In addition to visiting the many stone events on the “Spring Trade Show Circuit” so far this year — Las Vegas, Brazil, Atlanta, etc. — I took some time last month to travel to Salt Lake City, UT, for the Utah Stone Summit, which is an edition of the Marble Institute of America/Stone World Industry Education Series. I hadn’t attended one of these since last fall, so it was time to see what was new. The answer was simple: everything. These events are not simply a matter of sitting through a presentation, but rather, they are an interactive series where fabricators of all sizes and experience levels network and learn from one another. As such, each event offers a completely new experience for attendees.
The Utah event drew an audience of around 30 fabricators from the Salt Lake City region and beyond, and clearly, many of these attendees were competitors with one another. In fact, it was also apparent that a number of these competing stoneworking professionals had worked with each other at some time in the past.