World of Concrete, Tise West and Coverings

World of Concrete

CONCRETE REPAIR AND CEMENT ADDITIVES  

The World of Concrete trade show took place at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada (USA) January 17-20. Attendance was down from 60,000 in 2016 to 50,000 in 2017. This decrease occurred because of the simultaneous international show for the construction industries, CONEXPO-CON/AGG,also attended by Mapei Corp., the American subsidiary of the Mapei Group, which is held only once every three years.  Both the Mapei Concrete Restoration Systems (CRS) Division, including Below-Grade Waterproofing, and the Concrete Admixtures Division represented by GRT, acquired by the Group in 2014 (see Realtà Mapei International no. 48) had booths at the 2017 WOC.  In the South Hall of the Convention Center, the CRS Division displayed its portfolio of products using a new space providing two meeting rooms, a storage room for literature, and a mixing room for the demo team. In addition, elevated stations held applied samples, which were a focus of conversations between Mapei representatives and attendees.  The center of the Mapei booth was occupied by a demo stage where Mapei Demo Team showed numerous attendees the features and benefits of Mapei concrete repair mortars (PLANITOP 11 SCC), screeds (TOPCEM PREMIX and TOPCEM PRONTO), products for structural strengthening (CARBOPLATE) and coatings and sealers (PLANISEAL WR and PLANISEAL WR40). These products are manufactured and distributed on the American market by Mapei Corp. In the North Hall, the Mapei/GRT sales team met with customers from around the country, as the Concrete Admixtures division continues to grow from a regional to a national supplier for concrete contractors on large projects. The Mapei representatives highlighted superplasticizers for ready-mix concrete and products such as POLYCHEM 850 multi-range water reducing admixture. In 2017, Mapei introduced its Cement Additives Division (C-ADD) at the WOC with the Mapei/GRT booth. Dr. H. Wang, Technical Manager for the C-ADD division in the Americas, was on hand to speak with cement producers about Mapei’s cement additives and other products that can help reduce the amount of energy required to produce cement, thus lowering the cement factories’ carbon footprint.  As every year, Mapei held a VIP hospitality event in the CRS booth to announce and celebrate the 80th anniversary of the company with customers and friends.  

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Tise West

ENTHUSIASM AND GREAT INTEREST AROUND MAPEI BOOTH  

This year attendance at TISE (The International Surface Event) West was 37,055, an increase of 7% over the 2016 numbers.  A big feature of the Mapei booth was the celebration of the company’s 80th birthday. After 80 years, Mapei is stronger than ever as the world leader of materials for construction and flooring. Mapei Americas is celebrating the anniversary with a giveaway of some delightful presents to contractors who use Mapei products, like an Arctic Cat Wildcat X recreational off-highway vehicle with side-by-side seating, and a Colnago V1-R road bike, just to mention a couple.  At the Mapei booth, TISE attendees saw many demonstrations. On the spotlight were MAPEGUARD UM, a waterproofing and vapor-pressure-equalizing underlayment membrane that provides crack suppression for use under ceramic tile and stone installations, for both residential and commercial applications.  Visitors also got to see demonstrations of ULTRAPLAN EXTREME 2 self-leveling underlayment. It is especially formulated for leveling interior horizontal concrete surfaces where environmental controls are not operational or the building is not enclosed.  In addition, ULTRABOND ECO 373 was introduced, a universal pressure-sensitive multi-flooring adhesive. It was designed for the installation of a wide variety of resilient flooring types.  Mapei was well-represented at TISE West with speakers giving presentations at the conference portion of the program, like the Technical Services Manager Jim Whitfield, and Michael Granatowski, National Sales Manager for Architectural and Commercial Projects.  During the trade-show, Mapei hosted its traditional VIP Hospitality Event in the Mapei booth. This event is held each year to show Mapei’s appreciation for its distributors, contractors and architectural/design guests. The 80th anniversary was celebrated with cupcakes decorated with an 80 symbol and edible glitter over Mapei blue frosting. Everyone enjoyed the festive spirit of the event.  The Design & Construction Week® (DCW), co-located with the NAHB International Builders’ Show® (IBS) and the National Kitchen & Bath Industry Show® (KBIS) took place a week before TISE West  in Orlando, Florida. The IBS and KBIS shows brought together more than 80,000 builders, general contractors, remodelers, designers, flooring professionals, as well as product specifiers from around the globe. Mapei participated with a booth at the event.

Coverings

GREAT SUCCESS FOR THE NEW TRANSLUCENT GROUT AND FOR THE SEMINARS HELD BY MAPEI EXPERTS

Coverings 2017, the international tile and stone expo, was booming this year, with more than 28,000 attendees. This figure equals a 9% increase over 2016 attendance when the show was held in Chicago, and a 10% increase over the 2015 show in Orlando. Over 90 countries were represented by 1100 exhibitors in 43,200 m² of space at the Orange County Convention Center.

Mapei’s booth was a hot spot at the show with the launch of Flexcolor 3D, a ready-to-use translucent specialty grout with an iridescent effect. Flexcolor 3D comes with 10 different effects, including metallic shades, neutrals and colors. The characteristics of this innovative grout drew designers, contractors and the media to demonstrations held in the booth, and they stayed afterward to collect brochures, color charts and applied samples. Mapei gave away tiny flash lights that highlighted the iridescent effects, and these quickly became a collector’s item at the show.

Another popular product at the Mapei booth was new Mapeguard UM, a lightweight, waterproofing and vapor-pressure-equalizing underlayment membrane that provides crack suppression for use under ceramic tile and stone installations which stroke the attention of contractors and installers because it functions as an uncoupling membrane also for polymer-modified mortars.

There were over 65 conference sessions at Coverings 2017, just to mention a couple: the panel  Technical Services Manager Dan Marvin sat on about the new standards for thin (gauged) large tile, or the panels participated by Cris Bierschank, Sustainability Manager for Mapei Americas and Mikaela Decio, Environmental Sustainability Manager for Mapei Italy titled “Health, Safety, Environment, Design: Selling Tile Sustainability” (see box on the opposite page). Bierschank also gave two mini lectures on “Beginner Blogging: Simple Tips for Connecting with Customers.”