Resch Expo lands first large-scale trade show, helps bring back logging industry to Green Bay in 2022 (and again in 2024)

Jeff Bollier

Green Bay Press-Gazette

The Resch Expo will host the group's Great Lakes Logging & Heavy Equipment Expo in 2022, and again in 2024, marking the event's return to the region after a decade away. 

The three-day expo, scheduled for Sept. 8-10, 2022, is expected to bring more than 340 vendors and 6,000 people to the Green Bay area for a look at the newest equipment and technology in the industry. The event will showcase heavy equipment, new technology to help manage forests, portable sawmills, wood and pellet stove dealers, chainsaw carving and more.  

It is the first large-scale trade show booked into Brown County's nearly completed, $93 million Resch Expo hall at the corner of South Oneida Street and Lombardi Avenue. It is estimated the event will inject $3.2 million into the local economy, said Brad Toll, president and CEO of the Greater Green Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau. 

"After nine months of delivering pretty tough news on our community's tourism industry, today, we're here to deliver fantastic news," Toll said. "We're glad we have a facility that meets your needs. We're ready to welcome you back."

"This is fantastic news for our community," Toll said. 

The excitement about returning to Green Bay is mutual, said Henry Schienbeck, executive director of the Timber Professionals Association, which represents the industry in Wisconsin and Michigan. 

"It's really important to showcase the forest industry; it's the number two in the state," Schienbeck said. "We've got some of the best-managed forests in the country."

He said the association had looked at open fields, parking lots and other venues in the area to see if they could facilitate a return sooner than 2022. The amount of space needed for heavy equipment display and expo events required a building like the 120,000-square-foot Resch Expo, though. He said part of the reason the group has wanted to return to Green Bay is the venue's proximity to Lambeau Field. 

The timber professionals had to cancel this year's expo, scheduled for Escanaba, Michigan, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Schienbeck said the association feels confident about scheduling the 2022 event. He said COVID-19 vaccines should be widespread by then and participants will have had ample time by then to adjust to health and safety precautions that may remain in place. 

 

The logging and heavy equipment expo is the first large-scale trade show booked into the Resch Expo, but it is far from the only event on the new venue's calendar, so far. Construction is scheduled to wrap up in January, just in time for the first of five events scheduled for 2021. The events, which in prior years would have been held at Shopko Hall, the KI Convention Center or the veterans memorial arena, include: 

• The Green Bay Boat Show, Feb. 12-14
• The Wedding Show: Winter Edition, Feb. 19-20
• The Green Bay Home + Lifestyles Experience, March 19-21 
• The Green Bay Pet Expo, April 30-May 2

The Green Bay Home + Lifestyles Experience show is new this year. It combines two long-running events into one: The Brown County Home Builders Association's Home Expo and PMI Entertainment's Home & Garden Show. 

"Merging the Home Expo with the Home & Garden Show just made sense for our organization and our exhibitors," said Mari McAllister-Charles, executive director of the homebuilders' association.