With our friends from the Midwest Chapter of PHTA, we just hosted our first-ever AQUA Live Spring Training event at a Hilton resort in Chicago. The event consisted of five days of product training, general pool and spa education, three evening events, a successful expo hall, and a brilliant performance from country rocker Lara Bell and her band. Attendees, exhibitors and speakers were effusive in their enthusiasm, prompting us to start making plans for next year, in early March of 2025, exact dates TBA.
While vendor training and certification classes ran all week, seminars related to business and technical tracks ran on both Wednesday and Thursday throughout the daytime hours and consisted of speakers who know the Midwest pool and spa industry from personal experience.
The exhibit hall was open on Wednesday afternoon, allowing attendees to get a look at the top products in the industry while simultaneously creating professional and personal relationships with exhibitors. The exhibit led right into the live music performance from the Lara Bell band, sponsored by Aqua-Gon, with beer and wine from the bar and tasty wood-fired pizza catered from a local restaurant.
Attendees earned a number of different PHTA certifications: Certified Service Technician (CST), Certified Pool Operator (CPO), Certified Pool & Hot Tub Technician (CHTT), Certified Maintenance Specialist (CMS), while leading manufacturers such as BioGuard, Pentair, Renolit, Hydro Pool, Merlin, Raypak, Haviland and more hosted training classes of their own throughout the week.
On Tuesday night, the AQUA Live networking event led into an all-time record-setting WAVE event, sponsored by BioLab, where a total of 87 pool and spa professionals aged 40 and under went bowling together and enjoyed pizza and drinks. The WAVE initiative is an ongoing effort to build a community of young pool and spa professionals, a dominant demographic at AQUA Live Spring Training.
Ultimately, the goal of AQUA Live Spring Training is to attract Midwest-located pool and spa professionals who are looking to learn, collaborate, and have fun — while relating to the various challenges maintaining pools in the Midwest can bring — all at an affordable price. With our partners, the vibrant PHTA Midwest Chapter, we are building an annual, cost-effective, regional training event that will advance professionalism through education in the pool and spa industry.
