InfoComm’s Growth: Behind the Numbers
It has been a couple month’s since we all gathered in Orlando. Some of us were there to find the latest and greatest technology for our new projects, while others were there to unapologetically promote our AV wares. The last two years we have heard that InfoComm has set new attendance records, with over 39,000 attending the show this year.
Numbers always intrigue me, as they can be easily distorted to tell the story you want to tell. In 2012, after Extron’s exit from InfoComm and a few other manufacturers’ decision to exit CEDIA, I asked if industry trade shows were in trouble. (An interesting side note on that piece is that it refers to 4K and laser projection being shown at NAB that year in 2012, stories we’re still touting as “NEW” today in 2015).
So 3 years later, with InfoComm attendance on the rise, how do the numbers break down? Where is InfoComm actually growing, and does growth always relate to relevance? Can the numbers be deceiving?
First let’s look at top line growth, measured by total number of registrants for the show.
As you can see the top line attendance number is healthy, about a 5.5% YOY increase in registrants, which on the surface looks like a good indicator that the show is healthy.
Top line growth numbers are great to look at but they rarely tell the whole story.
Knowing where the show is growing can tell more about the pulse of the industry as a whole. So where has the show grown in the last couple years? InfoComm breaks down it’s attendance into three categories: Manufacturer exhibitors, Dealer/Distributor/Rep exhibitors (think Almo or Stampede), and Attendees (including integrators, technology managers, end-users, etc). Here is how the attendance has broken down with respect to those categories over the last 3 years.
There are a couple trends here that jump out immediately and despite growth of 5.5% each of the last two years, the numbers tell a tale of two different InfoComms.
InfoComm 2014 had 1,922 more registrants, equating to a 5.5% growth in bodies at the show. But where did those people come from?
Surprisingly, most of those people worked for exhibitors, 1561 of them, or 81%. That means that the major growth in the show that year was due to more people selling. The amount of attendees only increased by 361 people, or 1.5%. Given that InfoComm 2014 was in Las Vegas, a city that typically has a stronger draw for attendees in general, I almost see that as a loss. I would expect to gain more attendees than that just based on the fact that InfoComm 2013 was in Orlando, and 2014 was in Las Vegas. In this respect, it seems InfoComm was better at selling the 2014 show to exhibitors than they were at marketing it to people who actually buy their products and services.
I find this even more surprising considering that InfoComm really played up the Microsoft entry into the show, an addition that turned out to be all bark and no bite in 2014. I am certain that announcement influenced exhibitor behavior, whether in their decision to exhibit or at the least in the selection of their booth location, but it seems it had little influence on attendees behavior.
InfoComm 2015 however tells a different story.
The show grew by 2,057 total registrants, about the same 5.5 % as was seen in 2014. However, the total number of people at the show working for exhibitors actually went down by 513 people. All of the growth at the 2015 show was due to strong attendance by attendees, or the people actually buying AV products and services. Attendee growth was actually 11%.
Using the same logic as above, having strong attendee growth in Orlando means that the draw of the show must have been even stronger, as attendees aren’t going just to justify an outing in Las Vegas. This means that InfoComm did a better job of adding value to the show for exhibitors in 2015. More end users and integrators on whole attended meaning that exhibitors received more bang for their buck.
Given the attendance breakdown of exhibitors, you would assume that companies exhibiting at the show were up dramatically in 2014 and then back down in 2015. However the numbers tell an interesting story there as well.
You can see the change YOY is less than 1%, so it’s pretty static. I’m actually surprised by that somewhat for a couple reasons. The first being the large swing in actual exhibitor registrants over the last 3 years.
The second reason is that there has been an influx of small and unknown Chinese manufacturing companies to the show over the last couple years, (as evidenced by the plethora of emails I have been receiving since InfoComm ended). It raises the question as to which exhibitors we have lost, given no real growth in this area. It also begs the question of whether or not these exhibitors are representing the same value the ones they supplanted represented to attendees in the past. It’s not a question I’m answering here, just one to be considered.
The trends in actual companies exhibiting and exhibitor registrants don’t line up. This means that either exhibiting companies brought dramatically larger numbers of their employees to the show in 2014 than they did in 2013 and 2015 or there was a different mix of booth space and needs that year. In any case, exhibitors definitely brought less staff to InfoComm in 2015 for whatever reason.
All things considered, if I were giving grades to InfoComm’s growth in 2014 and 2015, despite identical overall show growth from a total attendance standpoint, I’d give 2014 a C- as it was exhibitor heavy despite Las Vegas’ wider appeal to attendees. 2015 however would get a strong B+. 2015 represented a better opportunity for manufacturers to communicate their value to integrators who sell their products to end users and to end users who will eventually hire an integrator.
Has InfoComm been making changes that better attracts an end user crowd? In my opinion they are making strides in this area. I’d love to see them put some more of that over $35,000,000 in revenues to work on marketing InfoComm more to attendees and less to exhibitors, as well as to create a serious CTS awareness campaign in the end user community.
What do you think? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. I’d love to hear your take.