Wow, What an InfoComm!

I can’t remember the last time I was so excited to be at an InfoComm as I was last week. The anticipation about this year’s show started building after attending the February DSE [Digital Signage Expo] as that was such a successful show in Vegas. The affirmation point for the success of InfoComm 2010, for me, came when we launched THE GAME at 10 am in the Christie Digital booth and there were a few hundred extra folks there playing the game trying to win rAVe t-shirts and Apple iPads – our first-day game was “capture the flag” and we hid a red rAVe shirt in five different booths across the show floor and Tweeted clues to find them – the winners got iPads and a couple thousand people walked away with rAVe “Save the Trees” t-shirts.

But, it’s wasn’t just THE GAME that had me excited, the floor was packed with over 32,000 attendees, more than 10 percent higher attendance than 2009 and nearly back to pre-recession numbers.  In addition, there were a plethora of new products and technologies at this year’s InfoComm 2010 – something that we hadn’t seen in a few years at the show. The biggest trend at the show? Well, there is a CLEAR path and movement towards putting everything on the network.  Extron, ClearOne, Crestron, AMX, WOW Vision, the entire digital signage market and, heck, even mount manufacturers have networkable solutions now!  It’s about time!

And, 3D everywhere! I counted more than 50 booths showing 3D content – 50.  OK, OK, most of it was hype and stuff that had nothing to do with the ProAV market, but some did!  I was impressed at the integration of 3D into digital signage applications and, of course, there were a few cool 3D videoconferencing companies out there. Will 3D make it in ProAV? Only time will tell.

What was I MOST impressed with at InfoComm 2010?  Well, you’ll have to wait a bit for that as we’ll debut out rAVe 2010 Best of InfoComm Awards issue coming in July!