17,000 people talking about signs this week … at a different show

April 26, 2011 by Dave Haynes

Here’s something to think about …

There are scores of companies and their staff attending the CETW show this week in San Francisco, talking about the more advanced aspects of the digital signage, digital OOH and interactive display sectors.

Same week, there are 17,000 people in the sign industry wandering around the aisles of International Sign Expo 2011, at the Mandalay Bay’s events center in Lost Wages. There are no digital signage companies there, based on what the exhibitor list is telling me. None. Zippo.

This is a huge, well-established industry with a client base of just about every retailer and government office in North America and beyond, and it is populated by people who know digital is coming but don’t really know what to do about it.

Alan Brawn is there running one of his everything-you’d-ever-want to know sessions. Consultant Bruce Goldstein is doing a 101 session. And the ever-cagey Jeff Porter of Scala has a slot talking about software choices, which makes me giggle. Smart.

So, we have a massive industry that needs to start making a transition, and not a single technology vendor has identified this as an opportunity (except Porter, who I’m sure won’t just talk about Scal … oh, never mind).

Setting up a booth means looking wildly out of place in a sea of printing equipment and electric signs. But it would also mean being the only one available to talk to sign people about making the shift.