Exhbiitors from Absen, Arbane Group, and Digital Projection share their views on the value of the first big pro AV trade show in Barcelona and the return of face-to-face interaction.
As the AV industry recovers from ISE 2022 and gears up for InfoComm, exhibitors have been weighing up their verdict on the first big industry show to take place in Barcelona.
AV Magazine has already shared ISE 2022’s visitor numbers, together with insight from ISE managing director Mike Blackman and Twitter’s #AVintheAM community.
Here we present the views of three manufacturers: Digital Projection, Absen and the Arbane Group of audio companies.
Mark Wadsworth, vice president of global marketing, Digital Projection
ISE 2022 really exceeded our expectations. There was a real hunger at the show for people to see new technologies, meet again face to face and get back to business. We entered the show with some trepidation regarding the attendance numbers, but all credit to Mike [Blackman, ISE managing director] and the team. They delivered a great audience of real AV professionals who are ready to do business.
ISE and trade shows in general are essential in the visual display field. It is almost impossible to convey the brilliance of RGB illuminated colours or the eye-limiting pixel density of 8K resolution in an online or virtual environment. The vast majority of our visitors had heard about, read about or seen the adverts around our Satellite MLS system and wanted to see it in person. ISE provided this platform.
As far as technology on our stand is concerned, it was all about Satellite MLS. Until Satellite MLS came along, we had numerous general comments along the lines of “projection is boring” and “there’s nothing much new in projection”. We genuinely believe this ground-breaking technology will be hugely successful, and visitors to our booth indicate that it will be.
Jess Golding, European brand and marketing director, Absen
At ISE 2022, we definitely saw more decision-makers – those attending the show with projects happening very soon. It was a very successful show. The Fira is a great venue, the corridors between booths were oversized which is very welcome! With the amount of attendees passing through it was great to have space whilst walking around the venue.
As a marketer, I will always support in-person events, I think the pandemic showed us how to incorporate more hybrid events into our daily lives, but there is a need for people to see technology in the flesh and to socialise with new customers, old friends and colleagues. It’s how industries survive, in my opinion.
We did have significant orders e.g. $300,000 of PL2.5 Pro. We cannot mention the customer’s name, but they are one of our biggest in Brazil.
The virtual production stage on our stand was a huge talking point, not only for customers meeting with us but for our industry friends too! It was great to be able to show people the ecosystem of a stage set-up. The feedback we got from this was incredible. People want to be provided with a solution which can be difficult at times, but we made it easier for people to engage with everyone in the ecosystem and it’s paid off. This VR studio was also made possible thanks to our partners: ARRI, stYpe, VPX Studios, L&L, Brompton Technology, and Analog Way.
Absen products were also visible on the Peerless-AV, Tech Data Maverick, and Lang AG stands.
Régis Cazin, CEO of Arbane Groupe (APG and Active Audio brands)
Our impressions on ISE 2022 are very positive, both from our own perspective and an organisational one. We welcomed a great number of visitors on our stand, mostly from Europe, as well as some people from the Middle East and African region. We were not surprised about the lack of presence from industry professionals from the US (InfoComm being just around the corner) or APAC (including China for obvious reasons).
We were also happy to host other manufacturers on our stand, to talk about partnerships. We received praise from our industry colleagues on the way our brand has evolved recently.
One of the main talking points was of course the electronics shortage, the industry’s biggest challenge, which will be the bottleneck on the road back to normality. However, we are already back to order levels from 2019 after two very dark years in the audio industry.
On the back of this promising ISE, business is looking good with some interesting perspectives in 2023 and new distributors that we will be in a position to announce in the near future. We are looking forward to ISE 2023, so much so that we have already booked our hotels for the next edition.
Reference : AVinteractive
