DSE Postpones Show Again, Pushing Back To November In Las Vegas
July 16, 2020 by Dave Haynes
Digital Signage Expo has pushed back the dates of its show once again, shifting it two months to mid-November.
The show will now run November 11-13, with access to the exhibit hall on Thursday and Friday, November 12 & 13.
Chris Gibbs, President/COO of show organizer Exponation, said in a news release this afternoon that current exhibitor locations will be maintained on the new floor plan. And, it will not be necessary for anyone to re-register. Registration information will be retained “as is” for exhibit hall passes and conference selections.
Show registration is currently open for the exhibit hall only. Conference registration will re-open soon for the DSE 2020 education program.
This was inevitable. Much of the United States is still struggling with containing COVID-19, and Nevada is no exception. Las Vegas added almost 800 new cases on Wednesday alone. By comparison, there were 343 new cases Wednesday for all of Canada.
I had wondered when DSE was going to call the show off, and checked the convention authority site earlier in the week, counting all of eight shows (now seven) in Las Vegas for all of September.
16:9 is NOT doing a mixer for 2020. Regardless of whether the show is on or not, it would seem wildly inappropriate to ask dozens, scores or (more normally) 100s of people to gather in a room to mix and mingle, even with masks and other measures. I find it hard to chat while wearing a Level 4 bio-containment suit, plus there’s no hole for a straw for my beer.
If, and unfortunately it is a big if, the health safety circumstances have improved enough to make the November show workable, it is happening in a bit of a dead zone, I THINK. Trade shows tend to skew more to the front-end of a calendar year, and I am not aware of many big ones around then. It is before US Thanksgiving, but does fall on Veteran’s Day (known as Remembrance Day in Canada).
Ironically, I think the old Kioskcom/CETW trade show in New York, which drew a vendor crowd similar to DSE, tended to run in mid-November.
If you missed earlier news, the show announced that it was permanently moving to a fall date, starting in 2021. That gave it much-needed separation from ISE, CES, NAB, NRF and on and on.
COMDEX