Postponed ISE Creates Pro AV Trade Show Overlaps In UK, And Likely Elsewhere

January 12, 2022 by Dave Haynes

The decision to push the normally big Integrated Systems Europe trade show from three weeks out to four months out has not gone over well with at least some of the people involved in the UK’s pro AV ecosystem.

Postponed over coronavirus concerns, the show is now set for the middle of May in Barcelona, and will run at the same time as AV events planned around England.

As a result, the world’s largest AV trade show now clashes with the planned dates for tech distributor Midwich’s TechXpo on May 11-12 at the Ascot race course west of London. There is also the Media Production and Technology Show at Olympia London on the same dates (kind of an NAB show for the UK), and a live events/AV and entertainment technology show called PLASA Focus up in Leeds on May 10-11.

The revised ISE dates are also the same week as London Digital Signage Week, which UK writer Adrian Cotterill and his DailyDOOH business partners organize as a series of networking events and conferences, similar to the New York version done in the fall. I would imagine the ISE people, given how Adrian has been regularly tossing written hand grenades at the show for the last two years, are not too upset about creating that conflict.

Surprise! Adrian is not happy:

I can imagine the London DSW discussion went something like this in the ISE postponement discussion:

ISE Person: You know this will make Adrian insane because the dates conflict with his London Digital Signage Week …

ISE Director: Such a shame …

via GIPHY

The first two quarters of a calendar year tend to be the most active for trade shows, and to push dates back, ISE’s organizers and owners had to find a time window that created room for COVID cases to settle down but also allow a time gap between the show in Europe and the sister show – InfoComm – in mid-June in Las Vegas. They probably had 2 or 3 weeks to choose from, and it had to line up with exhibit halls being available in Barcelona.

We can assume there are events in other EU countries that also, likely, create some conflicts – but the discussion and reporting will be in French, German, Spanish and other languages in which my skill tops out at ordering beer.

Yup, it’s just a mess, in so many ways. There will be people who will suggest ISE should do it somewhere else, on some other date, but that is far easier to suggest than execute. Trade shows are super-complicated on many, many levels, and even more complicated by the ever-shifting health safety situation.

I long for the day when I’ll be writing again about what I saw at trade shows, instead of analyzing the business merits and prospects for them happening, and the health risk/business benefit/cumulative hassles analysis of should I stay home or go.

 

 

 

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