By the Numbers: 2016 WWETT Show Set-Up

Go behind the scenes and learn some of the intricate details of what it takes to stage one of the largest trade shows in the world for water and wastewater industry
By the Numbers: 2016 WWETT Show Set-Up

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When Ed Fitzgerald of Jack Doheny Companies came to the first Pumper Show in 1981, he says he was the first truck through the door. Things were a bit differ- ent then. Greeting him was the show’s founder, Bob Kendall.

“There was Bob all by himself and he asked me two ques- tions: How much space do you need and where do you want to park?” Fitzgerald recalls of the way it all started 35 years ago in Nashville. “That was the first time I met Bob. He ran the only door coming into the building and it was just us and about a half-dozen trucks.”

Fast forward to 2016. The Pumper Show is now the Water & Wastewater Equipment, Treatment & Transport Show, and questions like Fitzgerald’s are answered long before vehicles arrive at the entrance to the Indiana Convention Center. They have to be in order to accommodate 599 exhibitors and over 250 pieces of equipment — a rough estimate of what is filling all 564,000 square feet of floor space in the exhibit hall. Here are a few more numbers, courtesy of Randy White at Fern Exposition & Event Services, the show’s decorator: 292,770 square feet of carpet in exhibitor booths, 135,400 square feet of carpet in the aisles, 2.5 miles of the blue and white curtains and drapes.

For some things, White can’t be as precise. The amount of tape his workers put down on Sunday to mark the exhibitor spaces in the hall? “A whole lot,” White says.

Over the course of about 60 hours beginning Sunday and going into the early morning hours of Thursday when the last piece to the puzzle — the aisle carpet — is stretched into place, up to 130 Fern employees are busy transforming a dark, empty hall into the hub of water and wastewater.

“We’re in the trenches,” says unofficial head carpet guy Dayon Jones. “That’s all there is to say.”

Within the overwhelming prospect of laying nearly 430,000 square feet of carpet, Jones has a singular focus on the prime objec- tive of his task: “Getting it tight,” he says.

The numbers behind the show stretch on, from 110 classes in 10 classrooms, to 8,181 attendees representing 3,470 companies. Here are a few more:

64. That’s the number of ounces of Windex that Tyler Zarra of Advance Pump & Equipment had gone through as of 1:30 p.m. Tuesday cleaning the tank on the company’s show truck. “It takes a lot of work to make it look like it just came out of the car wash,” he says. “We’ll be here today until they kick us out.”

250. Between icy roads and then snow, that’s the number of hazardous miles the group from Transway Systems encountered driving its show truck on the 500-mile journey from Hamilton, Ontario, to Indianapolis. “We always seem to find bad weather on our drive down,” says Gary Robinson. “We wax the truck before we leave, but by the time we get down here, it’s covered in sand and salt and we have to do it again. Two days of polishing and we’re

all set.”

160. That’s the approximate number of feet of liner Perma-Liner will use Thursday and Friday doing demos at its booth. Morgan Trouard, director of marketing, says the company will do between 6 and 8 demos each day.

45. That’s the number of minutes (on the high end) that Dar- rell Gibbs of Fleetwash and his crew can spend washing a truck to ready it for the exhibit hall. By early Tuesday afternoon, when it finally started to slow down, Gibbs says he and his crew had washed at least 100 vehicles. “Starting Monday morning it was non-stop,” Gibbs says. “We stopped at 6 p.m. with trucks still in line. Tuesday we started at 8 a.m., and it didn’t slow down until about 1 p.m.”

Move-in for the WWETT Show is now far from the days of 2 simple questions: How much space do you need, and where do you want to park?

Oh, and one final number: 3. That’s how many days you have to check out all the tools and equipment and find new ways to make your business more profitable.

Enjoy the show. 



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