DSE 2023 Day One Impressions: Teeny But Busy
December 5, 2023 by Dave Haynes
The exhibit hall on Day One of the trade show side of Digital Signage Experience in Las Vegas was quite busy Monday, but a big qualifier on that was lots of people in not much space.
Officially, there are roughly 60 stands in the DSE side of the exhibit hall – conjoined with the live events show LDI. The hall has been configured in a way that tightens up the space so it looks and feels normalish, but the hall has acres of empty space in the rear. The restrooms at the back were waaaay off.
Last year there were roughly 100 exhibitors and pre-COVID, the count was north of 200 and 250. So it has really shrunk down over time – a reflection probably owing to the shifting sands of the industry and the way a lot of companies approach event marketing. It’s not the way the show is run or presented.
Putting up stands and bringing teams in is expensive and time-consuming, and ROI-driven by necessity. None of the major display companies have stands (Sony has a meeting space up front), but the other big guys have sent some people but not invested in a physical booth. Nor the infrastructure guys like Peerless-AV and Chief.
BrightSign, however, has a pretty typical (and big) stand at the front of the hall. Videri has a big presence, and TSI Touch is also up front – with piles and piles of swag. They’re there to meet partners than show touch gear.
There are software companies here with stands – the biggest presence my friends at Spectrio (which owns Sixteen:Nine). But a lot of the other prominent players are either not here at all, or just have a sales/biz dev person hanging out.
The exhibitors I chatted with were all quite happy with the volume of traffic and quality of conversations, but worried that traffic would be much slower Tuesday. We’ll see.
My quick impressions – need to knock this out and get rolling – is not a lot of new to see, but that’s typical. The most noticeable visual thing for me were the numerous companies, like Clear LED, show transparent product for windows and building glass.
I liked this squarish micro-thin stuff in glass from Clear LED – 3.9mm pitch.
The stuff is getting better as new generations come along, and now a US company that was mainly doing more conventional product – i5LED – was showing its own R&D version of that super-thin, wafer-like product that applies to windows and is highly transparent.
i5LED also showed a 0.9 flip-chip, I think, LED meant for outdoor applications like DOOH posters. We’re starting to see LED emerge as an alternative to high brightness LCD for those kinds of jobs, because of tighter, legible pitches at short range and lowering costs.
Another US firm – Clear Motion Glass – has Laminated Transparent LED Glass, effectively that super-thin LED wafer sandwiched by building glass and meant to go in when buildings go up or get reno’d.
I didn’t get over to the LDI side of the show, as most of that is lighting and fog machines. But there are also some LED manufacturers over there, mostly showing rental/temporary for gear meant for touring acts.
Bryan Meszaros had his always well-done XUSC cocktail party – with him walking around dressed as an elf and Tony Green of Snap Install dressed as Santa. The stuff of nightmares 🙂
Gotta bolt.
Hi Dave, I’m sorry we did not get a chance show you our latest generation of outdoor LCD displays (and share an espresso) – maybe today. Our 86” Midas Aria, 46” wheelchair-accessible kiosk and full color ePaper kept the booth packed all day.
Thanks again for putting on the mixer – great chance to catch up with everyone in the industry.