Third Time is the Charm
By Seth Maiman
As I stood in the Virginia Beach Convention Center on a sunny, warm September morning, I marveled at the gathering before me. Thousands of auto glass and window film industry participants streamed into the center for the annual Auto Glass Week™ and International Window Film Conference and Tint-Off™ conferences held jointly this year in the Commonwealth’s surfside city.
It was my third time participating in Auto Glass Week™ as public affairs director of the Auto Glass Safety Council (AGSC). We had just concluded two days of successful AGSC committee and board meetings that moved policies and standards forward, generated new ideas, and allowed our board and staff to hear from members. I was looking forward to my Auto Glass Week™ “work assignments.” They included leading an Education Seminar panel on state auto glass legislation, helping moderate the popular Industry Roundtable discussion groups and manning the AGSC booth in the convention exhibit hall.
But it was the VIBE of the event that really caught my attention. Friends from far away greeted each other; colleagues enjoyed spending time together, and competitors were excited to perform their work and compete for those lucrative honors. And the shirts. The event featured a kaleidoscope of colors and styles of every imaginable auto glass shop logo shirt alongside some of the technicians’ favorite styles.
For me, Auto Glass Week™ is always a joyous occasion. I had recently joined AGSC and readied for my first meetings in Los Angeles when the pandemic hit in March 2020. I spent almost two years hearing all about how great Auto Glass Week™ was, but it kept being postponed. For over a year, almost all business seemed to be conducted on Zoom. When we finally convened, I marveled at how tall, or short for that matter, my colleagues and Board and Committee members were because, although I felt as if I knew them already, I had never seen them standing up.
Auto Glass Week™ in Orlando 2021 was a welcome restart but was a bit muted. Participation and enthusiasm increased in San Antonio in 2022. Virginia Beach 2023 exploded into a festival. The various competitions in the Exhibit Hall make Auto Glass Week™ different from any other industry trade show. The competitors are always psyched, and their friends and colleagues stand alongside them, rooting for them as if their team were in the Super Bowl. I also love how those in the industry watch all the work with respect and interest in learning new techniques. What other convention has a car on their exhibit floor—let alone 60 or so? (Okay, maybe car shows).
The education sessions were thoughtful, well attended and generated great questions. I appreciated the response to my session on legislative matters and those who approached me afterward to discuss some of the finer points of the policy issues. I channeled Shaun White when I visualized my effort and eventual victory before my exhibit hall wheel spin, resulting in my now prized sweatshirt blanket!
Even the valiant attempt by Tropical Storm Ophelia to dampen the convention’s last day, figuratively and literally, was not successful as the Awards Dinner—the Oscars of the auto glass industry, with all the tears and thank yous—was as joyous as ever.
Auto Glass Week™ is more than a fun gathering with great competitions and free stuff in the exhibit hall. It is a sign of the maturation of an industry that requires increasingly complex skills and techniques to repair, replace and calibrate auto glass in a safe manner. It is an opportunity to learn about best practices, preview technological changes and help determine your career and business’s next steps.
It was a privilege for me to participate in my third Auto Glass Week™. I can’t wait to see you all again in Orlando in September 2024 for number four.
Seth Maiman is the director of public affairs for the Auto Glass Safety Council.
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