Second Leg of the Decorative Concrete Event Series a Big Success

By Jim Peterson, President, The Concrete Network

The Stamp Store in Oklahoma City was the site of the second and final leg of the successful Decorative Concrete Events (DCE) 2005 series. On April 7th and 8th over 130 contractors attended the Decorative Concrete Event and saw demonstrations of decorative concrete techniques provided by a wide variety of contractors and manufacturers, plus attended a variety of management seminars.

Over 130 contractors attended the 2005 Decorative Concrete Event held at The Stamp Store in Oklahoma City.

The weather was ominous early in the week of the event with winds and showers, but by event time the air was calm and the sky was blue. Oklahoma is an easy place to want to visit, the people are friendly and there is much to do in the evenings after the day's event—it just happens to be the 10 year anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing this month and a tour of the Memorial was a must. I toured the Memorial at night and seeing the rows of lighted chairs representing those killed in the bombing- larger chairs representing adults and small chairs representing the children- was chilling. On a lighter note, a dinner of ribs at the Champions restaurant overlooking the Oklahoma Redhawks outstanding minor league stadium down in the Brickyard was awesome (and the Redhawks weren't even playing!).

Attendees saw demonstrations of decorative concrete techniques provided by a wide variety of contractors and manufacturers, plus attended a variety of management seminars.

Two of the most important benefits of these Decorative Concrete Events:

First, attending contractors can see a wide variety of applications in one place. This event included demonstrations by: Blastrac for surface prep; Leitch & Co. for hand held polishers; LM Scofield for admixtures and liquid and powder releases; Solomon colors for Liquid Integral Color and ColorFlo Liquid Color for bag mixes; Engrave-A-Crete for their decorative cutting tools and cutting templates; Fritz Pak for their step retardation products; Brickform texture tools, color hardeners, and sandblast stencils; Midwest Rake decorative concrete placing and spreading tools; EnCounter concrete countertop mix; FossilCrete vertical mix applications; Sun Dek coatings for overlays; Stegmeier forms for countertops and wall caps; Rainbow water based stains; the fresh pour "Rock N Roller" by Kraft Tool; stencils by Artcrete; Stain Block by LesCoat; and a variety of sealers by White Mountain.

Attendees could see a variety of applications including Stain Block by LesCoat (left), stained concrete (center), and engraved concrete (right)

Second, the event is not so large as to be impersonal. It's easy to walk right up and quiz any of the demonstrating contractors and manufacturers about a procedure or product. Heck, one can go ahead and take a tool and try it out in most cases.

The host of DCE Oklahoma City was Doug Bannister who has been a leader and innovator in the decorative concrete industry for years. When I founded The Concrete Network in 1999 Bannister already had an Internet presence and was selling product on the Internet as well as at the Stamp Store facility. The team Bannister has assembled at the Stamp Store is incredibly talented and hardworking and made the event comfortable and personal for all the attendees. Many others, of course, worked hard to make this event a success.


Host of DCE Oklahoma City,
Doug Bannister,--The Stamp Store.

The emcee for DCE Oklahoma City was Tom Ralston of Tom Ralston Concrete in Santa Cruz who keeps the discussion moving from one demonstration area to another at a nice pace, and includes his funny and friendly banter as part of the deal.


Emcee for DCE Oklahoma City,
Tom Ralston—Tom Ralston Concrete

Two additional highlights of the event were a hosted dinner with a presentation by a magician. The guy was funny and had the audience busting up. Also, the second day's festivities included a competition with 6 teams composed of six contractors vying for a variety of free tools and supplies donated by the participating manufacturers.

Decorative Concrete Events 2006 is already being planned- to be hosted at the same two locations: Milton-Freewater Oregon and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Visit www.DecorativeConcreteEvents.com after 5/1/05 for updated information.

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