What To Expect at SEMA 2021
Design EyeQ is going to SEMA! #semashow
What is SEMA, anyway?
SEMA is the Special Equipment Market Association, a trade organization for the motor vehicle aftermarket. But SEMA is best known for hosting an enormous, outrageous, and profoundly influential trade show in Las Vegas every year.
What can you expect from this event? We’ll walk you through some of the key features, give you some helpful advice for navigating the chaos, and share what we’re most excited to see this year.
First Impressions
As you pull up to the Las Vegas strip, you’ll see a cloud of smoke rising above the Westgate Hotel.
That’s because cars like this one are doing burnouts in the parking lot. In front of the hotel, there are rows of million-dollar cars, all custom. There are enormous crowds of people, all of them industry professionals, packed together and talking shop. All this, and you haven’t even entered the convention center yet. Once you’re through registration (which took us about an hour last time, so be prepared) you can begin to strategize. That’s right: strategize. Trust us. You’ll need to.
Though SEMA can feel a lot like Disneyworld for car enthusiasts, the event isn’t just fun and games. It is a great opportunity for industry professionals to learn and network. SEMA is an organization that highly values diversity and entrepreneurship. There are speakers, seminars, panels, happy hours for networking, and even a Shark Tank-ish startup competition. We recommend prioritizing one seminar/speaker a day. SEMA is a marathon. Pace yourself.
The Heart & Soul
When you peel back the many layers of SEMA, what is at the core? What compels this massive throng of people to gather? What is it that unites them?
Short answer: cars.
In order to attend SEMA, you have to be in the auto industry. But in order to enjoy SEMA, you have to love cars. Though there is an overwhelming number of vehicles at the event, there are really six main categories:
JDM / Tuners / Drift
Japanese Domestic Manufacturing
Here, you’ll find small cars with big spoilers, shiny wheels, and flashy graphics. Toyotas, Subarus, Mazdas and the like are customized to perform all the cool car stunts you see in Gymkhana (or, alternatively, Farmkhana).
American Muscle Cars
Hot Rods // Drag Racers // Pro Touring
These are the classic American muscle cars, only on steroids: outrageously powerful, aggressively flashy, but typically lower tech than their JDM counterparts. For many car enthusiasts, these drag racers will forever be the gold standard. Rebuilds of these cars -- even the traditionally unpopular ones -- have a big following at SEMA.
Off-road Vehicles
Rock Crawlers, Mall Crawlers, and everything between
There’s a lot of variety among SEMAs off-road vehicles. You can find big, rugged 4x4 vehicles that look like they just returned from the Outback. But there are also chromed-out mall crawlers with big lights everywhere. There are pickup trucks with bodies lifted three feet off the ground, rock crawlers with monstrous tires, and million-dollar overland rigs you can attach to your truck or Jeep. Whether they are built to survive the apocalypse or just boggle the mind, there’s something in this category for everyone.
Exotics
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Millionaires take Italian super cars -- some as expensive as the Bugatti -- cut them to pieces, and customize them with body kits, turbos, brakes, interiors, and/or fat tires. Now, to some people, that may sound insane. How could you improve a vehicle that costs half a million dollars? But to the few, the proud, the SEMA-goers, these exotics are works of art. You know you’d love to roll up in something like this widebody Lamborghini.
Audio // Electronics // Hydraulics
Like the exotics, the audio/electronic/hydraulic vehicles may lack subtlety.
Most of them are kept outside because their stereos are so loud they’ll give you either brain damage or some form of radiation. But these cars are so fun. You’ll see the classic 1964 Impala with all the crazy moves, convertibles with gorgeous leather interiors, and cars so loaded down with stereos they can’t even drive. If that’s not SEMA, I don’t know what is.
Romantic Recreations
On a more serious note, we have the romantics: the people who do incredible restorations of old cars.
Tina Mattison, the co-owner of our studio, especially loved a recreation of the 1950s Mercedes Gullwing. It was gorgeous. There’s also a push to take these classic cars and make them modern -- sometimes even making them electric.
Our Strategy
Now that you have a general idea of what you’ll see at SEMA, we’ll share our own aspirations for this year’s show.
The convention is divided into four “halls,” with show cars and stunt areas located outside. Because it’s such an enormous, sprawling event, our plan is to visit one hall a day, and strategically visit the hall where our speaker/seminar is located. It takes a long time to move from hall to hall, so give yourself plenty of time to get where you need to be.
As for the educational opportunities this year, we’re excited to attend the Women in Leadership seminar, the Future Trend seminar, and listen to Dave Smith, CEO of Factory Five, talk about his industry experience. But really, we just can’t wait for the glorious, unruly spectacle of it all.
We are pumped. It’s going to be one wild ride. You’ll want to stay tuned for our follow-up SEMA review.
Bring it on, #semashow