I was at today's road show in Mt Kisco and a big thanks to the Tool Nut for hosting. They were very nice (but I knew that already because I've been in their store). The event went very smoothly and on an organizational level they did everything right.
Over the course of 6 hours the Festool instructor built a simple wall cabinet and it came out very well. Just because of the nature of having 75 people in a conference room the audience was really mostly watching what was being done projected on a side screen with the opportunity to ask questions - needless to say that gets pretty squirmy pretty fast.
I already owned all the tools (or similar model) of all the tools that were demonstrated. What I was looking for in today's demo were the little tips on how to use those tools better that I hadn't already collected from the FOG. I think because of the high quality of advice here on the FOG and the quality of the Youtube videos available (especially you erock) I really can't say I saw anything today that I didn't already know, and most of it I had already demonstrated to others in my home shop. So in the end while it was a good demonstration I just obviously wasn't the target audience. Maybe a year ago before I bought most of it and played with it and spent lots of time reading the FOG I would have been.
This left me wondering exactly what the target audience was for this event. It seems to me that it can only be defined as people who don't know much about many Festool tools yet have heard of them enough to be motivated to take a day out of their lives to devote to learning more. That would seem like a fairly small group of people to me, however I know that there were people in just that situation in the crowd, I just don't know how they found out about the event. It was also obvious from the hands raised when asked about tool ownership that there was a large percentage of the group who already owned multiple Festool tools. I'd be very curious how much that group felt they got out of the day. I'm sure the guy who won the Kapex felt it was time very well spent
I really don't want to sound like the Tool Nut or the Festool guys weren't great hosts. It was nice being around other Festool fans. But if you've spent enough time on the FOG to be able to recognize more than 5 userids here, I'm not sure there was much benefit in attending.
Over the course of 6 hours the Festool instructor built a simple wall cabinet and it came out very well. Just because of the nature of having 75 people in a conference room the audience was really mostly watching what was being done projected on a side screen with the opportunity to ask questions - needless to say that gets pretty squirmy pretty fast.
I already owned all the tools (or similar model) of all the tools that were demonstrated. What I was looking for in today's demo were the little tips on how to use those tools better that I hadn't already collected from the FOG. I think because of the high quality of advice here on the FOG and the quality of the Youtube videos available (especially you erock) I really can't say I saw anything today that I didn't already know, and most of it I had already demonstrated to others in my home shop. So in the end while it was a good demonstration I just obviously wasn't the target audience. Maybe a year ago before I bought most of it and played with it and spent lots of time reading the FOG I would have been.
This left me wondering exactly what the target audience was for this event. It seems to me that it can only be defined as people who don't know much about many Festool tools yet have heard of them enough to be motivated to take a day out of their lives to devote to learning more. That would seem like a fairly small group of people to me, however I know that there were people in just that situation in the crowd, I just don't know how they found out about the event. It was also obvious from the hands raised when asked about tool ownership that there was a large percentage of the group who already owned multiple Festool tools. I'd be very curious how much that group felt they got out of the day. I'm sure the guy who won the Kapex felt it was time very well spent
I really don't want to sound like the Tool Nut or the Festool guys weren't great hosts. It was nice being around other Festool fans. But if you've spent enough time on the FOG to be able to recognize more than 5 userids here, I'm not sure there was much benefit in attending.
