Volume 9, Issue 7 — April 10, 2023

AV Buyers.Club — Volume 9, Issue 7

April 10, 2023 | Volume: 9 | Issue: 7

The future of trade shows seems to be something everyone has an opinion about. Whether you think they’re coming back in full force or you think they’ll be hybrid forever, I’m sure you have an opinion. So does Scott Tiner — check out his column about what he expects to happen and what he hopes will happen for trade shows in our industry.

Also, Chris Gillespie writes about the mature AV/VC environment. Whether you’re an AV tech manager, in-house integrator or some other technical end user, I’m sure you’ve been tasked with at least a few things in this column. How do you ensure you’re on top of all the tech and rooms you’re working with?

Enjoy the rest of this newsletter, #AVtweeps!

— Steph Beckett

COLUMNS

+ Future of Trade Shows [Scott Tiner]

During the pandemic, there was a decent amount of discussion about the future of trade shows. Predictably, these theories ranged from “they would go fully virtual” to “they spring right back and be just as big as before.” I think that those who predicted a spring back to the “old days” were closer to the truth. In fact, I think that if you look at most things that changed through the past few years, you will witness a slow return to how it used to be, as it is really difficult for people and traditions to change. However, I also think and hope that while many of the standard structures of the trade show stay the same, I also hope that some things will change.

+ The Pursuit of a Mature AV/VC Environment — Part 1 [Christopher Gillespie]

Over the past decade or so, I have been rather lucky to have the opportunity to observe and understand the state of audiovisual and videoconferencing environments across various organizations. For the most part, things work pretty solidly. At least for users. But beyond that, most organizations that I have seen have never really taken things to the “next level,” or, while they have taken steps in that direction, it’s not been a huge goal. The problem with the next level, however, is that there is no real consensus on what that looks like.