What They Say
Sixteen-nine.net reported that attendance for the Cedia trade show was ‘utterly clobbered’ by the virus, with attendees down from 20,000 two years ago to 1,400 this year and exhibitors down from 500 to 82.
What We Think
Ouch. However, I mentioned to somebody at the Peerless AV event in London last week that back in the ’80s, I went to a really terrible trade show where nearly nobody attended. It was so bad that the exhibitors went as a group to the organisers to demand their money back. However, at that show I met the buyer from a firm that made dedicated Prestel terminals, Tandata, and who thought that the monitor designs that I had had matched its terminals well. Over the next three or four years, I sold the firm more than 10,000 monitors.
However, the low numbers and the cancellation of NAB must have caused Avixa, which organises Infocomm, still due next month, to have had a bad moment. That will be especially because of all shows, Cedia, which covers the high end home entertainment segment, could have really benefit from the ‘stay-at-home’ economy.
The videos on the event website make it clear that the aisles were pretty empty. (BR)
