Palme poses many questions
Published: MEA
UAE: It was a mixed first day for Dubai’s Palme Middle East show. While the organiser will be pleased with the attendance figures, the small show floor and conspicuous absence of some major players will be cause for concern.
To start with the positives, Palme has proven to be a meeting point for the local industry. International manufacturer representatives and local companies have all made the trip to Dubai’s World Trade Centre. Indeed, the coffee shops around the hall and the main aisles have been filled with conversations as many visitors have used the show as the venue for meetings.
For those that did take stands, it has provided a way for distributors such as Echo Beats and Pro Lab to announce their presence on the market. This has given brands including TW Audio, Powersoft, Audac, Tasker and Lewitt Microphones the opportunity to highlight some of their products.
Equally, more established distributors such as SGTC, Procom Middle East and Aviss all had manufacturer representatives on their stands from the likes of QSC, Tendzone, Bosch, Avolites, and Pan Beam.
More positives can be taken from the educational programme which has some interesting topics that are relevant to the local industry. Speakers such as Flash Entertainment’s Lee Charteris acted as a significant draw and provided a full seminar room.
Despite all this, day one highlighted some serious issues that the organiser must address. The show floor itself is compact in size with the end wall appearing much sooner than many were expecting. As visitors quickly completed circuits of the exhibition, there was a general feeling of ‘is that it?’ and conversation turned to how much Palme has changed since its glory days.
While the attendance figures for the day will doubtless be good – despite a lack of scanning when people entered, a significant change on previous years – many visitors came with a different agenda to that which the organiser would be hoping for. Many people have made the trip to Palme this year simply to confirm if they made the right decision not to exhibit. The sad consensus seemed to be that they did.
Adding to this issue is that a number of the visitors were from the companies which were highly conspicuous by their absence. Many of the large stands from previous years have this year disappeared from the exhibition, as companies look at other ways to use their marketing budgets.
The dilemma presented by Palme 2014 is that while the local entertainment industry clearly has an appetite for a meeting point where it can gather to discuss business, it seems to have decided en masse that Palme is not the right vehicle for this.
It is the job of the organiser to prove it is listening and can make changes to encourage more of the local industry to play an active role in the show. If it does not, the future looks bleak for Palme.
Palme Middle East continues at Dubai’s World Trade Centre until April 17th.