InfoComm 2010

Reputed for its gambling, shopping and dining, Las Vegas has long billed itself as the entertainment capital of the world. Its tolerance for various forms of adult entertainment has earned it the title of Sin City, although the Nevada metropolis conversely hosts the highest number of churches per capita of any major US city. However, the recent financial crisis has sent business and growth tumbling, resulting in the disappearance of disposable consumer income and a general backlash against corporate entertainment spending. As such the entertainment and hospitality industry is currently in a tailspin that it has yet to fully recover from. Indeed Las Vegas' gambling revenues were recently surpassed by Macau, and even a dramatic reduction in hotel rates has failed to readdress the balance.

Conversely, as the international trade association for the professional A/V and information communications industries, InfoComm International continues to rise in stature. Having incorporated the NSCA show into its format in 2008, its 5,000 members include manufacturers, systems integrators, dealers and distributors, independent consultants, programmers, rental and staging companies, end-users and multimedia professionals from more than 80 countries. InfoComm has grown to become the largest annual conference and exhibition for A/V buyers and sellers worldwide and hosts ISE in Europe in addition to InfoComm China and InfoComm Asia on a biannual basis. It’s fitting therefore that InfoComm can charitably help Sin City’s economy during these troubled times. After all, the manufacturers and systems integrators profited from supplying and installing their products into many huge A/V solutions in Las Vegas during the boom years. 

Having predicted that 32,000 attendees would converge on Las Vegas for the 2010 event, the InfoComm team would be advised to seek out a gaming table. Ultimately, the annual conference and exhibition was the second largest commercial A/V show ever held, drawing 32,002 AV professionals from more than 90 countries.

‘InfoComm continues to be the one tradeshow where most professional A/V service providers make their important buying decisions for the year,’ offered executive director and CEO of InfoComm International, Randal A Lemke. ‘The A/V marketplace has enthusiastically embraced InfoComm as the place to make purchasing choices, network with product and service providers, and enhance skills through our robust educational programme.’

Registrations for InfoComm Academy educational courses totalled 6,587, whilst a full-day of advanced instruction for A/V pros prior to the exhibition attracted 593 registrants. Attendees are attracted by the diversity of courses on topics ranging from acoustics to video-conferencing, whilst courses such as technology trends and fibre optics were very popular. With two-thirds of all of the education sessions being new, participants flocked to classes on sustainability, digital signage and conferencing, whilst 116 A/V professionals took the Certified Technology Specialist (CTS) examination.

Increasing government legislation and canny marketing ensured that environmental issues were high on this year’s agenda. InfoComm hosted its first ever Green A/V Awards at InfoComm100, for whom AVW-TELAV, Waveguide Consulting and Christie Digital were acknowledged for their efforts in implementing environmentally sustainable practices in the manufacturing of products, integration of A/V systems and a reduction of waste in the workplace. Extron tends to find its products on more bills of tender than any other, and this year UL Environment announced that the manufacturer had become the first US producer to successfully undergo the agency’s independent testing for US EPA Energy Star performance – in turn earning the Energy Efficiency Certification (EEC) Mark for external power supplies and amplifiers.

Meanwhile, many other power amplifier manufacturers, such as Behringer and Crown followed Powersoft’s initiative of adopting green power, greatly increasing efficiencies whilst reducing the overall size and net weight of chassis designs. The four models making up the ComTech series of amplifiers, which incorporates DriveCore technology, conforms to Harman Professional’s Green Edge environmental initiative, for which the amplifiers are convection-cooled and Energy Star 2.0 compliant. Crown’s new advanced circuit components use fewer resources in manufacturing, but have also contributed to significant weight reduction in the amplifiers that result in less energy consumption and one rack unit high amplifiers which weigh less than 5kg.

In total, 925 exhibitors occupied more than 44,145 sq-m of exhibition and special events space this year, representing an 11 per cent increase from the 2009 InfoComm in Orlando. However, this is not a good comparison, as the West Coast exhibitions – and in particular the diversions and attractions of Las Vegas - seem to attract more attendees and exhibitors than those taking place on the East Coast.

The 2008 show was similar in many respects to 2010, but the increased number of exhibitors and the opening of the North hall seemed to dilute visitor numbers. ‘It seems a lot quieter than the show in 2008,’ remarked Radian Audio’s Mark Pinske, whose booth was located toward the end of the Central hall. Radian launched a number of new products at InfoComm including the 950 NEO-8 compression driver and 5210B-8 300W woofer. ‘It’s good to introduce these new products to our customers but I’m not sure if the show is growing for the audio manufacturers. The show converged with NSCA in 2008 and it was a little slow then, but there was hope that we’d feel growth this year. We have not. Construction has virtually stopped in Las Vegas and the hotel rates have plummeted. Small contractors have downsized and are clearly under threat of going under. There’s little promise that the situation is going to change in the years ahead either.’

There were similar voices of discontent from a number of manufacturers who were located in the peripheral areas of the Central Hall, including Mick Brophy from the Spanish brand Vieta Pro. ‘It’s probably been a waste of time and money as I have only seen about three companies in three days,’ commented Mr Brophy, as he left the hall for the final time.

It’s easy to sympathise with exhibitors who are forced to pay out enormous amounts of marketing funds not only on raw floor space, flights, hotels and expenses, but the unattractive additions that constitute drayage and heavily unionised labour costs. In comparison to trade shows in Asia and Europe, which don’t hinder set-up and tear down efforts or financially penalise exhibitors to such extremes, the American dream has now become an American nightmare. America may be the single biggest market in the world for now, but its status is waning. The ISE exhibition in Europe may only be six years old, but visitor numbers at the Amsterdam show are almost on par with InfoComm. An announcement was made during InfoComm that ISE has added another hall at the RAI Centre and the stage is set for another bumper crowd. In the past, manufacturer R&D cycles have traditionally revolved around Frankfurt Pro Light + Sound and InfoComm, but ISE is certainly having an impact here as well now.

Just as those big hotels have had to drop their rates to cope with the fall in gambling revenue contrasted against the rise of Macau, likewise InfoComm should cast a cautious eye on the increasing importance of the European and Asian markets, where the trade shows hosted in Amsterdam, Beijing, Frankfurt, Hong Kong and Singapore are offering potentially greater market shares for exhibitors. The union strangleholds in American convention centres could potentially deter weary, cost conscious exhibitors from showcasing their products to the North American market in future as the Chinese and Indian economies continue to rise in stature.

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