New York — While most civilians wind down their summers during the dog days of August, industry distributors are ratcheting up the action with a host of regional events.
D&H Distributing, for one, will hold its 25th annual New England Technology Show on August 11at the Boston Marriott Quincy Hotel in Quincy, Mass. The IT and CE distributor expects close to 500 dealer, retailer and reseller customers and more than 60 manufacturer partners to attend.
The show will feature six seminar sessions throughout the day, kicking-off with a Windows 10 session from Microsoft, followed by sessions from Dell, Cisco, Intel, HP and Lenovo.
Other participating vendors will include Acer, Asus, D-Link, Kensington, Lexmark, MSI, Samsung, Seagate, Targus and Western Digital, plus first-time exhibitors Dell, Jabra, Maker Bot, XYZprinting, Otter, Asustor, Livescribe, and Toshiba’s retail hard drive unit.
D&H will also host a “K-12 Opportunity” booth at the show to help retailers promote business in the education marketplace.
Attendees are eligible for special, one-day only discounts on the show floor, and one attendee at each seminar will win a $100 American Express gift card. D&H will also offer anniversary door prizes, and will award a grand prize valued at up to $500.
“The New England Show was the first-ever of our trade shows, which we established both to help our customers develop business and to thank them for their loyalty,” said D&H marketing VP Mary Campbell. “We have made good on an enduring tradition to deliver the tools our dealers need to be successful, to grow, and to leverage emerging trends.”
Registration is free for D&H customers, who can visit dandh.com or call (800) 340-1001 for information.
Meanwhile, at least three members of the PowerHouse Alliance, the national confederation of independent distributors, are hosting trainings and workshops for their customers this month.
Among them, Salt Lake City- based Mountain West Distributors will be hosting training sessions across its territory that focus on several PowerHouse vendors. The series kicks off Aug. 13 with a Legrand training at the Mountain West’s Salt Lake City, Utah headquarters, followed by a dual Wyrestorm and Pioneer Elite training session the following week in Denver.
The company will close out the month with a Yamaha training for dealers back at company headquarters.
“Training plays a major role in what we do,” explained sales manager Garrett Breinholt. “It is vital for our sales team and dealers to stay current in the ever-changing technology landscape. We strive to offer multiple trainings per month at each of our locations and tailor the experience so our dealers get to learn and interact with multiple vendors at each session.”
Elsewhere, Volutone Distributing will continue its joint networking series with CEDIA that was launched earlier this year to provide dealers with additional opportunities to “master the network,” the distributor said, with a focus on advanced networking terminology, port address translation, and network segmentation using subnet masking and routers. The series kicks off in San Diego on Aug. 25, moves on to Van Nuys, Calif., on Aug. 26, and closes out the following day in Las Vegas.
“Having an in-depth understanding of home networks is vital to an integrator’s success, which is why we are honored to serve such a critical role in this training series with CEDIA,” said Volutone VP Trevor Hansen. “By filling the seats during this series of workshops at [our] locations, we are ensuring that our dealers have the necessary networking product knowledge and are able to sharpen the skills they will need to become a CEDIA residential networking specialist.”
Finally, PowerHouse member ECD is hosting a “URC Total Control Level 2” training at its Houston headquarters on August 20.
