Auto show setup underway at Cobo Center

DETROIT (WJBK) - Crews have been quietly setting up for the North American International Auto Show for about two months now, but Monday they are officially rolling in the big guns. Hundreds of semis have made their way to Cobo Center now to deliver everything needed to get the show on the road.

The show is setting up in more than 400,000 square feet of raised floor. That's an area that's about the size of 85 basketball courts. It also includes 78,000 square feet of aisle carpet, which is about the size of three and a half football fields. Forty-thousand square feet of double decks will also be used to display the 750 new vehicles on the showroom floor.

The show takes 12 weeks to put together, but only two weeks to tear down. More than one thousand union workers are also on-hand to install and dismantle everything.

"So today [Monday], all the crews are coming in with the exhibits so they'll start unloading and then really start, between the electricians and the woodworkers and the metal workers, they'll start physically building almost, really, mini cities for each automarker's exhibit," says Max Muncey, the public relations manager with the NAIAS.

Some changes you can expect at the auto show this year? There will be more family activites.

"A lot of the automakers put a lot of time in interactive exhibits for the family to come down," Muncey says.

The show will be open to the public on January 16 until January 24, 2016. For more information visit www.naias.com.