Rising to the Occasion in Troubled Times

Hardscape North America Education Goes Virtual in A Big Way

In a normal year, landscape and hardscape industry professionals would gather in Louisville, Kentucky for a 3-day education and tradeshow event, by far the largest in North America. Unfortunately, as we know all too well, 2020 was anything but a normal year.

The inability to host this annual event last year prevented thousands of landscape and hardscape professionals (designers, contractors, and installers) from gaining access to the educational courses they need for certification or just to stay current with industry best practices. These courses are often used to train new employees, learn about specialized skills, and prepare for formal certification they may need to qualify for project work.

Rather than be satisfied to postpone this training for a year, ICPI staff developed an ambitious plan to create a comprehensive, two-day virtual training event that could be offered in time to help landscape and hardscape professionals prepare for what is expected to be a very busy spring in 2021.

Creating virtual versions of these courses was no easy task and involved exceptional contributions from ICPI members, event sponsors and staff. Their work produced and impressive 30 hours of training curriculum involving 42 individual sessions across three tracks of learning (business, installation, marketing & sales). Scheduled for January 26-27 of this year, ICPI was ready to welcome learners, from novice to seasoned professional, for courses designed to help them maximize their proficiency in some of the most challenging areas of the industry. As the event approached, ICPI reached out to the same audiences that would traditionally attend the in-person event in Louisville.

The audiences responded well beyond expectations.

In total, as the two-day event drew to a conclusion, 615 registered. These are hours of learning that, very likely, would have been lost for practical use this year. In addition, reviews from attendees have been overwhelmingly positive. This is the outcome event planners only dreamed of.

Hardscape North America Committee Chair Travis Hilldore put it this way: “As you all know, 2020 brought with it some very unique challenges, particularly regarding tradeshows and meetings. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that the 2020 Hardscape North America Event needed to be postponed until October of 2021. Due to the unfortunate necessity of that postponement, ICPI staff and the HNA Advisory Committee came together in a brainstorming session to come up with other ideas that would provide the level of education our attendees expect. What our group came up with was the Virtual HNA Education event.

I am very excited to say that the event that came out of that brainstorming session has already become a huge success. Thanks to the hard work of ICPI staff, the HNA Advisory Committee, and ICPI’s members that helped to promote this event, we have exceeded our expectations for both sponsors of the Virtual HNA Education Sessions as well as attendees.

I want to thank and congratulate everyone who participated in creating, planning, and executing this event and those who took advantage of this format for continuing their education in the Hardscape Industry. We could not have made this a successful event without the support and trust of our Hardscape Installer partners.

I look forward to seeing this event grow in future years and become another showcase of the value that HNA and ICPI provides to everyone in the Hardscape Industry.”