Big tools and toys dominate Power Show 

By KATE LIEBERS

The Delaware Gazette

About 15,000 agri­cul­tural sup­ply enthu­si­asts made the trip to Colum­bus to attend this year’s Power Show Ohio – the state’s largest indoor exhi­bi­tion of out­door equipment.

Power Show man­ager Den­nis Alford boasted of the show’s breadth of farm­ing, con­struc­tion and gar­den­ing equipment.

“There’s a lot of spe­cialty type of equip­ment that you might not get to see just going to an equip­ment dealer,” he said.

Spon­sored by the Ohio-Michigan Equip­ment Deal­ers Asso­ci­a­tion, the exhibit fea­tured power tools, sup­plies and com­puter soft­ware from more than 600 brand name com­pa­nies. Atten­dees were able to browse prod­ucts such as all ter­rain vehi­cles, bal­ing equip­ment, chip­pers and shred­ders, exca­va­tors, fer­til­izer, gen­er­a­tors, hydraulic equip­ment, irri­ga­tion equip­ment, live­stock equip­ment, mow­ers, pres­sure wash­ers, rakes, seeds and seed­ers, tanks, trac­tors, tillers, tools and more.

New this year was a “Now and Then” dis­play, fea­tur­ing antique trac­tors and their mod­ern day counterparts.

The prod­ucts were dis­played through­out three build­ings in the Expo Cen­ter – a total of about 300,000 square feet – to accom­mo­date the growth the exhibit has expe­ri­enced in its 43 years.

As part of that growth, the exhibit – which orig­i­nally show­cased only agri­cul­tural equip­ment – has included more lawn and out­door equip­ment, Alford said.

He said whether atten­dees are hobby farm­ers or pro­fes­sional con­struc­tion employ­ees, the show catered to a vari­ety of audiences.

Addi­tion­ally, vis­i­tors had a chance to lis­ten to sem­i­nars and to speak with man­u­fac­ture representatives.

“You get an oppor­tu­nity to maybe learn some things about the equip­ment that you may not be able to oth­er­wise,” Alford said.

Through­out the three-day event, edu­ca­tional sem­i­nars cov­ered top­ics such as farm­land preser­va­tion, crop nutri­ent man­age­ment and its effects on water, barn reha­bil­i­ta­tion, farm safety, small engine maintenance.

The show’s younger audi­ence had an oppor­tu­nity to flex their own agri­cul­tural mus­cles at the National Kid­die Trac­tor Pull. The con­tes­tants, ages three to eight years old, com­peted by pulling a weighted sled behind a minia­ture pedal tractor.

The show was held Jan. 25 to 27 at the Ohio Expo Cen­ter in Columbus.

More infor­ma­tion about the show is avail­able at www.PowerShowOhio.com.

Posted by Rob Treynor on Feb 4 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.