The World of Concrete is one of the biggest shows on the Blue Planet. And it certainly has to rank among the heaviest (trade show people assess the size of a show, sometimes, by the weight of the freight moved in and out). The Builders’ Show, for example, I was told weighs about 1 million pounds. WOC weighs much more. And yes, there’s a lot of concrete there.
Hilti brought Stonehenge-sized slabs and broke them up for three days to prove the mettle of its hammers. Bosch built a three-story city of sea cans, dwarfing everything around them. The Bosch York City even had a tattoo parlor.
Among the forest of full-sized pumper trucks—I’d say at least a square quarter-mile is devoted just to that iron (and that’s just 1/100 of the show, in rough numbers)—are nestled some cool and innovative tools, trucks, and equipment.
Among several of my favorites were PlugFones, which we reviewed here, and the Avant 225 compact loader, which I’d love to review, own, and operate. The whole articulating body design of the Avant seems to be perfect for, well, lots of earth moving, but particularly earth moving where you want to preserve the integrity of the existing landscape as much as possible. A few more, too.