Felder AWFS 2021 recap + pics

Just got back from Vegas and wanted to share some observations:

-Show was better attended than most of us expected. All vendors’ booths looked good. Lots of smaller, domestic CNC nesting router companies present.
-Sales conversations generally towards the larger, automated machinery such as beam saws, banders, and routers. We did sell a number of standard/classical machines but (surprisingly) little action around the K700, AD9-41, etc. If I am guessing, those customers just didn’t come to this show. Not reflective of the market in general, perhaps just this show.
-We won two AWFS Visionary awards: PCS (Preventive Contact System) for the Kappa 550 slider and for the glueBox system in our larger edgebanders.
-The PCS system is awesome and a game-changer. We took a number of orders at the show and I see strong interest, moving forward. As one of our other reps told the rest of the team, he had a shop looking at one. Owner couldn’t swallow the price, blah, blah, blah. The following week, one if his shop guys gets himself on their table saw. Pow: $40K workman’s comp claim. The owner could have could’ve had a PCS machine but instead, is paying the insurance company and still stuck with the same old table saw.
-Customers finally seem to have accepted the new normal of lengthy lead times. For most of 2021, it was denial. Now it seems to be acceptance and unerstanding, which is what we all need in order to get moving forward.

Show pics:

I did a day trip from Phoenix on Friday. It's my first time to attend the last day. Maybe it was this year, but last day was great. No traffic in Vegas, easy to get Ubers, no lines for coffee or food, and all the vendors had time to chat and it was not so noisy. I had a few key vendors to talk with and I was able to hit those three and get the details and depth I needed in just over an hour. Then chatted with a few vendor friends. Considered CNC yet again and then home. I usually meet a friend from Canada and we make it a several day affair with nice dinners etc. That's way more fun but not possible this year.

The CNC looks beefy!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Joe Jensen

I did a day trip from Phoenix on Friday. It's my first time to attend the last day. Maybe it was this year, but last day was great. No traffic in Vegas, easy to get Ubers, no lines for coffee or food, and all the vendors had time to chat and it was not so noisy.

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I think we all (vendors) really liked the new format of M-F as opposed to Tues-Sat. Hopefully it will stay this way.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chris Padilla

The CNC looks beefy!

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LOL, that's the small one! CNC routers are actually the fastest growing segment of our business here in the US. You would not believe how many vendors there were, displaying little (4X8) nesting routers at this show. It was basically router-fest.

Erik

Thanks for the Pics, Erik. It's interesting to see the tools from a different perspective than the catalog, and the size in relation to people.

Julie, you should come to the Atlanta IWF show next summer. It's at least 4X the size of the Vegas show.

Erik