Sixteen:Nine Mixer Pre-Event Panel To Explore Merger Activities In Digital Signage

October 11, 2022 by Dave Haynes

Consolidation in this industry has been expected and happening for years, and some some companies have emerged as the main actors in Mergers and Acquisitions activity. There will be few CEOs on the software, hardware or solutions side who have not fielded phone calls and taken meetings with other CEOs or the investment people they work with to discuss buying, selling or blending businesses.

It’s an endlessly interesting topic, and one I thought we could mine at DSE in Las Vegas, just ahead of the annual Sixteen:Nine Mixer on Nov. 16th. So we’re going to do a discussion panel at the venue, beginning one hour ahead of the mixer start time, and about 45 minutes ahead of when the first Canadians show up looking to redeem their free drink tickets (there is a history here).

The 4:30 Happy Hour timing had me thinking Grumpy Hour would be a good name for the event, but that says curmudgeon … and while that fairly applies to me, it doesn’t to the panel. I’lll cook up a better name eventually, but for now, it’s a Pre-Mixer Panel.

What’s more firm than the title is the set of panelists who will share thoughts on why their companies are actively exploring more acquisitions within the digital signage sector. We will have:

• Tamara Bebb, CEO of Spectrio, which has acquired numerous digital signage industry software firms, as well as (last fall) this publication. She’s now kinda sorta, by extension, my boss!;
• Rick Mills, CEO of Creative Realities, which has also done a series of acquisitions, most recently Reflect;
• Kevin Carbone, CEO of Scala, which was acquired by STRATACACHE. Blunt, funny and super-smart Chris Riegel, who founded and runs the STRATACACHE empire, is in Europe that week and unable to sit in, but he notes Kevin has been directly involved in a couple of M&A deals and also has the perspective of being a CEO of a company that was acquired (STRATACACHE bought PRN).

I did try for Uniquest, as well, but CEO Jeff Hiscox (very nice man, BTW) couldn’t make it work. Uniguest has been the other very acquisitive software and solutions company in this sector.

The default host is me, but as I started to get into the planning weeds on this, I remembered, “Oh yeah … I also have all the last-minute stuff to sort/troubleshoot ahead of the mixer.” So I will do intros, a couple of magic tricks, and then hand off to a moderator.

Admission to the pre-event is bundled with Mixer registration. So if you have a mixer ticket, you have a ticket for the panel. The bar SHOULD be open so drink tickets can PROBABLY be redeemed, and if you exhaust those precious tickets, the bar can also take cash. You can also just attend the pre-event if you have registered, and then leave. But why? We’ll have 300 or so industry folks to meet and greet.

Tickets are running out for the mixer, with less than 30 now available. So if you want in, go here: https://sixteenninemixer2022.eventbrite.ca

Sponsors make this event possible, and the Mixer has great ones …