This week – I wanted to share some thoughts from some friends and associates who are attending HARDI 2025 in Atlanta. The event concludes today on Tuesday December 10th, and we will write a more in-depth report on HARDI 2024 next week for our readers.
HARDI has been hosting their big annual conference for the channel for decades. This year over 1,900+ key channel leaders registered for the event in Atlanta. I am reticent to use the term sold out often, but I heard from some service providers that they could not get a booth space (because it was sold out) and from many attendees that the event is packed.
Some of the best and brightest channel leaders (Manufacturers, Distributor/Wholesalers, Service Providers, and Manufacturer Reps) come together every year to share ideas and conduct business together.
HARDI 2025 was set up with multiple tracks – Business Growth, External Impact, Organizational Development, and Personal Advancement.
The compliance regulatory sessions and coverage looked excellent with sessions on the impact of A2L, HFC Transition, Low GPC, and How will federal and state government regulations affect the HVACR industry. The HVACR channel when compared to plumbing, electrical, and industrial has the highest level of regulatory oversight on products and their installation. These impact sessions on product changes and regulation are crucial for the channel.
All four tracks looked valuable and interesting with a mix of industry leaders and speakers mixed in with strong keynotes. HARDI releases many reports and updates at this event including end customer research, market forecast data, and more. The mix of go to a session on important changes, then a session on Market forecast, and then practical sessions on Ai was well put together. It is key reason multiple attendees all come from the same company as you need a team to get to every session you need.
The event kicked off Saturday Dec. 7th with sessions for HARDI first time attendees. Emerging Leaders, and Women in HVACR and appeared to have a good mix of content and programs for distributors/Manufacturers and reps to connect in booth sessions with time to visit the solutions providers to see what is new for 2025.
A big thanks to Nick Pericle from Profit Optics, Senthil and Pradip from ACTvantage, distributors, and other anonymous leaders for some quick observations on HARDI 2024 during the first three days of the event.
- The theme of the HARDI conference is Navigate. The presentations and signage all tie back to helping the channel navigate the uncertainty for 2025. My personal observation is navigating change is here to stay for the channel for this year and many to come.
- I heard from multiple attendees that they have a lot of interest in Ai – a lot. Some of the sessions opened attendees eyes to Ai possibilities and what could be done in their businesses.
- The Economic outlook by Doctor Basu was improving with some upside for 2025, but it still soft in some areas. I am sure that the HARDI teams market intelligence economic forecast sessions by region are a big hit. These are purchase required for HARDI, so I will not comment on what I heard about these sessions. I can share that I know from experience the work the HARDI team does on market intelligence is excellent. I would expect these to be well received sessions for HARDI members.
- The Opening session was well received and attended. I know that may sound to you like….of course the opening session went well and everyone showed up, but I can share from the 10+ association and industry events I have been to this year that is not always the case. Kudos for HARDI to getting people to attend and reporting back that they were valuable. That is getting more difficult to do every year at events as attendees have more appointments, they are asked to set-up then they have time.
- “Lots of service providers attended once again”. I have heard that many providers are back in 2024, but also many new providers are attending. There are ample new technology players in the space including many people who are building targeted solutions in the space.
- LATAM Hardi is growing and HARDI is well attended by HVACR manufacturers/distributors from Latin America. I personally want to learn more about HARDI’s growth in LATAM, as many associations that are based in North America have traditionally struggled to gain traction in LATAM.
We heard a lot of comments on the hot topic being “upcoming and existing regulatory changes and the impact or potential impact of the new administration”. Whatever your political leanings the impact of government regulations and potential future actions are very large in the HVACR Channel.
As always, we appreciate your feedback, so please feel free to reach out with any comments or your thoughts on HARDI 2024. jgunderson@channelmkt.com. We would love to hear from attendees more about the event.
