinnamon

right at the very beginning. But super smooth. I always say that's it's like a flavor bomb.

And there's different acts, right? They're different ones. So I've had them where the

rye and the spice was way more pronounced. This was smoother. I feel like the heat came in early

and then meled on dissipated. You can just you could just savor that like it's

you take the smallest sips of that and enjoy it. And it's a slow drinker. But man, it is great.

There's a reason why people chase it and why it's sought after. I only had my first glass of this

maybe a couple months ago. That's the only second time I've ever had it been looking for it forever.

This one's a Act 12 scene five. It smells delicious. Yeah. So we had a customer come in

and drop this off for us. Want to use it on the podcast. Josh Eshelman and then he also

because we're into pocket knives quite a bit, dropped off Kershaw. Look at him with that.

Josh is a hell of a guy. He dropped these off in person. He's a local guy.

Go, Josh. Yep. Solid. Thank you, Josh. Solid whiskey pool and great night. Absolutely incredible

stuff. We've been sitting on this one for a little while. One great opportunity. So well,

thanks for sharing with us. Absolutely. We appreciate it. It's a special guest. We appreciate

it for sure. It is it is one to remember this this one specifically. It was so much smoother than I

was prepared for for a ride specifically. Not that they've ever been bad, but which now right now

and especially when this comes out, we're coming upon the season for bourbon hunting. So now would

be the time like some midwinners middle of summer late winter. There's no chance of finding that

on the shelf in the next few months. He had a pretty good opportunity to snag a bottle of that.

We did a little bit of a trick and I don't know if this is going to hold up. We're going to try it.

We were at that Triple Crown show later on in the evening. A couple guys come by with the bourbon

as they do. This bourbon was the whistle pig 15 year that I'd never had before. It had been in

the back of his truck for the majority of the day. So even when I grabbed the bottle, I was like,

wow, this one's going to be hot. We'll just take a sip. So I took a sip and it was 12 degrees hot.

However, drinking hot whiskey might be the way to do it because it was so smooth as warm as it

was. Really interesting. It was very interesting. You can say the same thing like, man, we should

maybe go to the you think I was drunk when I said that. I thought it was done. It was really,

really quite a few times on the podcast because there's a lot of times that lunch will grab a

bottle and then you leave it in the car and then you should grab the bottle and it's hot.

The warm's not not as bad as you would think it would be. It does like smooth it out.

For sure. That was the whole purpose of the Glen Caron glasses. So you have your hand around it and

heat from your hand warms up the bourbon. I don't know. Those are double walls.

You don't know that. I thought it was about the way it helps the smell.

I thought your hand's supposed to warm it and then martinis where it's a long stand,

you hold it down here so your hand doesn't warm it. If that's true,

Ellie, cut all that out because it sounds like film knows what he's talking about. I don't like that.

Hey, so I'd be remiss if I didn't ask. You guys know Buffalo Trace is building

Rick houses on their property but kind of up the hill and they're going to try to capture the same

humidity and temperature and feel of what they've been measuring in their Rick houses now.

So it's going to flood the market with product. I don't think it's going to be

as hard to get. I think people are going to want to differentiate between

the old and the new. Do you think they have a shot of making that happen?

There's a marketing play there. There always is. They're going to say that turns out we were wrong.

This was a special edition so and so and so that tastes like this.

And then it's going to divide into two parties. Exactly. That's going to both of them will be

just as hard to buy and everyone's going to buy both of them. They're just coming off of a massive

flood. You know that? Like massive, massive flood. But that's a neat place. We toured the

facility last year and actually I go down to Louisville once a year and I'll usually hit a few

distilleries. I've never prepared so I don't usually set up the tours. That was the first

time I actually did a tour. Yeah. Amazing, amazing place if you've ever been through Buffalo Trace.

I have and it's cool because it's like if you've ever drank in EH Taylor, it was in that building.

No other building. You know and they've got one for Blanton's and they've got one.

The little Blanton's bottling operation in that little bitty room.

Yeah, we weren't buying there just wrapping pallets. That's the volume you're doing.

One person's dipping the wax, really? Yeah. Couldn't two people do that?

Tom just gifted me a bottle of Blanton's last. All of a sudden we're in his office and he's like

goes into some weird, separates a shelf from his desk and he pulls out a bottle of Blanton's.

Yeah, definitely a hidden bourbon. So then we got to sample that last week. So thanks, Tom.

Blanton's good. It holds up. We went for a while there. I probably went

a year and a half or two years without even having Blanton's again because it

had gotten so crazy and then you go back and you're like, hey, you know what, it's

it does hold up. It stands the test of time. Always delivers and one of the best bottles.

What is your absolute favorite Buffalo Trace product?

So I'd blind tasted the Wellers without the CYPB and I gravitated to 107 over the 12-year.

I liked it. I just liked it better. But I got to tell you buck for buck, the special reserve.

That's great. It's just a great daily drinker. Have you had the CYPB?

So funny story on the CYPB.

Mike was coming on your podcast and he's like, hey, these guys drink bourbon and I need to

bring a bottle. What do you recommend? I'm like, well, do you want them to remember you?

I want to be remembered. I'm like, I saw this. It's not crazy.

So I haven't had it. Oh, I've heard good things. Do we have a couple of them sitting right here?

But she encouraged the purchase of one to bring to the CYPB is really, really good.

If you got room in that class.

He's got a little less over there to sample it and carry even better.

I think it's tough to beat the 107 is great. You just can't find it anywhere.

The Weller 12, the Weller 12 is at the top of my list. Me too. It's just so good.

