While GreenBuild took place a few weeks ago in Chicago, others in the industry were in Boston for the annual Build Boston event. Many industry suppliers were in attendance and report th

Glassopolis was one of many industry-related companies that exhibited at Build Boston which took place last week.

at a variety of audiences including glaziers, architects, general contractors and building owners were very interested in industry products.

Impressive Attendance
“The hall has been full of people with crowds in the aisles,” says Rob Botman, general manager of Glassopolis.

Doug DeRusha, sales representative for C.R. Laurence, agreed, saying, “This is probably among the most attendance the show has seen. We had a constant flow of attendees.”

Many at the show said this means some good news for the industry.
“This is a good reflection of the economy that architects are now busy,” DeRusha said. “We do see an uptick in the economy.”

Devin Bowman from Technical Glass Products agreed with that assessment.
“A few of our customers are saying that for 2011 they have a nice backlog, which was encouraging,” he said.

Customers looking to buy had plenty of glass-related products to choose from. DeRusha reports that this was different than in recent years.
“From a glass standpoint, we were one of a couple glass related companies who exhibited the last few years,” he said. “This year there were six glass distributors, several shower door companies and specialty glass companies.”

Products on Display
De Rusha added that C.R. Laurence displayed a little bit of everything for the industry, including its balanced doors, custom metal, and glass railings. The company offered products for both the commercial and residential industries, as did many exhibitors.

While Schott was at GreenBuild talking about its Schott Pyran C2C story, Glassopolis, which is partnering with Schott on this product, took the product to Build Boston. 

The company also presented the Schott Pyran Platinum fire-rated story to architects, contractors and specifiers who were in attendance.

“The architects like the Cradle-to-Cradle eco-certification story for Platinum, since its the first and only fire-rated glazing to have such a rating,” Botman said. “While the glass contractors we talk to like its price and quality competitiveness, we’ve had fun at this show since there is steady traffic and we get a mix of things to talk about with the different groups of attendees.”
While Build Boston is deemed more of a regional event, some companies say it is the perfect venue to see existing customers as well as new ones.

“In the world of trade shows we’ve taken more of a regional approach, as attendance at national shows like CSI, GlassBuild America, etc. have been declining, etc.,” Bowman said. “With these regional shows we see more glaziers and get more contact with our customers and spend a fair amount of time talking to them about existing projects.”