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City Electric Supply's Connect 2024

Aug. 6, 2024
With 2,000-plus attendees, CES Connect 2024 in Nashville showed why it has grown into one of the electrical market's biggest events.

City Electric Supply’s biennial Connect event, held this year at Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, TN, from June 27 -30, drew 2,000 CES employees and 60 electrical manufacturers. It’s seen a ton of growth over the years, starting in 2015 with 140 attendees and topping 1,000 in just four years. This year’s event focused on what CES calls the Four Pillars of CES Connect:

Connect. Foster meaningful relationships with vendors, team members, leadership, and customers, strengthening our CES family.

Discover. Explore innovative products and solutions to fuel personal and professional growth.

Inspire. Leave with fresh insights and motivation, driven by peer stories and strategies to power your communities.

Celebrate. Honor the past, present, and future success of the organization, recognizing the achievements that have led us to where we are today.

"Our business is all about people, and it's been phenomenal to host CES Connect 2024 with over 2,000 top industry professionals and vendors,” said Co-CEOs Andrew Dawes and John Gray. “This bi-annual conference focuses on empowering attendees through four pillars: connecting within our CES family, discovering innovative solutions, inspiring with fresh insights, and celebrating our successes. We're seeing our teams become energized with new ideas and stronger relationships, and it's been incredibly rewarding."

Drew Piller, director of National & Strategic Accounts, OmniCable says CES Connect provides vendors and CES employees a way to connect and grow together. “It’s a great way to get to know over 700 branches across the US and Canada. From a vendor side, it is the backbone of our growth with CES and we couldn’t be more pleased and excited to participate every two years."

The event also featured a drone show that showcased the history/roots of CES;  a lawn party, comedy show, pig racing, and dueling pianos.

 

About the Author

Jim Lucy | Editor-in-Chief

Over the past 30-plus years, hundreds of Jim’s articles have been published in Electrical Wholesaling and Electrical Marketing newsletter on topics such as the impact of amazonsupply.com and other new competitors on the electrical market’s channels of distribution, energy-efficient lighting and renewables, and local market economics. In addition to his published work, Jim regularly gives presentations on these topics to C-suite executives, industry groups and investment analysts.

He recently launched a new subscription-based data product for Electrical Marketing that offers electrical sales potential estimates and related market data for more than 300 metropolitan areas, and in 1999 he published his first book, “The Electrical Marketer’s Survival Guide” for electrical industry executives looking for an overview of key market trends.

While managing Electrical Wholesaling’s editorial operations, Jim and the publication’s staff won several Jesse H. Neal awards for editorial excellence, the highest honor in the business press, and numerous national and regional awards from the American Society of Business Press Editors. He has a master’s degree in Communications and a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Glassboro State College, Glassboro, N.J. (now Rowan University).