What should you tell him about attending his first show? He's excited.

Wear comfortable shoes.

I had no idea for a second.

Listen, it's, you know, she's a big girl.

Right.

So at a million three Murphy with the third largest show in the United States, physically 30 acres outdoors were real world.

Right.

Can you walk us from the car door to the show floor? And hey, it may be a first time or hey, can I bring my trailer and buy a mower at the show or does everything go through a dealer?

I think it's really cool what you're doing.

When we created the Turf Mutt Foundation, I wanted to tell, we wanted to educate kids that in turn would educate their parents.

It's called backpack programming.

It grew out of a political problem.

And we said, we have got to do a better job about educating folks about The importance of the outdoors, the importance of our green spaces, but importantly, managing them, understanding the connection to nature, pollinator support, how it controls runoff, oxygen creation, et cetera.

But I want to tell from a dog's point of view, because no one, I've watched dogs my entire life, like you, we've had them, is no one knows your yard as well as your dog.

And so they know where the fox has been and the skunk's been and the possum's been and coming in where.

Um, Listen, one of the things, you

So tell me, out of the 20 years or so you've been in this position and built over, you know, successful years, growing, growing, growing, still growing with, what are we, was it a couple of years ago, record numbers hitting? I mean, what are some of the struggles or hardships or, you know, and how do you guys get past that? And how do you move forward off of all that?

Keeping it fresh, right? We're an annual show.

There aren't a lot of shows our size that are every year.

A lot of great big shows are every four years, every three years, every two years.

But we're an annual show.

So keeping it fresh.

So remember, there's product introductions.

Yeah.

So explain the reasoning behind this, 'cause I think, in my opinion, this is a smart business move for you guys, but when, when was this kind of rumbling, uh, in the works?

That, that's exactly right.

It's a business move.

It's a business decision.

And look, we're 43 years young in Louisville.

Our show has never been bigger, never been stronger, never been better attended.

So we did get some, some questions as like, "Wow, you guys are doing great.

So have you gotten any blowback? What's the reason that someone might not wanna go to Orlando?

So with that being said, what's new? Speaking of new, what's new to expect this year at Equip Expo?

One of these we've really seen is a little back to the future kind of thing is manufacturers, as the show has gotten bigger, and more important manufacturers you're seeing a lot more debut of new product there was always new new stuff at the show right but our members our manufacturers our exhibitors are in a lot of shows oftentimes in the golf show the hardware show kind of you rental unit concrete you name it right because our products are in all these industries But what we've seen is a growing importance on Expo where you're seeing the debut of new product, new technology, robotics, software, what have you, is this is the place where they roll it out.

And one of the things we've done this year, the dealer breakfast is back.

It's an old, old thing that used to be around Expo years ago because they're now manufacturers are again, bringing dealer bodies.

So in addition to our landscape contractor friends, dealers, important dealers, large-scale dealers, the ones, manufacturers are bringing a lot of dealers back to the show.

They want to showcase that.

There's also a cost consequence.

And then I guess evolving into what's changing.

The value, and I've preached this for decades, years now like you can come here spend a couple hundred bucks on some education and you can literally leave there with certifications that uh it would be hard to get other places so tell me what is the new change with the and the update with the quip academy

all right so we listen to y'all and so i know you don't think we do but we listen y'all and so we have fantastic we don't do the education right we'll get to the rooms and we get get get the speakers here but it's It's irrigation and it's, you know, Davey and landscape management and universities, right? I'm looking at here right now.

There's Ohio State, UK, Wisconsin.

So these are the folks that put on these education sessions.

One of the complaints we had was there's so much education, I can't do it all.

And I can't do all the education and get to the show floor and do these things.

And so...

Like how do you, how have you learned to lead people in the team that you have under you?

Why should contractors who never attended or, I don't know, I've never been to it, why should they make the trip and why should this year be the year?

It's a great question.

We've got about a 50% retention rate year over year over year.

About half our attendees come every single year.

The other half come every two, every three years.

There is no other place where All these manufacturers and all this equipment and all this technology and all the software is debut, right? And so it's always the latest, greatest, the newest products, the newest innovations, the newest technologies are all in one spot.

The other thing you can do, as you well know, is you can test before you invest.

But what's something that that we don't see?