NATM and NTEA Trade Show Recaps

The Spring trade show season is a busy time for Austin Hardware, as we are exhibitors at three major shows: the NATM (National Association of Trailer Manufacturers) annual convention and trade show, the NTEA (National Truck Equipment Association) Work Truck Week trade show, and the FDIC (Fire Department Instructor’s Conference) trade show.

We’ll discuss the FDIC event next month, as it wrapped too late to acquire meaningful feedback for this post. But here is a brief recap of both the NATM and NTEA events for 2024.

The NATM held its annual convention and trade show on February 14-15 at the South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV, and Austin Hardware was an exhibitor.

Although the NATM event has a relatively small number of attendees, the majority of the key decision-makers from trailer manufacturers around the country are there, making it a must-attend event for Austin.

Our new booth design is sharp, and we had a very good position on the show floor this year, which helped us to stand out. Traffic was solid and steady on the first day, then trailed off a bit on day two, which is the norm for this event. We met a lot of customers and prospects, including some heavy hitters, and distributed a great deal of literature.

As always, our products were very well received. The key products of focus at our exhibit this year included:

• Sidewall, floor, and roof bonding alternative tapes and MMAs

• 4TH GEN cleaners

• Safe Assist

• Extruded aluminum bar locks and hinges

• NEW AH 615 KIT

• NEW Drag wheels

• Redesigned dock bumpers

Our sales reps who manned our booth have reported making many new contacts and unearthing new opportunities for our products.

Despite being on the market for a few years, Safe Assist continues to generate new interest. Companies that initially balked are revisiting it as they see their competitors integrating Safe Assist into their trailers.

Our line of aluminum extruded bar locks have also proven popular, and we expect this popularity to grow as we continue to work toward filling in with additional standard lengths.

The NTEA annual Work Truck Week is North America’s largest work truck event. The convention and trade show were held on March 5-8 in Indianapolis, IN, and Austin Hardware was an exhibitor.

The event was well attended, with solid traffic through our booth daily. Our staff had the opportunity to spend quality time with many of our key customers who were in attendance. The NTEA event also represents an excellent opportunity for meeting new contacts because, as Tom Vrydaghs notes, the typical barriers to access are not in the way.

For the second consecutive year, our exhibit was primarily focused on our 4TH GEN line and other chemical products, including Sika, Plexus, Gorilla Pro, and Eck. This area represents significant opportunities for new business in the truck market. We believe we’ll exhibit our product lines more broadly as we prepare for next year's event.

We are committed to exhibiting at shows like these to display our legacy products to new prospects, introduce new products to the marketplace, and make it known that Austin Hardware will continue to be a major player in the markets we serve.