BETHESDA, MD — The Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association (AAIA) will incorporate videotaped questions from aftermarket professionals around the country during a special segment of this year’s Town Hall featuring Bob Schieffer, anchor of "Face the Nation" and CBS News chief Washington correspondent. This new approach comes from the building popularity of "YouTube" and other online public forums that have transformed American politics.
Hosted by AAIA and sponsored by NASCAR Performance, the 2007 Town Hall will be held Wednesday, Oct. 31 at 7 am in the Palazzo Ballroom in the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. The program will be moderated by Kathleen Schmatz, AAIA president and CEO, and will also feature Dick Morgan, AAIA chair and president and CEO of Aftermarket Auto Parts Alliance, Inc.
"This year we wanted to add some interactive fun to Town Hall and further engage aftermarket professionals in the program, so we decided to borrow the popular ‘YouTube’ concept and invite videotaped questions from aftermarket folks for our special guest Bob Schieffer to answer on stage," Schmatz said.
Schieffer has anchored the CBS Evening News and covered Washington, DC politics for CBS News for more than 30 years. He is one of the few broadcast or print journalists to have covered all four major beats in the nation’s capital – the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and Capitol Hill. He is the winner of six Emmy awards and has written two books on his career: “Face the Nation: My Favorite Stories from the First 50 Years of the Award-Winning News Broadcast” and “This Just In: What I Couldn’t Tell You on TV.”
Video questions recorded from digital cameras, camcorders, cell phones and web cams should be submitted in WMV, AVI, MOV or MPG file formats and should be no longer than 45 seconds. Please email videos under 10 MB to [email protected]. Videos more than 10 MB should be burned to a CD and mailed to: AAIA Town Hall, 7101 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 1300, Bethesda, MD 20814. Include name, business/company name, city and state. For more information, contact Rich White or Cory Royster at 301-654-6664.
Tickets for the 2007 AAIA Town Hall are now available. Individual tickets are $90 and a table of 10 is $750. For ticket information, go to www.aftermarket.org and click on the "Town Hall" button.
