I’ve heard from a number of CE pros who aren’t heading to Denver this year for CEDIA.

Some say it’s the economy, others say it’s not worth it anymore.

Are you sitting out the show this year? Why?

It isn’t worth it anymore.
All the info you see there either you already know if you are truly in the business or the rest you don’t care about , the best thing about ceida is the dinners.

Sitting out.

This would have been my first Cedia.  My opinion about trade shows has changed since I have been operating a growing business.

For those who are experienced in a trade, who are operating a growing business, trade shows can be critical to developing and sustaining strong business relationships.  Let’s face it, and I’m not saying anything new, our issues are not technical, they are relational..  If you are running a growing business and are not focusing more on business relationships (customers, vendors, manufacturers, partners like contractors, employees) then your stuck and your business will be too.

What better way to get plugged into the industry we are so lucky to be a part of…that should hopefully be getting us excited, than to participate in Cedia Expo?

So why am I not attending?  Some very critical business growth, projects, new employees… quality problems.

See you next year in Atlanta!

-Morgan

I taught my first CEDIA University course this year, and after being somewhat down on EDIA in general for a number of years, I must say that I am very impressed with their commitment to quality education.  Not just creating a new crop of soon-to-die-off trunk slammers every year, but rather in providing existing companies with valid opportunities to learn how to face the many challenges that bedevil so many of us.  Have you given any upper-level courses a chance recently?  For me, that, and the relationship work, is as important as the exposure to new tech.

I think that Cedia is more inportant for ppl and businesses that are just getting started.If you want the training your manufacturers will give it or distributors will or you can go to ehx 2x a year,right now its more important to get work rather than play.

I went in 2006, and found Denver to be quite boring. As losboskie mentioned, if you’re in the industry you should already have at least an equivalent exposure and awareness of the products - especially if you subscribe to CEPro . The real interest for us is the education from CEDIA, but again I side with losboskie - there’s much work to be done and taking CEDIA courses may be great for image, education and mid to long term planning and results, but it certainly doesn’t pay the bills. Further, there’s CEDIA on the road etc. for that…I’d rather spend our downtime (if it ever happens) doing training at our convenience.

All I can say is thank god CEDIA is moving out of Denver. I saw more homeless people in Denver than I do when I am walking through NYC. It’s pathetic and sad. The number of young homeless people on the 16th Street Mall was depressing. I hope Atlanta is as much fun or more than Indy was.

Just a quick note…. Something I found that was very profound, with my new company and with the my old company, was the different attitude and planning for CEDIA Exp.  If you see it as “play” and plan for the “play” then that’s what you will get.  Some will say it wasn’t fun or it was a boring city but if you look at your company needs and you focus and plan around those, I think most companies would find it useful (if not very useful). 

We came with a plan and a specific focus around what we needed to accomplish.  We did go out 2 nights and had a great time, but that’s not what we came for.

I hope that helps!

thanks for the good reminder. I’ve done 9 CEDIAs and over 20 CESs and the more foresight I apply going in seems to pay off exponentially.  That said, I was guilty of more than a few “party shows” so I have no right to judge what other folks are doing now!

I have to agree with InVision A/V that you have to look at attending a show as a business trip.  If you’re bringing employees, you need to encourage that attitude in them as well.  Plan ahead of time, vis a vis courses to attend, and prospective vendors to check out, meetings to plan, etc.  Like anything, you get out what you put in.

This was the first time that I attended Expo as a business owner, as opposed to being an employee, and I have to say that I worked harder, and put in more hours than in past years.  Probably due to the fact that being there was coming out of my pocket, and I had to make the most of it.