More Than 800 Exhibitors Now Booked For ISE Next Month

April 22, 2022 by Dave Haynes

The company that puts on Integrated Systems Europe for its trade association owners did a press briefing Thursday that dug into plans and expectations for the world’s leading biggest pro AV, set for Barcelona on May 10th to 13th.

Integrated Systems Events Managing Director Mike Blackman says more than 800 exhibitors are booked for the event across six “Technology Zones” and five halls at the Gran Vía. This will be the first full-on ISE in Barcelona, having moved from Amsterdam for 2021 but running smack into COVID-19.

The big brands at the show include regulars like Alfalite, Barco, Christie, KNX, LANG, Microsoft, Panasonic, Samsung, Shure, Sony and Zoom, but also, very interestingly, Google. LG was not mentioned, which made me wonder, but the floor map shows the Korean electronics giant has a big space booked and a preview page online. LG pulled out of ISE 2020 on short notice, over COVID worries, leaving a big void at the front of one of the Amsterdam halls.

Along with the Barcelona trade show halls, there are five days of conferences, running from digital signage (Invidis is putting on once again) to super-yachts. Were I heading over I would be attending the super-yacht conference, even though I am happy with my current yacht. If you are attending, expect to run into Russian oligarchs in the hallways, quietly trying to sell their boats before they get repo’d.

There are two keynotes this year:

Day One is from Refik Anadol: ‘Exploring the Heritage of Tomorrow’ at 18.00 on 10 May. Anadol is a world leading media artist and pioneer in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence. He will give the Opening Keynote Address at ISE 2022. A special event will also happen on the façade of Casa Batlló on the evening of Saturday 7 May because of the collaboration between Anadol and OFFF Barcelona, a festival of creativity, art and digital design – and ISE 2022.

Day Two will be from Alan Greenberg, entitled: ‘Next Generation Immersive Entertainment’ on 11 May at 18:00. As CEO and co-founder of Illuminarium, Greenberg heads up a breakthrough global experiential entertainment company created by worldwide leaders in cinematic immersion, interactive content, and theatrical design.

There are a couple of big visual experiences:

• ISE has worked with Exhibition Hub to curate a unique 650 sq m virtual reality experience art installation at the venue;
• I RISE at the Plaça d’Espanya is a projection mapping show created and produced by Barcelona-based Flaix Studio, and will run on Monday to Wednesday at 9 each evening.

Facts and figures provided by the show for this year and beyond:
•    The AV industry to grow to $329B by 2026, average growth rates of 7.2% CAGR*;
•    Across Spain, pro AV revenue €3B in 2022, to rise by 6.2% by 2026*;
•    ISE show 800 exhibitors in 2022 to grow to 1,775 by 2026;
•    ISE show to increase net floor space from 42,000 sq m to more than 77,000 sq m by 2026;
•    By 2023, ISE to contribute €250-300M to Barcelona economy, growing to €500M by 2026 (SOURCE: UFI).

The show is catching back up to pre-pandemic times in terms of exhibitor and headcounts. The 2020 event had roughly 950 exhibitors booked, though some dropped out before the show opened, as COVID concerns started building. The non-duplicated headcount for 2020 was 52,128 attendees, versus about 82,000 in 2019. The ISE press statement doe not get into headcount expectations for this year, but we can assume for all kinds of reasons it will not reach pre-pandemic levels because we’re not yet post-pandemic.

I can’t get my head around expectations that the exhibitor count could more than double to 1,775 by 2026, but the show has some aspects that are about IoT and building automation that were smallish in scale in Amsterdam but represent very large, growing industries.