DSF, Questex Formalize Business Ties Ahead Of Rebooted DSE
November 17, 2021 by Dave Haynes
The Digital Signage Federation has developed deeper business ties with the events firm that is rebooting the longtime DSE trade show and conference as Digital Signage Experience in March 2022.
The DSF has worked an arrangement with Questex to join the conference as an Industry Association partner. DSE takes place March 22-24, 2022 in Las Vegas at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
DSF is described as a not-for-profit independent voice of the digital signage industry, founded in 2010 and for most of the last decade backed, in part, by the private company that was putting on DSE each year, Atlanta-based Exponation. That company entered Chapter 7 (bankruptcy) last fall, and ultimately the assets were auctioned off, and picked up by Questex, which runs numerous business trade shows and conferences around the globe.
The demise of Exponation meant the end of an annual revenue-share funding source – separate from DSF membership dues and other initiatives – and also the end of exclusive ties to an industry trade show.
As part of the agreement between the DSF and Questex, the DSF will now be featured as an official industry trade association sponsor of DSE. Members of the DSF will receive special association discounts for passes to the conference program as well as other association benefits. The DSF will also be producing a track of live educational sessions leveraging its excellent online micro-credential course catalogue.
“The DSF has been a steadfast partner and proponent of the event since its inception and, with this critical relaunch of the event in 2022, we’re proud and grateful that the DSF has again endorsed the event now under new leadership by Questex,” says Marian Sandberg, VP/Market Leader for DSE at Questex.
“We are excited to be collaborating with Digital Signage Experience and to be able to provide our members with tangible benefits to attend and exhibit,” adds Len Dudis, Vice Chairman of the Digital Signage Federation Board of Directors. “For over a decade, our members have exhibited at the DSE’s predecessor event. We know how important attending education sessions, walking the show floor and days of networking are for our members and others in the ecosystem.”
I am on the DSF board, so I was aware and updated about what all happened and the decisions made in the aftermath of Exponation shutting the show down. There were a lot of discussions and idea-generation about what to do and who to do it with. Those are board matters, however, and I can’t just relate all that. I can say the decision to partner with DSE’s backers was anything but a whim.
All success to the reboot! One request…If you want this to grow, don’t charge industry professionals to attend the exhibit floor. That is what killed DSE the first time.