Day One Recap of IRE 2023

The Coffee Shop crew goes over the events and happenings of the first day of the IRE Expo 2023.

Editor's note: The following is a transcript of a conversation the Coffee Shop crew had after day one of the International Roofing Expo 2023. 

Karen Edwards: Hello, this is Karen and we're talking about day one of the IRE Expo. Do you know how many people were here today? My goodness, I heard that 20,000 people were registered for the IRE. And people waited in line up to two hours to get their badge just to get in the show. Yes, it is a record attendance. It was great. Tim, you are working the booth.

Tim Ellsworth: I was I was working.

Karen Edwards: What was traffic like there? Busy?

Tim Ellsworth: It's very busy. Yeah, our contractors asking about if it's kind of shot. They want to know what we really do. A lot of them. 50% did not know what we do. Yeah. And so I tried to enlighten them. What do we do? We're a platform for roofing contractors across the board metal composition, TPO, EPDM. Any form of roofing. You go to our site, you can get information. And there's we've got webinars, podcasts, classifieds, forums, forums. Yeah, news. We have four to five new articles every day. We have a team of writers and a team of editors that keep you updated on what's the latest and greatest in roofing so anything you want to know or learn about roofing that's new and advanced.

Heidi Ellsworth: And those roofing contractors who come by, loved him, I know they love him. And it's because he's a roofer. He's roofed. He's done construction. He's been with RoofersCoffeeShop now for a very long time. And he, it's been such a great thing and then he sends him right on down to the soundstage. And we had, oh my gosh, a full day of soundstage. We had people there starting at 10:30 this morning with Chicago Metals, which with the new announcement of Alina being president. So cool, huge. So cool, young, brilliant woman. She’s the daughter of the owner and they are going to be focusing on WIBE which is Women in Business Enterprises. It that was that was a great way to start the day for me. That was really cool.

All day long. We had great conversations, but the Coffee Conversations that we had with Angie and Kent and Paul and Jason. Wow sponsored by SRS Distribution, it was amazing. What a great conversation and the dynamics of the people in that conversation was really cool too. So I just think we had a… oh, and then it went to Mollie Elkman. And I got a signed book. And she was signing books over it IB Roofs. She wrote the The House That She Built. Yeah. And I got some time to talk to her, amazing lady, and it's so cool that we were able to sponsor with IB Roof Systems to bring her here to sign books. So yeah, a lot of people were there. They all saw us. It was great.

Karen Edwards: I saw the book at the soundstage when I was packing up. Yes, put it under the table so it would stay safe. We did interviews all day. And so if you didn't see it, if you weren't here, go to our YouTube channel and watch those interviews. We talked to our partners. We talked about what's happening at their booth. We talked about new promotions, new products, so many exciting things that were happening.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah, it was a great day. Lauren, how was your trip to all the booths?

Lauren White: Good. James and I went to the booths and did interviews there too. We got a spectrum of videos. We got some people that just wanted to do a short TikTok of ‘Hey, come to our booth.’ We got other people who just wanted to talk about what they're doing and what they're hoping to get out of the show. And then we had others who we got to ask more questions of and just chat with and have a nice conversation and I mean, CertainTeed, Owens Corning showed us around their booth, we talked with S-5!®. We were busy all day two. We were running back and forth from booth to booth.

Tim Ellsworth: How many steps?

Lauren White: I think we’re at 20,000. It's a big show. It goes on for a long time.

Tim Ellsworth: Wow, that's far. I know I noticed. Yeah. It was crowded everywhere.

Lauren White: And we got some fun video of product demonstrations. The Catch-All was one of them. That was really cool. We got to see it. They have a demonstration going.

Karen Edwards: One of our new partners.

Lauren White: Yes, one of our new people. And yeah, and then so we went from that to… we sponsored the First Tmers event before the Welcome Party, sponsored by ABC Supply. At the House of Blues and we handed out fandanas that were co-branded with TAMKO® bright green,

Tim Ellsworth: High-res green.

Lauren White: And they were very fun. And we, after we finished handing out all of them. We went downstairs and people were already wearing them. Yeah, it's really cool to see. Yeah, headbands and scarves and accessories for their purses.

Heidi Ellsworth: Very cool. I love it. It was That was great. It was great. I love the first timers getting together and then we come to the Welcome Party. But after that we did go to Hunter Panels and their hospitality and it was really nice. It was I had a lot of fun. It was fun. Yeah. So what did you guys like about that?

Karen Edwards: PacMan?

Tim Ellsworth: Well, Lauren ruled PacMan.

Lauren White: Second round I did first round I did not.

Heidi Ellsworth: We did a lot of air hockey too. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, I mean that just for everyone reading this article. Really what happens is these manufacturers put together gatherings for those who come to shows and it's just a chance to network. See old friends, make new friends. And they're important. They are just as important as a trade show. It's interesting. How the synergy of all these events that really make it worthwhile.

Karen Edwards: So I'm gonna give your voice a break, Heidi, and back up, I want to back up to what's happening at the Beacon booth. Beacon has an entire display of Stetson cowboy hats. Yes. And if you're a contractor, and you go to the Beacon booth, and you show them that you have the Beacon Pro Plus app on your phone, you get a Stetson hat that is steamed and custom formed to your head.

Tim Ellsworth: Oh my gosh.

Karen Edwards: What an amazing deal. Our friend Tracy got one. She's with Tri State Roofing and she got herself a nice Stetson with some sparkle headband on it. Yeah. So fun. And you know our friends at Owens Corning have pinball machines. I saw someone else with a PacMan game. We may have to track that booth down. I don't remember which one it was. So we may have to track that down because we did have fun. Competition is fierce.

Tim Ellsworth: I like it.

Karen Edwards: So tomorrow. Tomorrow morning, we're going to start our day at the student competition. And we're going to cheer on the future generation of roofing and we're going to have an amazing day at the show. We're going to be broadcasting live all day. And then we will wind up at the NRCA Award Ceremony and Reception. And we'll have the winners. We’ll be sending a press release out that evening to let everybody know who won. We're so excited about it. And I think that wraps up Tuesday. Tuesday is a wrap people. Good night, sleep time.

See you tomorrow!

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