Why?
Well, they primarily pointed to two things: attendance and quality of attendees.
Attendance: The Almo E4 AV Tour regularly draws 400-500 attendees. No, not 80, not 210 and not 250. 400-500. Why does this matter? Well, apparently the difference is that, in addition to integrators and consultants attending, the E4 draws a high number of end-users. In fact, in one of my last keynotes, I asked how many of them were end-users and about 30% of them raised their hands.
Quality: This is a biggie. These attendees buy — and they buy millions of dollars of AV gear from Almo each year. Hundreds of millions. In fact, Almo (the parent company, not just the Almo Pro A/V division) is now the largest distributor in the U.S. They will be the industry’s first $1 Billion distributor in a couple of years, no doubt. And, they are drawing quality integrators and end-users to their events, including the guy who specifies most of Georgia Tech’s AV, makes the AV decisions for Coke and the lady who helped design the room spec for all of Harvard’s new classrooms.
And, the elephant in the room? No, I didn’t get paid to write this NOR did anyone at Almo ask me to write this. And, the Spring tour is over. So, take what I wrote with a grain of salt, consider the source, etc. But, until you attend their event, don’t judge. And, when you do, tell me you don’t think it’s blowing away the others…