That’s a wrap on IRE 2025!

The Coffee Shops crew reflects on our favorite interactions, interviews, booths and moments of IRE 2025.

Editor’s note: The following is the transcript of a conversation The Coffee Shops crew had after the final day of the International Roofing Expo.

Tim Ellsworth: My favorite story of IRE week happened today. I met Jameson from Flash AI, and they are a weather company that can predict hailstorms, thunderstorms, lightning within one kilometer, and Jameson and I had a really wonderful talk. 

Zane Delucci: My favorite part of the trip so far was spending time with the people that I work with, which has been great. It's great spending time with everyone, meeting new faces, having new sisters, it's great. I really feel like part of the gal squad. And that was really nice. Spending time with Tomato Soup, watching some familiar faces perform some kick ass music was really, really cool. Some aspects I paid extra attention to was some of the tech this year - learning about roofing CRMs was an interesting thing.

Lauren White: This year we have the biggest team I think we've ever had at IRE. And every year people say, 'You guys are everywhere!’ And we literally were this year, which was really cool, we were buzzing all over the place. And spending time with Zane was fun. I've never met Zane in person, and we were one of the floor teams, so we got to know each other well this week, which was great. And I think just this year too, the difference in the show floor booth interviews was notable. People are really excited about these interviews and really want to showcase their whole booth, and are really having fun with it and have ideas of what they want to highlight  and have us capture when we go there. And the other part that was cool is, I feel like all of our floor teams were very official this year with our microphones, press badges, nice camera setups and tripods, and people walking by were watching what we were doing. Even if they were just passing through the aisles, people were stopping to see what our teams were doing and then stopping and spending more time in the booth to learn more about the customer, which was cool to see. People were noticing what we were doing both on the show floor and in our alcove, which is cool to be a part of.

Dani Sheehan: This being my first IRE, this was a little overwhelming, but in the best way, it was just so cool to put faces to names and see the buzzing excitement on the show floor, like even the day before, when everybody was like, getting things set up, and it was a mess and you couldn't move around anything. But I think, kind of, like, Lauren said it was just so cool to see, like, everybody knows us, and the people that don't know us are stopping and like, ‘Wait, what's going on? Who's that? Where can I get an interview?’ And we have some really great partners. Today Roof Scout really stood out. He was so excited for his booth interview. He did a fun little quip with Zane at the beginning where he was highlighting our coffee mug and had nothing but good things to say about RCS, which was great to hear.

Alex Tolle: Definitely my favorite thing is just seeing the shift in questions this year. A lot of times people are asking, ‘What do you guys do? Where's the coffee? What's going on?’ And it felt like there were so many people who came to us saying, ‘People are telling me I need to come to you. I've been seeing you. I want to be a part of this,’ both contractors and advertisers. And so it was really cool to see people excited to come see us. And they were actively looking for us throughout the show, which I haven't seen before. And then everybody was so excited to be on the soundstage and hang out at our booth. We also got four new R-Club members, which I'm so excited about. Two of them are Canadian. And a lot of people are really excited that I think will sign up afterwards. And seeing the team, it's fun to hang out with everybody.

Megan Ellsworth: Okay, my favorite part of ire this year was having friends that are not a part of the RCS crew, but that are in the industry and just being able to recognize so many people. This is my third or fourth IRE, and it took that many to really have best buds in the industry. And I think that was the hardest part about being in this industry starting out, you can feel really disconnected to the industry, sometimes, because you're just working from home and you're doing your thing, and then this is just your job, but then you get to go to events like this and make actual friends, not just work friends, but real friends, and see people in person and it's cool to be able to have relationships that extend the workplace and the industry that I work in that are genuine friends. And then another favorite part was being able to connect with Keenan Perry and Dan Tinker from SRS about Tomato Soup. And performing was really fun, and getting to blend two parts of my life together is always a joy. 

Itzel Najera: I really enjoyed being with the team. I got to meet people face to face and got to know everybody on a more personal level. So I really enjoyed that. I enjoyed working with Jessica and just enjoying doing the interviews and meeting new people. We got to hang out with Amparo a lot, shout out to Amparo, because she really connected us with a lot of contractors, and she was just really pushing us and really advocating for us, getting everybody over to us and saying how great we are and to follow us - it was amazing. I really also enjoyed being at the SRS Para Latinos. I got to see contractors get recognized. We got to hang out with Duliar Valladares and Julissa Chavez. Duliar is just amazing. He's such a nice person and just a new friend that we got to meet there. And we got to see a lot of people that we saw at Expo Contratista and being recognized at the IRE was pretty neat, having them say, 'People know about the Spanish team now.’ I just really enjoyed being at IRE this year.

Evelyn Witterholt: This has been my third IRE, and I think it just keeps getting better every year that I've gone. I think our booth in particular keeps getting better every year, I think in terms of location and just general appearance, but location especially. I mean, last year we were in the lobby, which was incredible. And I think where we were this year, close to the lobby was also really great. And with the vinyl and just the general display of our booth we got so much foot traffic. I think my favorite part was getting to come face to face with people I work with but have never actually met in real life. So I got to meet Dani and Jessica and Zane for the first time, and we had a lot of fun. And the media team, I think, did a great job this year. I had an absolute blast with Megan and Zane rocking all of the media. I think my favorite part, though, was yesterday, Tomato Soup was going to perform, and I wasn’t going to be able to see them, it just didn’t fit in my schedule at the soundstage, but then we finished about 15 minutes early, so I raced over to go see them, and that was really incredible and really good experience.

Jessica Bravo: My favorite part has to be Moises, the contractor. He came up to me and he told me that he was really sad because he saw that we have Spanish influencers, and we didn't invite him. So he made me promise that I will add him to our list. So that was pretty cool, connecting with him. I had never met him, and he was so nice. We interviewed him twice. They were both great interviews. And we had a great conversation with Beacon. I'm just happy that we had a Spanish floor team, that was definitely my favorite part.

Heidi Ellsworth: My favorite part was that we had a Spanish floor team, yes. En Español was such a huge part of this IRE and I'm so proud of our team. I'm so proud of Jessica and Itzel, they just went off and did the whole nine yards. So even though they were thrown a little bit into the deep end of the swimming pool, they were lounging on inner tubes by the time they were done, they were rocking it. I loved watching people walk by and give them hugs and connecting. 

And I'm so proud of our whole team. I saw people coming by high fiving Evelyn, all excited to see Alex, Megan, Dani and Lauren out on the show floor. I had people come up to me and talk about how awesome and how easy it is to sit on the soundstage and how easy it is to have people come and interview in the booth. That we make everybody feel so comfortable. It made me so proud. And Zane, seriously what you guys did out on the show floor was amazing. I'm also proud of Tim for talking to every single person who comes to the booth and becoming their best friend. That's what it's all about. 

I have to tell you though - this is for the team at home - when I walked up to the booth on Wednesday morning all by myself, and I looked up at those graphics, I looked at our new logo, I looked at what we had done and I started crying, because it takes the whole crew and the whole team to launch The Coffee Shops and to make this so special. So, that's my favorite part, seeing all of that. So, thank you. That's a wrap.

Karen Edwards: It is so hard to pick just one favorite thing about IRE. This was my 19th year attending the show and I honestly think it was the best one yet! Our booth location in the lobby was perfect to capture the energy and livestream it to those who couldn’t attend. Being part of one of the floor teams allowed me to experience the show floor more than I have been able to in past years as well. It was exciting to see all the innovations and new products being introduced into the industry! The future is definitely bright. 

Check out this video for a full recap from The Coffee Shops soundstage at IRE!