If you were looking to start a new international education conference and trade show, you’d probably look to launch it during a period of widespread economic optimism where lingering concerns about a global health crisis were more science fiction than reality.
That’s not what the National Association of Landscape Professionals found in 2022, however, when it launched Elevate following a split with its longtime partner, GIE+Expo (now known as Equip Exposition). At the time of the first edition of Elevate in Nashville, the country was in the throes of economic challenges brought about by high inflation, and the exhibition industry was still trying to get its feet back under it following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite all that, NALP and Elevate thrived right out of the gate. Year one of Elevate played to rave reviews, and steady growth and acceptance in the industry soon followed. As the fourth edition of Elevate prepares to kick off this month in Phoenix (Nov. 2-5), the event finds itself as one of the nation’s fastest growing conferences and trade shows, according to Trade Show Executive magazine.
And maybe best of all, according to NALP CEO Britt Wood, Elevate has largely been able to achieve most of the goals it set for itself when the association decided to go its own way back in 2022.
“It’s done most of the really specific things that we hoped it would do, most notably to encourage landscapers from all over the country to attend our event,” Wood said during a one-on-one conversation with Landscape Management.
“Here’s a perfect example: I think the last time we did something with GIE, we had maybe three or four people from the state of Arizona come to that event,” he said. “We’ve already got 50-plus signed up from Arizona this year, and more signing up every day. We’re reaching an audience we haven’t reached as much when we were all centered in one location. So, we’re really pleased with it, and we’re looking forward to getting it going in Phoenix this year.”
To learn why the industry has embraced Elevate the way that it has, LM reached out to a trio of veteran landscape pros with varying experiences in the conference and trade show space to get a sense of what they hope to get out of attending this year in the desert, how Elevate differs from other industry events they attend and what first-timers to the event should focus on during their time in Phoenix.
For more information on all the education and events that happened in Phoenix at Elevate 2025, click here.
Ivan Katz
Owner
Great Lakes Landscape Design
Oak Park, Mich.
Ivan Katz’s business card identifies him as the owner and founder of Great Lakes, a firm he started in 1989 that provides design-build and a full menu of maintenance services to customers in and around metro Detroit.
But those cards also carry another title — visionary — which goes a long way in explaining the success he’s realized at Great Lakes, why he’s added Elevate to his list of must-attend events in recent years and why he thinks his fellow landscape professionals can get plenty out of joining him at the annual event.
“If you attend the education that suits your skill set or helps you achieve goals you’ve set for yourself, and if you take the initiative and engage with people — don’t wait for people to speak to you first — then you’re going to find a lot to like at Elevate,” Katz says.
Despite his 40-plus years in the industry, Katz has more in common with those who will be attending Elevate for the first time than meets the eye. While this will be his third consecutive year attending Elevate, other commitments with a group he was involved with prevented him from attending Elevate in year one or at any time when the NALP event was colocated with GIE+Expo/Equip Exposition. Like newcomers to the event, he sees Elevate through relatively fresh eyes.
And what does Katz see at Elevate that’s made it an important event for him to attend? The education definitely stands out, he says, most notably the Breakfast of Champions event. “Find a topic you are most interested in or need feedback on, and it will pay off,” he says.
The smaller footprint of the exhibit floor at Elevate also appeals to him. “Just walking the floor and meeting the vendors has opened our eyes to new opportunities and innovations,” he explains.
At the end of the day, though, Katz says the real value at Elevate — and, really, any other big event in the landscape industry — comes from the people you meet and interact with, so the variety of networking opportunities available at the event has been a game changer for the way he’s viewed and prioritized conferences and trade shows.
“Our industry is an amazing group of people willing to step up and help each other out,” Katz says. “Everyone is so approachable, gracious with their time and knowledge, and the opportunity to do that at Elevate really stands out.”
Kurt Bland
President
Bland Landscaping
Apex, N.C.
Kurt Bland is no stranger to the landscaping and lawn care industry, and he has more than a few trips to industry conferences and trade shows under his belt.
He was just 14 years old when he started working for the family business founded by his father, Tom. In 2002, he returned to Bland Landscaping on a full-time basis and, with the help of his brother Matt, the company’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer, has grown the business into one with locations across the Southeast that now ranks No. 45 on the 2025 LM150 list of the top revenue-generating companies in the industry.
Despite that, it’s been more than a decade since Bland has made any of the industry’s conferences and trade shows a priority; his last one was in 2009 when he traveled to Louisville for what is now Equip Exposition.
“Back in that timeframe, we were dealing with the economic repercussions of 2008 and 2009, and it was just clear that traveling (to these events) was not a priority for us,” Bland says. “We just felt at that time, it was really important for us and the health of our business to hunker down, focus on execution and zero in on what we were doing in our business.”
