2024 ASNT Conference

On 20 October, I headed to Las Vegas to attend the 2024 ASNT Annual Conference after a ten-year absence from that city. I had been to ‘Vegas’ on many occasions and I had fairly good memories about the city and its never sleeping, never silent activities.

My experience on this occasion reflected the shocking increase in noise and bustle. Even on the streets the sound was deafening, accompanied by occasional bursts of even louder music. Perhaps it is my age, but the aim seemed to be an attempt to keep everyone on edge… and spend, spend, spend.

Our hotel was adjacent to the convention centre, although adjacent did not reflect the long walk and multiple escalators just to reach it. Added to that, the British Institute of Non-Destructive Testing (BINDT)’s booth was at the far end of the huge convention centre.

BINDT was represented by Caroline Bull, Ian Cooper and me, as David Gilbert was unable to attend and was sorely missed. The BINDT booth had a fairly good location, as it was quite close to the lunch seating area and benefited from the lunchtime traffic.

Unfortunately, the shipment of material for the booth never made it from the UK to the Las Vegas conference centre. This material included magazines, technical articles and useful information about BINDT, similar to previous booth information. Caroline and Ian checked daily and attempted to locate this material... but sadly three days passed and it never arrived!

On the positive side, the package containing copies of A Peripatetic Scotsman Part Two did arrive. This avoided an empty table and attracted many visitors and old friends and resulted in selling most of the books, with the usual contribution to the BINDT Benevolent Fund.

I spent most of my time at the BINDT booth and the books did attract a large number of visitors, which enabled discussions on BINDT as well as the books. This allowed Caroline and Ian to attend their various presentations, committee meetings and convention booths of interest.