InfoComm 2019 Draws 44K+ Attendees, 950+ Exhibitors

June 17, 2019 by Dave Haynes

AVIXA – the Audiovisual and Integrated Experience Association – says last week’s InfoComm show in Orlando logged 44,129 registered attendees, up modestly from the last Florida show and about 1,300 over last year in Las Vegas.

The show gets roughly half the attendees who go to Integrated Systems Europe (ISE had 81,000), which runs in February and is co-owned by AVIXA. There were nearly 950 exhibitors (ISE had 1,300), so the attendees to booths ratio is quite different).

My impressions from last week (I didn’t attend Friday) are already up. Overall, good event, but disjointed. The ongoing attempts to create a digital signage area are, well, ongoing. The big display manufacturers al have front of hall (or near-front and center) spaces, while the DS area was waaaay off to one end. Most of the display guys down that way were LED, with the exception of specialty-focused companies like Dynascan and ELO. It is not clear how that would be fixed, other than shifting the DS area to the middle (I assume 2020 booth positions were being booked last week). Signage is just one of many sectors served by InfoComm, so I don’t see that happening. To be fair, while ISE has a digital signage hall, none of the major display companies are in that hall, and are scattered all over the Amsterdam facility.

AVIXA says 37 percent were attending for the first time, and 18 percent traveled to the show from 117 countries outside the U.S.

The show also says 40 percent of registered attendees under the age of 40.

Not convinced I will do InfoComm anymore when it is in Orlando. Lots of people and things to see, but that place at that time of year, and an under-sized, crammed airport full of inexperienced travelers, makes it hard to love or endure.

On the plus side, ride share services make getting around fast and easy. I felt sorry for Orlando’s taxi drivers, but the local companies have them rolling around in 15-year-old beaters no one rational would want to get into.

I may also be cranky because the pre-paid, pre-booked hotel reservation never made it to the hotel, and I’m not liking my getting a refund from something called Otel.

Las Vegas InfoComm, no problem. Hot but you stay in the shade, hydrate, and you’re fine.

  1. James Henry says:

    It seems ISE has more IOT and some AR/VR that was largely absent from Infocomm, also as I recall ISE addressed education more than Infocomm and had a Smart Building category. So plenty of category space for Infocomm to expand.

    ISE in Amsterdam feels like they fit double the number of attendees, and 50% more exhibitors in half the space which is presumably the reason for the 2021 move to Barcelona, a relocation that may mean more space and fewer visitors (especially Brits who might need a visa by then!).

  2. Kevin says:

    I was one of the attendees of the exhibition and I found it quite interesting.

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