But what worked for Bland Landscaping back then doesn’t necessarily make sense for what the company has become today, which is why Bland is excited to be heading to Phoenix this month for Elevate.
“I did drive down to Charlotte last year (host city for Elevate 2024) to have dinner with some industry folks that I knew,” Bland says. “Seeing them and talking to them made me realize that it was probably time for me to get back to events like this because I was probably missing out on things that could help us.
“I’ve recognized that there have been a lot of changes that have taken place in the industry, and those are things I need to stay in touch with. And I’ve realized that a lot of my friends in the business are older than me. Maybe I met them through my dad, but because I started in the industry at such a young age, most of my peers are older than me. So, I’m looking at this as a chance to get a clean, new start. I still want to connect with those old friends, but I’m also hopeful that I’ll meet a lot of new ones, too.”
As a newcomer to Elevate — albeit one with nearly 40 years of experience in the industry — Bland is approaching his week in Phoenix with an open mind. However, an old favorite was one of the first things to catch his eye when he began studying the agenda.
“I was excited to see they were still doing the Breakfast of Champions. I spoke at those a couple of times during GIE way back when and got a lot out of the experience,” Bland says. “So, I’m ready to sit on the other side of the table this time around.”
The networking opportunities in Phoenix — from the larger, more formal events like the Welcome Reception and the Elevate Bash to more intimate, one-on-one conversations — are also high on Bland’s list of must-dos during the week.
“I spend way too much time on LinkedIn, so I’m looking forward to putting names with the faces I know from there,” he says. “Social media is great for building relationships with people, but while you know them, you really don’t. You’ve never sat down, had a meal with them or had a drink, so I’m really excited about the human interaction part.”
And since this will be his first exposure to a national trade show in more than 15 years, Bland also thinks the companies he’ll visit on the exhibit floor will pay dividends for him and his company.
“I’m not looking to figure out which brand of mower best suits my needs — we’re pretty happy with where we are there,” he says. “But I’m really excited about seeing what sort of innovations have taken place, what sort of new products are out there. I do my best to keep up with all that, but to have all that in one place at one time will be super beneficial for us.”
Mike McCarron
Owner
Image Works Landscaping
Fairfax Station, Va.
If Mike McCarron’s name and his appearance in a story on landscaping conferences and trade shows sounds familiar to you, you’re not crazy.
It was just a few months ago that we featured McCarron in the pages of LM, talking about his experiences at Equip Exposition. But he’s also been a regular at Elevate since its inception — something that sets him apart from Katz and Bland — so we thought his unique perspective warranted bringing him back for an encore performance this month.
“We get things out of both shows that benefit us in the long run, so I think it’s important for us to be at both,” McCarron says. “They offer different things, so we have different to-do lists for each one, but I think both of them are valuable.”
McCarron’s belief in the value of these events was born from the early days of his company, when colleagues in other parts of the country would tell him about pieces of equipment that he knew would benefit his operation that simply weren’t available from dealers or distributors in his part of the world.
“There weren’t as many YouTube channels or online options back then to find out about that kind of stuff, so trade shows were really the best option to go down, see all this equipment, what was available and how we could get it in our market,” he says.
Since those first trips to GIE+Expo/Equip Exposition in the early 2010s, McCarron’s and Image Works’ approach to these events has evolved. For trips around the trade show floor at both Equip Exposition and Elevate, he and the select team members he brings along treat it largely as a shopping trip.
“I tell the employees who go to look around as if they have an open pocketbook. If it’s something cool that can help our business, I want to know about it. We can figure out how feasible and realistic it is later,” he says.
When it comes to Elevate specifically, McCarron says he takes a much broader, big-picture approach to his to-do list.
“What Elevate has allowed me and one or two of our top people to do is to focus on networking, to work on the vision side of our business, to attend education sessions and meet and mingle with people from outside of our region,” he says. “At Elevate, it’s the high-level management, it’s the owners and the decision-makers. They’re talking vision and strategy, so we try to focus ourselves on those concepts.”
McCarron’s advice to first-timers making their way to Phoenix for Elevate 2025? Make a clear-headed assessment of your operation’s weaknesses, find resources directly associated with those areas and dive deeply into those.
“If you want to improve sales, focus on opportunities that can improve your network, on how to market your company better using social media, on improving your branding,” he says. “If you’ve got operational efficiency issues and you’re not getting out of the gate the way you want to, look for opportunities to focus on that. If it’s more about the big idea, the 10- or 15-year plans, how to scale or add locations, zero in on that.
“Figure out the areas where you want to improve the most and point yourself in those directions, because I can tell you from experience that you’ll be able to do that at Elevate, and there will be a ton of people there who will help you with those things.”
