Are you truck show ready?
Today kicks off the first day of the beloved Mid-America Truck Show!
Today kicks off the first day of the beloved Mid-America Truck Show! There are ample benefits to attending a truck show whether you’re a driver, aspiring owner operator, single truck owner, fleet owner, or just a fan of big rigs! From the networking, the deals, the freebies, or the polished chrome, there are festivities for everyone and anyone who attends!
Make sure you dress to impress… – YOUR FEET. The Mid-America Truck show is seemingly never ending and will have you covering at least a few miles of stomping ground in a single day. MATS boasts a whopping 1,000,000 square feet, over 800 vendors, and 40 different events over their 3-day schedule.
Have you been holding off for a specific headset to go on sale or a piece of chrome that you want a guaranteed fit on? Most vendors will have some serious deals going on that they’ll call a “truck show special” – sometimes the pricing is the same, and they’re selling their stuff off to unsuspecting customers, but if you’ve done your research, then you’ll know when you’ve struck a deal!
This also includes vendors for more complex trucking equipment that would need to be installed at a shop. You can meet with the vendor at the show and negotiate a price for parts and labor with their approved third-party providers. We've been able to save hundreds of dollars with this one tip on things like truck body accessories and automatic tire chains.
Say you’re having an issues with your tools, parts, chrome, or trucking tech, you can also meet with the supplier in person and most companies are prepared to handle any warranty or claim issues at the show. If they can’t handle it for you there in person, you can expect to leave with either an open claim or direct contact for your issue.
Of course, you can’t forget the freebies and the big rigs! Walking down a single isle at the show will leave you with more free stuff than you can hold with both hands. Most booths will have giveaways that can include tools, cleaning supplies, vendor samples, and branded goodies to give to your friends and family. Trucks will cover the showroom floor, but the annual truck show contest will be at Lot N in front of the West and South Wing.
If you do plan to attend, make sure to stop by and say hi to some of our partners in our small world of expediting!
Fedex Custom Critical - 67057 (West Wing)
Panther 32405 - (South Wing)
Landstar - 16148 (North Wing)
Show Information:
The Mid-America Trucking Show is from Thursday, March 20th – Saturday, March 23rd and is held at the Kentucky Expo Center (KEC) in Louisville, KY. Parking is available on the KEC lot for rates ranging from $12-$80. They also offer free offsite overnight truck parking across from the KEC, with free shuttles to and from the show during show hours. The paid truck show parking lot is at 937 Phillips Lane, Louisville, KY 40209. The free parking lot is across from Gate 1 at 1032 Phillips Lane, KY 40209.
To register for the show, click here.
For a breakdown of the events, click here.
For an interactive map of the show room floor and list of exhibitors, click here.
We're planning to attend the Mid-America Truck Show this weekend, so if you’re out there and would like to meet us, give us a shout!
Feel free to send us any shots of yourself, or anything you think should be highlighted, along with your thoughts on this years show, and we’ll feature you on our next article!
Run Hard - Dream Big,
The First Florida Trucking Show
The first Florida Trucking show made some serious noise for their first time around the block.
The first Florida Trucking show made some serious noise for their first time around the block. It was held at the Broward Convention Center, just minutes from the shore in downtown Fort Lauderdale. A well known event center for locals, that sits right off of the even more popular, 17th street causeway, known for it’s great selection of bars, restaurants, and inter-coastal views. An area where you can glance over your shoulder to see an endless row of multi-million yachts, while walking into the entrance of the building.
The show was well organized; featuring ascending rows of booths matching the show colors, with the halls lined in numerical order, open wide for a clear and completely uncluttered view of the entire floor. The organizers made way for a multitude of locally owned and operated businesses from Miami-Dade, Broward, and West Palm to share the limelight; including everything from custom truck interior designers, chrome experts, discount truck tire shops, dispatching services, and trucking attorneys. Leaving room for a handful of out of state businesses traveling on a short flight from Texas, to as far as Australia. We even saw a few familiar faces in expediting; such as Fedex Custom Critical, Panther, Landstar, Tenstreet, and Wreaths Across America.
We spent a lot of time at the Adrenalin Events Booth; where we met Mike Hart, the owner and creator of Adrenalin. A virtual driving simulation that gave the handler a full scope of the intricacies of driving a tractor trailer. We spoke of our shared passion to increase safety, and how valuable it was to get people familiar with the equipment and maneuvers before getting behind the wheel on public roadways. He’s spent the last few years perfecting this equipment and selling the software to trucking schools and trucking companies, in multiple countries around the world, and was starting to branch into the U.S., having just flown in from Australia the night before the show. Of course we had to test it out ourselves, and we can say that the realism and accuracy is uncanny. Mike’s creation gives you the full ability of VR; from adjusting your views from within the cab as if you were turning your head, turning on your windshield wipers to keep your windshield clear of the rain, look both ways before crossing the intersection, setting your four way flashers, dropping your trailer, and setting your parking brakes.
Then we had to make a pit stop for the hilariously named, “Super Trucker” challenge, where the winner with the longest time holding onto the pullup bar won a 65’ smart tv. The winner had the record for 2 minutes and 40 seconds.
At the back of the hall, they featured a truck show first, an RC trucking booth! The area was roughly 20x20 and was lined with a counter height track so you could watch the trucks go up the ramps and laugh manically as they passed by you on the bridge. We got to watch the expert, and very entertaining, RC handlers at work. We watched as one connected a cab-over to a set of Fedex doubles, and then proceed to pull them out of a very narrow spot between some other parked bobtails and trailers. Beside him with another handler working an excavator on a pile of rubber mulch, and meticulously lining the forks to empty over a small dump truck. That dump truck would later carry the mulch to a different area on the RC’s city landscape; that featured full fuel lanes at a Pilot truck stop, a Blue Beacon Truck Wash, a big bunk tractor on the CAT Scale, and suspension bridges similiar to the infamous Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa, Florida. This booth was hosted by BamBam RC Trucking, and this crew knew how to keep the show going, with people lining up shoulder to shoulder, to gleefully watch the spectacle.
Last but not least, you can’t have a truck show without some killer custom rigs.
We decided to feature the show stopper of the line up.
Before ending the show, we met with Jesus; the organizer, who also happens to be the mastermind behind the Texas Trucking Show, and the California Trucking Show. When we asked him what brought him to Fort Lauderdale, he said he’d been doing this for quite some time, and thought it was time to host a show in South Florida, and we’re so glad he did!
See you at the show next year, because you can bet that we’ll be there!