The opportunityA sector that buys constantly and gathers almost never.
Adult day and home based care is fragmented by design. Providers are mostly small, independently owned and licensed locally, which is exactly the profile that never gets its own trade show and finds suppliers by word of mouth instead.
The buying is not centralized either. In a twenty-seat center, the person choosing the transport contractor is often the same person who covers the floor when someone calls out sick. There is no procurement department to route a supplier to, so a good supplier gets found by referral, at a state association meeting, or not at all.
Here is the plain distinction, because the two sides are easy to confuse. This expo is for the non-residential and home based side: day programs, in-home agencies, respite, community based organizations, and small adult family and board and care homes. Residential assisted living communities, memory care buildings and senior housing construction belong to our separate assisted living event, not this one.
The two sides do not even buy the same things. Transport and congregate meals barely register in a residential setting, where the people being served already live in the building. In adult day services both are part of the daily operation, and both are bought from suppliers who never appear on a residential exhibitor list.