Midwest Tanning Expo - Kansas City, MO

Midwest Tanning Expo - Celebrating 30 Years

Three hundred tanning salon professionals enjoyed everything the Midwest Tanning Expo had to offer, which was plenty of networking, education and fun.

Hosted by Heartland Tanning, the three-day Expo was jam-packed with exciting and useful events and information geared toward today’s tanning salon owner. The first day offered training and sunless-tanning demonstrations by California Tan Sunless and Norvell Skin Solutions. There also was a “Warehouse Dash”, which pitted salon owners against each other to see who could grab the most discounted tanning lotions and packettes. The winners of the event were Julie Omara (Island Tan South) and Cathy Alle (Soleil Tan), who each gathered 150 pounds of product. The day’s events concluded with a meet-and-greet and cocktail reception with the exhibiting vendors, sponsored by Light Sources, Inc.

The Expo’s second day began with a keynote presentation from Todd Earnhardt of Glo Sun Spa, who discussed the benefits of adding sunless options to a tanning salon’s menu. He was followed by vendor presentations and a host of breakout sessions that provided attendees with more one-on-one time with the sponsoring manufacturers. “This year, we wanted to try something different so we assigned topics to each of the vendors for their presentations,” said Abby Clemmer, Heartland Marketing Director. “Not only did the vendors enjoy this change, our attendees really seemed to enjoy it. We were getting rave reviews on this before the Expo had even concluded.”

Todd Earnhardt’s keynote presentation struck a chord with Kelly Robbins, owner of Sunsations Tanning Salon in Topeka, KS. “He talked about the importance of hosting more than one special event per year, and that was something we never thought about doing,” said Kelly. “After listening to his presentation, we decided to host a three-day, free tan/free spray-tan event and we began blasting out promotions on the radio. With the amount of people already coming in days before the event itself, I can only imagine that our upcoming event will be huge, which is good – our goal is to get people tanning early in the season in hopes of encouraging them to say with us throughout the year.” To help with the spray-tan portion of her special event, Kelly was the lucky winner of the California Tan Sunless-1 VIP Mobile Bronzer Deal valued at $2,000.

“This was the best show I’ve been to in several years!” exclaimed Howard Terry, co-owner of Electric Sun in Gardner, KS. “My wife, Teresa, and I brought 13 of our staff with us and we all learned some very useful things about sales and marketing, rather than just product knowledge. This got us all motivated about getting back to the salons and implementing all the things we learned. It was a very beneficial show and we’ll definitely come back next year.”

Throughout the event, attendees won thousands of dollars in prizes given away by Heartland Tanning and the sponsoring vendors. The Expo concluded with a cocktail party at Howl at the Moon piano bar, which was sponsored by Devoted Creations. About 200 people attended this event.

“This Expo was an excellent way for us to end this season’s shows,” Abby Clemmer said. “More tanning salons were represented at this year’s event than we had last year, and everyone seemed to enjoy what we offered. We’d like to thank all the tanning salon professionals and participating vendors and speakers for helping to make this another successful event, and we can’t wait to see everyone next year.”

Vendors/Sponsors:  Biddiscome, Bleach Bright, Devoted Creations, Fit Body Wrap, Australian Gold, California Tan, Designer Skin, Swedish Beauty, Insurtec Inc, Light Sources, Lucas Products, Nichesoft, Norvell, Performance Brands, Podz Eyewear, Supre Tan, Synergy Tan, Helios, Tan Inc., Wolff System Technology Corp., Smart Tan, Pura Sunless by Heartland, California Clothing by Heartland.

Story compliments of Island Sun Times