SMU Steel Summit Platform Opens to Attendees on Monday

For those of you who attended last year’s virtual Steel Summit Conference or any of our virtual workshops, you already have experienced our platform. For those of you who have not, we will explain some of the advantages and what you can expect from the platform, when it will be available, how to get personal help, etc.

The platform will be made available to all fully registered attendees at 8 a.m. ET on Monday, Aug. 2. There will be live support available on the platform from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. ET on Monday, and 8 a.m. until noon ET for the balance of the week. You can ask for personal help by clicking on the green icon in the bottom righthand corner of the platform screen. If you have any issues getting into the platform, please contact conferences@crugroup.com

One of the most important items for most attendees is getting access to all the registered executives for this year’s conference (registered companies can be found here). That information will be available on the platform with each attendee’s name, company and their title. Prior to Aug. 22 when the conference begins, you will be able to email the attendee through the platform (we ask that you do not abuse this privilege). The platform will identify those who are attending the conference in-person as well as those who are attending virtually.

The platform will also have the conference program, which includes the agenda, speakers, speaker bio’s, speaker presentation slides, etc.

If you are in a meeting outside of the convention hall, you will have the option to live stream the presentation from inside the convention center. A couple days after the conference has concluded, you will be able to go into the platform and watch recordings of all the presentations. The platform will remain open for two weeks after the event.

On Aug. 11, we will conduct one of our SMU Community Chat webinars hosted by John Packard, President & CEO of Steel Market Update, and Pual Terry, one of the Events Coordinators from the CRU Events Team. We will show those on the webinar how to use the platform prior to, during and after the conference. You can register for this free webinar by clicking here.

A Note About Live In-Person Conference vs. Virtual

We have been asked if a registered individual can switch between attending the conference in person and attending virtually. The quick answer to that question is yes. The cost for virtual is the same as the live event, and you are allowed to make changes (live to virtual, or virtual to live) up to two weeks prior to the event (Monday, Aug. 9).

An Update on Registrations & Protocols for Those Attending In-Person

We have approximately 900 executives registered for the 2021 SMU Steel Summit Conference (conference to be held on Aug. 22-25 in Atlanta). Of those, only 26 are currently registered to attend virtually. We anticipate our total attendance to increase to about 1,000 executives by the time we reach the conference.

The following companies have registered executives since Tuesday (those with an * means more than one person is attending from that company): ATW, Charter Wire – Division of Charter Manufacturing, Cornerstone Building Brands, Dematic, Jasper Engineering, Siskin Steel and Supply*, The Durham Manufacturing Company, Trinity Products*, and Vest Inc. The following companies added more people to their existing registration: Clopay Building Products Co.*, Metal Sales Manufacturing Corporation*, and Reibus International Inc.* You can join them at this year’s conference by clicking here or using this link: https://events.crugroup.com/smusteelsummit/home

Mask Mandate

The pandemic is not totally behind us, and non-vaccinated people could be at risk of catching COVID-19 in a large group setting. We highly recommend if you are not vaccinated that you do so prior to attending the conference.

The Georgia International Convention Center (GICC) has a mask mandate for everyone inside the convention center. Our understanding is the hotels next to the GICC have a mask mandate in place for the unvaccinated (no masks required for vaccinated individuals).

Strong Agenda

We have a strong group of speakers at the event this year with keynotes or one-on-one discussions with Lourenco Goncalves of Cleveland-Cliffs, Leon Topalian of Nucor, Mark Millett of Steel Dynamics, Cesar Jimenez of Ternium Mexico, Alan Beaulieu of ITR Economics, and Michael Smerconish of CNN/Sirius XM. We will also discuss a broad range of topics of interest including scrap, transportation, trade, steel price forecasts, industry forecasts, decarbonization, electric vehicles, and views by major steel-consuming companies. Please note: We have a last minute change to our program as Timna Tanners of Bank of America will be unable to speak at this year’s conference due to restrictions placed on her by the bank. You can view the entire agenda by clicking here. You can register by clicking here.

John Packard, John@SteelMarketUpdate.com