The Digital Signage Expert

I travelled today to IBC and on top of agenda was obviously the digital signage pavillon which was widely advertized and pushed all over. When I finally found it at the rear end of hall 8 I thought I was on the wrong planet. A handfull of exhibitors, mostly local Dutch players, all dominated by Bell Micro with a big stand surrounding an empty hall, whereas half of it was transformed into a meeting and lounge area.It is a dangerous trend for our industry that every show and event organizer is jumping onto the train which left the station long time ago, trying to leverage on a growing industry. It leads to dilution of the message and saturating the real customer with more or less relevant information.

With no story and accompanying educational tracks and conferences (see also comments of our colleague blogger on DailyDOOH: http://www.dailydooh.com/archives/15891 – Why Exhibitions Need Great Conferences) there is no added value for the customer to attend, and hence exhibitors will find no reason to show presence as well.

We originally wanted to conduct a Digital Signage Experts Tour at IBC – I am happy we didn’t proceed as we would not have been able to fill the tour to show the end-to-end application.