SEMA 2021 is a Gigantic Full-Blown Great Show After The Big Pandemic

★ On-Location Coverage, Photographs and Text by Py Pai
★ W&HM / Wheels and Heels Magazine / www.wheelsandheelsmag.com
★ Photographer: Py Pai / IG: @pypaiphoto

A Huge Come-Back Full Blown Show After the Pandemic

2021 is a big year for show and conference industries. After the 2020 across-the-board cancellation due to the big Covid pandemic, 2021 is like Spring bamboo sprouting festival. Many shows are coming back and do their best to create a normalcy and continuum of the past.

SEMA, according to the organization, is the first full blown event using Las Vegas Convention Center after the big pandemic. From the show entrance tot the convention halls with extended venue space, all process, services, and staffs are just like used to be, as if nothing has changed. This is not a small feat to be pulled off with such gigantic scale of logistics to deal with and so many people to manage and committed to work with.

We applaud the organizer's great efforts and determination to keep it going while others are still being scaled down or cancelled.

The Las Vegas weather seems to bringing it their support to the strong come-back SEMA show. It's plenty of sunshine and no disrupting phenoniums, like rain, gusts of wind, nor super low temperature. It's set up for a perfect show.

Attendance Rate Balanced And Magically Distanced

One of the pre-show concerns was that the potential low attendance rate. At the first glance at the show on the ground, it might seem to the case. There was no elbow-to-elbow traffic, nor the crowding of booths for demos or giveaways. However, there are many factors that were in play that actually made it a perfect crowd density.

The added West Hall venue created a lot of new space, so the vendors can spread out to create more foot traffic room. This also gave new space for meeting rooms and rest places.

Additionally, the brilliance in this well balanced attendee vs space density is that it gave ample space for social distancing. People can roam around the show without crowding each other in close proximity. It literally gave people much better personal breathing room to better stave off lingering Covid spreading particles. This is simply brilliance!

Another concern was that people may not observe masking rules inside such crowded indoor halls. However, most of the attendees were doing good following the guideline of indoor masking rules. The door badge checkers were also asking people to mask up before allowing them to enter. Of course there were people that were rebels but thankfully they were not the majority, keeping the public safety in better condition.

Las Vegas Convention Halls All Occupied Including The New West Hall

This year is the first year that the huge West Hall fixed construction and being included in trade shows. SEMA took the great opportunity and filled up all the South Hall, Central Hall, North Hall, and the new West Hall. This is like adding more airplane carrier surface space to already many airplane carriers show space.

Most of us are familiar with the South Hall, which is a very lifestyle section, with wheels and tires, and models. The Central Hall has many of the restoration, performances, as well as big manufacturer presences. The North Hall is always about the electronics and restyling lines of products. The newly added West Hall now has the strong presence of overlanding, truck / SUV enhancements and extensions.

With the new space added, the past floor plans provided more space for meeting rooms for business operations and rest areas as great pit stops for the exhausted attendees.

A Welcomed Significant Model Presence

We were not sure there would be any models, as models are very public facing and often not wearing masks to show their full presence. Companies may not willing to bring on models either since the Covid restrictions added more logistic overhead to travel planning and accommodations.

However, we were pleasantly surprised that there were many models at the show. Even though it was not like five or ten years ago with models left and right at many corners of the show, this year is still a spectacular year for model presence given the situation.

We met many new faces as well as some of the resurfing established models. It's great to meet them all, and they were so nice to us, that made us the trip an awesome one!

Here we met our friends including Constance Nunes, Dani Alyssa, Natalia Marie, Zoe, Janey B, Magda, Nikita Esco, Cici, Caroline Wade, as well as Taylor Kaplan, Danielle and Erin Gornik, Tiffany Tran, Tiffany Lopez, Crissy Colon, Cindy Muro, Taylor Bauer, Michelle Prado, Felsmere, Tomiko Lee, and many more!

