Key Takeaways:
- ADI held its AVIS ’26 event at Fenway Park, Boston, Massachusetts, bringing together integrators and suppliers for a regional get-together.
- The regional events work to complement ADI’s nationally-focused Expo, providing greater opportunity for suppliers and their customers.
- Integrators and suppliers have responded positively to the more locally-focused shows.
While many integrators value industry events like CEDIA Expo and InfoComm, not everyone can dedicate the travel time required to attend every year. Building on more than 30 years of hosting ADI Expos, the company launched AVIS ’26 as a pilot series of curated regional events designed to bring customers and suppliers together in a localized setting. Its latest stop was one of the most recognizable venues in New England: Fenway Park.
The Boston stop of ADI AVIS ’26 drew more than 100 integrator customers to the home of the Red Sox for a four-hour mix of supplier exhibits, sponsor presentations, and networking. It was followed by a stadium tour, a VIP gathering, and a ballgame.
“It keeps it local,” says Cynthia Menna, vice president and general manager at ADI. “If you can’t go to a CEDIA or to an InfoComm, bring the event close to you.”
The AVIS pilot program was intended to complement, not replace, ADI’s larger Expo events, providing another way for customers to engage with suppliers, discover products, and build industry relationships.
AVIS 2026: A curated, regional experience
Menna says AVIS was designed to complement ADI’s larger Expos by offering a different type of engagement. “The Expos bring together a cross-section of customers and suppliers across ADI’s vast portfolio, while AVIS helps us create a more intimate, focused regional experience,” she says.
About 12 to 15 suppliers typically participate in each AVIS event, a number Menna says has been growing. The footprint is tailored as well. At Fenway, JVC set up a pop-up tent to demo its projectors, while other suppliers showcased their solutions through booth displays, similar to how they may exhibit at an industry tradeshow.
One of the more deliberate choices is how the floor is laid out. Residential and commercial brands are intentionally positioned throughout the event, helping attendees discover new technologies, explore growth opportunities, and learn how solutions across both markets can support their business needs.
“We want both the suppliers and the customers to get exposure to everyone,” Menna says. The goal is crossover. A residential integrator might discover a commercial audio line, and a commercial firm might find a residential brand that fits its projects. She points to several suppliers on the floor that see opportunity in both markets.
The format also includes brief presentations from top sponsors. Samsung was presenting during CE Pro‘s visit.
Leaning into the experience factor
ADI is leaning into the setting. This year’s AVIS events have all been tied to sports venues, with a VIP event following each one.
“We wanted this to be boutique and curated but also have an experience level to it as well,” Menna says.
The local format also changes who can attend. An integration firm that could send one or two people to a national show can bring its whole crew to AVIS. Menna notes one company at Fenway brought about eight employees.
According to Menna, customer feedback has been strong. Integrators appreciate being hosted in a smaller setting where they can mingle with suppliers.
Developing meaningful supplier connections
Exhibitors say the value goes beyond the view of the Green Monster. Most of the supplier representatives CE Pro spoke with at Fenway made the same point. Many cover sprawling territories, some spanning the entire East Coast, and AVIS lets them reach dealers who can’t make long trips. Suppliers also highlighted the quality of interactions, noting the event’s intimate setting encourages personalized conversations with customers, product demonstrations, and relationship building.
Suppliers also noted that Boston is a strong market, though interest tends to thin out farther into northern New England. And when reps visit the region, they spend most of their time outside the city. Most integrators’ offices are in the surrounding suburbs, which makes a central venue that suburban dealers can reach especially useful.
An opportunity in building awareness
For JVC, AVIS served as a way to build its presence in a region where it has no one on the ground. Jamie Pasley, general manager of JVC’s Home Theater Projector and Custom Installation business, notes the company already has distribution in the Northeast through ADI, along with a number of smaller residential accounts. Still, she sees room to grow.
“I feel like there’s opportunity to get more awareness, to grow, and I’m trying to create different events in different markets that we can reach,” Pasley says. She adds that some attendees may never have seen a JVC demo in person.
At Fenway, JVC showed a model from its distribution-only Reference Series, the company’s entry-level native 4K projector. Like the rest of JVC’s lineup, it uses the company’s proprietary D-ILA technology and is rated for 40,000:1 native contrast. Pasley explains that the model mirrors a unit in JVC’s retail Procision line, differing mainly in the color of its front lens ring.
Pasley also notes that a national-show presence is costly for JVC. That makes regional events like AVIS an efficient way to put products in front of integrators.
A place for new services to get their start
AVIS also gives ADI a direct line to what the channel needs. In an interview outside the event space overlooking right-center field at Fenway, Scott Normand, sales engineering senior director at ADI, says the company’s new paid professional services offering grew out of exactly these kinds of exchanges. The service covers remote control-system programming, audio DSP programming, and GUI development.
“A lot of our suppliers are saying, ‘You guys need to do this,'” Normand says. “It was conversations like this at events like this where we said, ‘Hey, we’ve got to get this done.'”
Normand says the service sold close to 500 hours in its first three months. It sits alongside ADI’s complimentary design services, which aim for same-day turnaround from a team that includes six CTS-D-certified designers.
As ADI evaluates the success of the pilot series, the company sees opportunities to incorporate lessons learned from AVIS into future customer events. The goal is to continue delivering the product access, education, networking, and business-building opportunities customers value while making it even easier for them to engage with suppliers and the broader ADI community.
Why integrators should take note
ADI AVIS ’26 expands how ADI connects suppliers and customers, complementing the company’s longstanding Expo program with a localized and highly curated experience.
For integrators, it means hands-on time with products without the travel, cost, or crowds of a national tradeshow. For suppliers, it means meaningful engagement with dealers they might otherwise never meet. And for ADI, it’s a feedback loop that shapes what it offers the channel next.
AVIS ’26 wraps up its pilot event series in Los Angeles on October 21. As ADI looks ahead to 2027, insights from the series will help shape future customer events by bringing together the elements that customers and suppliers value most.
