Well, as usual I sit here preparing for the InfoComm show, which seems to get more difficult every year as the show spreads out to include both more attendees and more vendors. At one time, the show was purely “AV”, but the definition of AV is certainly expanding.

What do YOU (and by “you” I mean those of you in the rental and staging fields) expect to see at the show this year? Obviously, it will be yet another year of 3D mania, with more projectors and monitors, and more third-party add-ons, giving 3D capability.

On the integration side, it will also be the year of IP-based, HTML-savvy control systems. I don’t think I have ever seen this many control products released in a single year. In the last 3 months, I’ve seen new control systems released by 6 different manufacturers, and the ads all show an iPad and iPhone propped up against their control systems, so the year of HTML control is definitely here.

But what about show control? Where is the straight-up replacement for my beloved Dataton system? Where is drag-and-drop control designed specifically for shows, not to include screen processing and graphics creation and effects, but just good old-fashioned device control with drag and drop simplicity? Obviously, the hardware already exists in the form of these new ip-based, network-centric systems, but where is SHOW programming software to run on them, or, better yet, optionally embed in them?

I’ll be looking….

JRR