So we blinded it and no one knew what they were drinking. So it was just like one through five

because I had the blue as well. Was I was I was I part of that? The full proof is tough.

I think I was part of that blind. I feel like the full proof in a blind test,

you're going to pick that every as bad. Yeah. Well, you'll know it. It's identifiable. It's

spicy. Yeah. We got the whole lineup up there. Nobody has a single barrel yet. Orange one.

I've got one. I do. I've got one, but I haven't opened it because it's the value of it versus

like the reviews. That's really spicy, too. It's hotter than the others. Yeah, it's very.

Yeah. I don't know that it holds up to the 12 in my opinion, but it's there's a placebo associated

with it because it's so rare, but it is good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've got I've got one to finish

out the color run and then I've got another one to drink, but the same way it's like, yeah. Yeah.

Then there's no point in opening it. But then I mean, the in the Pappy collection, it's tough to

compete with, you know, like the lot be 12 years. Just it's my all time favorite out of any

yeah. Urban out there. I think it's just always delivers until you drink the 15 year and then

you're like, you know what, screw it. The 15 years. Yeah, the 50 year old good. But that's just

that's a that's special. They're very, yeah, they're very proud of it. Yeah. It's hard to find.

And then when you do find it, somebody is reluctant to let it go. But then when you start

drinking some of the tinier, the tinier is good. The old rip, all of it is amazing back in the

early years of like Burr before it got popular used to go. It wasn't you can just grab bottles off

the shelf. But if you knew the guy, they just give you a bottle like at any liquor store, it was

readily you could buy one like 70 bucks for a 10 year. Yeah. Yeah. 120 for a 12. We used to buy

Blanton's at the Jewel and you can get a six pack price and it was like 20% off if you get six of

them. So me and two of my buddies, we would buy a six pack and then split it. We just get to and

joke like, Oh, it's amazing. You're never going to run out of this stuff. And then right fast forward

a few years and you can't find it now. And I've got the gold, the straight from the barrel. Yeah.

A bunch of different types. A good collection. And at the end of the day,

you just got to drink them all. You got to try them all. Yeah, you know, you got black and red.

Yeah. I told you. Yeah, it's it's it's like anything you collect. You got to finish out the

collection. It's just it's fun to look for as we try as we travel. What happens is he goes,

I got a liquor store we got to go to. And he's he'd researched like the local liquor stores

were ever part of the country and and we take some diversion to some liquor store and he's

you never know. I mean, so the thrills in the hunt is every once in a while, you just find

something that's a little dusty. It just feels especially when you like you said the hunt,

if you wanted to get on auction houses, whatever and just acquire, you could pay whatever you

wanted to pay and get on place. Right. But the walk in and you'd be like, Oh my God, that's

you're serious. It's right there. And you try to play all cool. Like you're doing something like

I'll just I'll just have I'll just purchase this bottle. I've heard that it was good. I don't know

if it is. It is whatever you there's a chance to be like $1,700 or 70. Yeah. Remember, we went to

Canapa and we stopped at that like just I was ready to ship it all home. Random like liquor

store the floors run even you felt like it was falling off the side of the mountain. We walk in

the back and they like two bottles of the old fits to canter. It's a 12 year, 13 year, 13 year

anything you wanted pretty much. Yeah. And that retail like I'll take one of those. I'll take

one of those. I'm thinking then you're talking to do it at Canapa's place. You're like,

if I give you like a button, could you like ship it back to me? I'll give you my address

because it was literally one of those scores of like, Holy shit. You can't leave without it.

Right. Old fits stuff. Old fits to canter. That stuff is great as well. Well, the new one,

we killed the bottle at my house. What was it the eight year? That 13 year right there.

It's a new one or seven year. It might be. Yeah, the new it's the bottle and bond one. Yeah,

that's a good standard. It is really good. That red labeled to canter that 13 year.

That is so that's a distillery only purchase. Yeah, that was a cool. We had another. It was

a gift of a of a guest. It's amazing. Phenomenal. Oh, phenomenal. Fellows, it's been amazing.

Appreciate it. Thank you for making this special trip out here to do this in person.

I thought it was very important to do it one in person. Number two, both of you together.

I think there's a lot of synergy there. It's good to see the both sides of it.

Got the message out to the masses to the people that are going to be like,

like, why they do this? Why they do that? Now you already understand why

builders go there, have a fucking good time, reach out to SEMA, get your cars there,

exhibitors. If you're going to do that, bring it. Maybe you just don't have a good product.

If nobody wants to come see it, maybe you don't have a good product. Make the product better.

I didn't say that. That was Josh's mouth. So another way to say it,

I always like to say, if someone was giving away $100 bills, they'd find you. If you were

giving away $100 bills, figure out what your $100 bill is. I want to say that's a better way to

say it. He speaks more eloquently than you. That's a fucking high bar there.

Appreciate it. Thank you guys for putting on an awesome show, giving us the platform to showcase

our wares. Absolutely. It's been phenomenal for our industry and our business. We appreciate it.

You guys have been great partners and you guys bring the noise, so we appreciate that.

Looking forward to many, many more. We'll see you again next week.

SEMA’s Tom Gattuso & Warren Kosikov

About this episode

Ford Expedition

Chevrolet Camaro

Chevrolet Chevelle

Ford Maverick

Ford Ltd

Chevrolet Corvair

Pontiac Firebird

Ford Taurus

Rabbit Diesel Rabbit

BMW Series Bmw

Volkswagen Rabbit

Volkswagen Gti

Oldsmobile Cutlass

Toyota Crown

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from Oil and Whiskey with Roadster Shop