Packed Vendors and Shiny Show Cars

With similar distributions of vendors and companies at the floor space, just with slightly different brands and logos, SEMA this year felt very familiar like nothing changed, while added new experiences and vendor exposures.

Going through SEMA still feels like going to IKEA that you can walk and walk for no ends and seeing different companies an products and showcases. For one day, we walked more than 10 miles just going in and out of different halls and outdoor show spaces. It definitely did not give you the impression that anything's changed much and that's a very good sign of great show management and SEMA community unified participation.

Show cars still took up substantial space across various vendors. As the tradition, they are the best of the best, with showroom shines and new to touch feels.

Luckily, with more sparse crowd around us, we had the rare opportunities to captures many of the cars without a lot of arms or legs in front of our camera. This made our job much easier to capture clean and beautiful images for you.

Specialty Sections: Overland, Electrical, Baja Cross-Country, Chip Foose Classic Hotrods Collection

The dedicated Overland vehicle section did not have as many as 2 years ago but the vendors around that section has dramatically increased. Overall, it's a much larger experience and commerce than we saw last time. We saw many serious overland off road equipment and parts provided overlanders enthusiasts a workable and lovable nomad lifestyle

Baja cross country Series vehicles took a showing at the SEMA show. They showed that they were built for the toughest condition and seemed to survive any tough challenges and desolate situations.

In the North Hall there's a big section for Chip Foose classic Hot Rods showcase and there are a lot of chrome and shiny part to demonstrate the heart of the Americana car culture.

Electrical vehicle section though there were not that many cars at the show but they actually did a great job in modifying very retro cars to the 21st century electrical fitting and power.

Formula Drift Drifting, Bronco Experiences

Outside the LV Convention Center, there were frequently smokes coming rising. It's not fire, which is not good. It's the tire smoke from the ride-shotgun with drifting drivers. It's always an attendee's fun experience, as it's a gut wrenching and lunch throw-up challenge. You cannot do that usually at home nor with your car, so it's a great opportunity to get that experience with the experienced drivers and capable machineries.

At the same time, quietly, Ford Bronco brought people through a hard course, with nasty road bumps, soft sand pit, as well two-story high ramp, to demonstrate their off road capabilities. It could be a knee jerking or heart palpating but totally safe and fun experience.

Surprisingly Convenient Tesla Loop Futuristic Transport

The very cool Tesla Loop underground transport service was provided to go between West Hall, North/Central Hall, and back of the South Hall. It takes no time to save miles of foot steps, let alone staying away from the crowd to reduce health risks.

When we tried it there was no line, and we were immediate given a Tesla to ride in, all by ourselves. The Loop tunnel is narrow (for one car only) with psychedelic experience with changing lights in the tunnel. It's almost like Contact the movie but not that fast and much more enjoyable.

The ride was smooth and we were driven by a real person and informative driver (no autopilot yet, though not hard we believe). It cut down the travel time from walking one side to the next station probably from 20 minutes with exhausted legs to a simple three minutes or even less than that.

According to one driver who we did not catch his name the city has approved the extension from the Las Vegas main airport all the way along many casinos, as well as Allegiant Stadium and LV University. It will be 29 miles with 51 stops.

We think this is just the first step for the tunnel transport application. We can envision that the Loop in ten years maybe that there's not even Tesla cars that need to be present. It could be a an air capsule on a magnetic track that can go much faster and move a lot more people. This is a brilliant idea technology!

A Great Come-Back and Highly Successful Full Show

We are super impressed by the SEMA show team to put together such a gigantic show in such an expansive floor space with so many people and logistic elements, right after the near end of the big pandemic. This is not easy and it took guts and smarts to accomplish this.

Our hats off to the SEMA team! Super great job!

Overall, we are really happy to go and see so many new and familiar faces. It's as if nothing has changed, yet so many new things happening. This says a lot to the show organization and their hard work, as well as the strong community that came together to make an awesome show.

We totally look forward tot he next year's already!!