SEMA is THE event in the car aftermarket. It makes a show at the NEC look like a market trader’s stall in Acton. So it was therefore decided that Dodo Juice would fly over, with a pallet of display and demo items, to make an appearance, spread some love and enlighten a few potential punters.

The first issue was simply getting out there, with a stand and some stock. You can’t export to a stand at a show that doesn’t exist yet. Or not very easily. And it’s not like we had forklifts and storage facilities on location. Besides, the cost of shipping our gazebo costs more than the gazebo. And SEMA didn’t allow gazebos anyway. Let’s just say that the logistics were problematic, but we eventually settled on building our stand out there, importing a few stand materials and hoping for the best.

US Customs have problems with our name

We left it a bit late to get the stand materials printed and the sample bottles produced, so we only had a week to freight everything out. This is called ‘cutting it fine’, even by air freight with a top carrier like Kamino. Matters were made worse when US Customs held the swiftly expedited pallet in their warehouse because they thought ‘Dodo Juice’ must either be something to do with livestock (dodos must still exist somewhere in the US) or foodstuffs (because of the ‘juice’). Luckily, Kamino excelled themselves and sent a representative to US Customs to explain that we make car care gear but have a daft name. The pallet arrived the day before the show, and after an expensive fork lift ride to our stand space, we began the build.

Our stand – grocer’s felt and spray paint

We hate ’normal’ at Dodo Juice, so having a generic (and expensive) third party built shell was not our style. We decided to carpet the stand in articifial grass when we got there, and buy the shelves, tables and chairs from Wal-Mart and Home Depot. There is a limit to what you can fit into a Chrysler 300C hire car, and I think we found it. A few times over. Maybe we should have hired an F150, but the Chrysler was a good little upgrade and suited pj to a tee. The finishing touch was spray painting the Dodo logo onto the carpet. And boy, did it all look good in the end.

Meetin’ an’ greetin’

Over the course of the show, we had some great times with the Autogeek guys (Autogeek being our largest US reseller) whose stand was just down the aisle from us. We were also helped out by Mike from Car Care Products, our Australian reseller, and Dan, one of our other US resellers (and his dad, Jeff). These guys were tremendous company and a great help, allowing Dom and pj to wander off and explore the miles of aisles. It took about a day just to speed walk Hall 2 (four halls!) so it really is as large as they say. We also caught up with the Autoglym team (over from the UK at their first SEMA too), Tony from Zaino, Adam from Adam’s polishes, Doug and son Chris from Grit Guard, Jay from Lake Country and some famous detailers like Todd Helme and Mike Phillips (ex Meguiars). Needless to say, it would have been rude not to have a drink or two with these guys… pitchers of Mojitos and Margaritas flowed and the beers kept on coming. It’s a great way to talk shop, do business and generally hang out.

Rest an’ relaxation

The show took up most of our time, but we were able to unwind occasionally, walking the corridors of our Casino Hotel (The Stratosphere) trying to find something decent to eat or something to do that didn’t involve gambling. There were some exclusive evening events that we either went to or decided to walk away from, upon seeing people in full evening attire. We went shooting with Dan and his dad at the Las Vegas gun club, where we insisted Dan went ‘fully auto’ with an Uzi. Dom went to the Nuclear Weapons museum. We saw the Bodies exhibition at Luxor. pj caught up with our web host in San Diego. We wanted to see Penn and Teller but there were ‘dark’ on the days we had spare.

Going home

With a large chunk of our samples given out to lucky punters, interested distributors and dealers, Dom returned home to a cold UK to do the NEC MPH show and pj carried on with the Dodo event side of things in the US, handling the Florida motor show. SEMA was fantastic fun, useful commercially and a superb experience. In true Arnie style, we’ll definitely ‘be back’.