Thermoforming event rebounds after Hurricane Irma

Fort Worth, Texas — The Society of Plastics Engineers' thermoforming division rebounded with its 2018 Thermoforming Conference in Fort Worth, after Hurricane Irma canceled last year's event in Orlando, Fla.

Conference Chair Jim Arnet said the Fort Worth conference, held Sept. 24-26 at the Fort Worth Convention Center, marked the first time the Thermoforming Conference was held in Texas.

Attendance was about 700. Attendees toured the show floor and heard presentations.

As an added Texas touch, instead of the usual certificate, speakers got a fifth of Texas whiskey.

"It's been an extremely successful show. We have had a lot of people coming in from states and from areas that normally wouldn't go to the upper Midwest to visit shows. We've had over 100 walk-ins. That is phenomenal," said Arnet, who is director of sales and marketing for Hagans Plastics Co. Inc., a thermoformer in Grand Prairie, Texas.

As a Texan, Arnet set the tone by riding a horse — named Rainey — into the evening reception and welcoming attendees to the Lone Star State.

Division board members sported red bandanas to carry through the Texas theme.

The Fort Worth Thermoforming Conference gave the industry a boost of energy.

Thermoforming division Treasurer Edward Probst said canceling last year's show in Orlando cost the division about $100,000. The hotel did not charge the division anything and returned the deposit money, he said. But the division still had to pay for things like already printed promotional items and signage, the awards, deposits made for the caterer for an after-party, and the outside event planner who handled negotiating with the hotel and setting up the conference location, Probst said. Another charge was credit card fees for giving refunds to attendees who paid in advance.

The annual conference is a big moneymaker for the thermoforming division. Probst said the division builds up a contingency fund, so if a conference gets canceled or has very low attendance, the division can continue to fund important work like scholarships and matching funds to help schools buy thermoforming equipment.

The 2017 show wiped out by Irma was not the first time a Thermoforming Conference had to be canceled. Division leaders decided to cancel the 2009 conference because of the Great Recession. They went ahead with the 2001 conference Milwaukee, which started just four days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but attendance suffered.

A show's event planners can't always predict every problem. But Probst, who runs Probst Plastics Consulting in Wauwatosa, Wis., said Irma taught the division one thing: "The lesson learned is, if you have a conference in September, you can't do it on the Gulf Coast or Eastern seaboard. And that's just the reality of it — unless you feel like you're willing to take that risk."

The 2019 conference is scheduled for Sept. 9-11 in Milwaukee.