.jpg)
Dentists, staff, technicians, and industry representatives celebrate a landmark occasion!
After much anticipation and a year in the making, the CEREC 20th Anniversary Experience arrived and took Las Vegas by storm. C
elebrating 20 years of CEREC success, the event filled Bally’s on the Las Vegas Strip October 13 - 15. An overwhelming success, over 1600 people attended the CEREC Experience, making it the largest CAD/CAM event in history, an apropos celebration for the world’s only chairside dental CAD/CAM device.
“We are thrilled with the tremendous support of the CEREC community for this event. Las Vegas was the largest gathering of CEREC users ever assembled. I can’t tell you what a thrill it was to be on stage in front of almost 2000 enthusastic CEREC’ers. We thank all who came and made this event such a success I can’t wait until the 25th anniversary to do it again!”
Michael Augins
, President of Sirona Dental Systems, LLC
Thursday, October 12th
Upon registration attendees received a meeting bag with a voucher for Sirona’s new CEREC Blocs, Premier® Diamond TwistTM polishing kit, and other valuable coupons and discounts. 3M, Ivoclar-Vivadent, Dr. Mark Morin’s Great LakesEducationCenter, Sirona Canada and the Sirona SiroLaser group hosted receptions for event attendees Thursday evening.
Friday, October 13th
After the Exhibit Hall opened at 10am, the program officially began with a standing room only address from Dr. Werner Mörmann, the inventor of CEREC. He shared stories from the origins of CEREC including the first milling unit which operated with a wheel instead of a burr. After Dr. Mörmann’s standing ovation presentation, the room remained over capacity for lectures by Dr. Rich Masek , Dr. Dennis Fasbinder, Lee Culp, CDT and Dr. Alex Touchstone. The collaboration between Lee Culp, renowned dental technician and CEREC dentist Alex Touchstone exhibits the developing relationship between chairside and labside CAD/CAM that Dr. Stefan Hehn referenced in his Saturday speech. After Friday’s lectures ended, all participants gathered for a reception in the Exhibit Hall before heading over to the Rio for an exclusive performance by Penn & Teller. To start the show Sirona USA President Michael Augins introduced the President of Vident, Bill Sundheimer who thanked the crowd for attending the exclusive Vita-sponsored performance.
Saturday, October 14th
Saturday morning kicked-off with the “Presentation that didn’t happen about CEREC 17” by Dr. Stefan Hehn, the Vice President of CAD/CAM at Sirona USA. Dr. Hehn warmed up the crowd with his insightful speech about the future direction of CAD/CAM. Jay Leno then performed his stand-up routine for an enthusiastic crowd. He and the audience had such a good time that the performance ran 20 minutes over the scheduled time. After a full day of break-out sessions, participants were ready to party at the Hard Rock Hotel. In the guise of such 80’s stars as Sid Vicious, Batman and Catwoman, the Ghostbusters, and Cyndi Lauper, party-goers converged on Body English, the Hard Rock’s nightclub. Later the Spazzmatics treated the crowd to their favorite 80’s music in the Joint, at the Hard Rock.
Sunday, October 15th
Despite a late night at the Hard Rock, Sunday lectures were well attended and even at the closing the Exhibit Hall was still busy. After the official program closed, 30 beta-testers met with representatives from Sirona to discuss future CEREC developments.
Exhibit Hall
Over 50 companies exhibited in the Bally’s EventCenter as part of the CEREC 20th Anniversary Experience. Exhibitors were delighted with the response from attendees and the traffic in the exhibit hall. At the Sirona booth donations for National Foundation of Dentistry for the Handicapped were collected and matched by Sirona. In addition to dropping off donations for the NFDH there, attendees had the opportunity to enter into a “cube-off” with Rubik’s Cube champion, Daniel Lee. After attempting to beat his record time of forty seconds, attendees were encouraged to guess the number of block blanks provided by Dr. Arlen Lackey in the Sirona booth. Dr. Alan Martin was the closest to the correct answer and was awarded an ipod Nano for his entry.