CEDIA Attendance Clobbered By COVID

September 20, 2021 by Dave Haynes

The numbers for the recent home AV/residential tech trade show CEDIA Expo are in, and both attendee and exhibitor numbers were utterly clobbered.

The last normal times version of the show, in 2019, attracted almost 20,000 attendees and 500 exhibitors, when it was held in Denver two years ago. The 2021  show was held at the start of this month in Indianapolis, and there were all of 1,400 attendees and 82 exhibitors. I had heard and read that it was pretty quiet, but wow.

This is relevant for a couple of reasons:

• There is a fair amount of company and integrator spillover between the AV crowd that would normally have CEDIA and InfoComm on its trade show and conference rotation;
• CEDIA co-owns Integrated Systems Europe with AVIXA, which solely owns InfoComm.

One notable difference is that CEDIA is run by a live events company, Emerald, while InfoComm is put on by the association.

There are all kinds of social media predictions from people within the AV and signage industries as to how InfoComm in Orlando will play out in terms of exhibitor and attendee counts. The one certainty is that it will be down noticeably from normal times. AVIXA, understandably, is doing everything it can to communicate and enforce its on-site health safety approach and protocols. But it can’t control much of anything away from the convention hall and in the journey to the city, and that’s likely what gets many people antsy.

This Wednesday’s podcast is with AVIXA CEO Dave Labuskes. We get into plans for InfoComm, but we’ll also talk much more about how shows like ISE and InfoComm work going forward, and how and why AVIXA is looking to build digital signage much more into the core of its activities.