22 SHOW PREVIEW: Top 10 things to see at ISE 2016 1. Opening Panel The Opening Panel Discussion takes place at 18:00 on Monday 8 February, the evening before the show. It will be held in the Forum of the Amsterdam RAI, prior to the ISE Opening Reception. The discussion will focus on the convergence of AV and IT and the technical challenges and business opportunities for the installation and integration market this has created. The session will be moderated by Wired magazine editor David Rowan, joined by panellists: Jonathan Wagstaff, country manager, CONTEXT; Toni Barnett, managing director, CDEC; Kevin Morrison, executive VP, Harman; Mark Grady, channel sales lead, EMEA, Google, Android & Chrome for Work; and Bernd Eberhardt, president and CEO, NEC Display Solutions.
2. Friday Keynote Dr Michio Kaku will present the Friday Keynote at 09:00 on Friday 12 February, half an hour before the show opens. One of the world’s leading scientific figures, Dr Kaku is recognised as an expert in Einstein’s unified field theory and has unparalleled skill in predicting trends affecting business, commerce and finance, based on the latest scientific research. For his bestselling book Physics of the Future, he interviewed 300 of the world’s top scientists about their vision for the next 20 to 100 years in computers, robotics, biotechnology and space travel.
3. Pre-show conferences The Audio Forum, presented by Connessioni, takes place on Monday 8 February at Amsterdam RAI, Room G001-G002, from 10:00 to 17:00. This year’s conference will explore ‘Theories, Technologies, Legends and Myths’ about audio, and the keynote speaker is Donato Masci, an acoustic designer and consultant from Studio Sound Service, Florence, Italy. The Smart Building Conference returns with a full-day’s programme, including expert speakers from across the smart building industry, chaired by Bob Snyder, editor in chief of Channel Media Europe. Delegates can join either a Residential or Commercial track and discover insights into emerging trends, energy savings, and home automation solutions.
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IN INSTALLATION
February 2016
‘We’ve got to kick this one’ A couple of weeks before ISE 2016, ISE managing director Mike Blackman spoke to Paddy Baker about his plans and aspirations for the show What are you most looking forward to at ISE 2016? Or is that a ‘favourite child’ question? My favourite child is the Friday – and I’m looking forward to the keynote with Michio Kaku. It’s the first time we’ve gone at this level to bring in someone so renowned to do a keynote, and we’re all quite excited about this. I had a talk with him last week and he’s got some very interesting, provocative things to say that are relevant to our industry. AV-IT convergence is a strong theme this year. Are you seeing a flurry of pre-registrations from the IT sector? It’s the first time we’ve done such a strong campaign in that sector. In the past, just below 10% of our attendance has been from the IT sector. I don’t know the final numbers yet because we’re still getting registrations flowing in, but we anticipate seeing a rise in that area – particularly because of the work we’re doing with media partners and exhibitor partners to reach them. And what do you hope AV and IT professionals will each take away from this part of the programme? We had a roundtable with the IT press before Christmas. What came out very much was that they’re both talking about the same things but from different sides of the fence. Unfortunately most of the IT people think AV is just part of what they do. We hope they’ll go away saying, we see this as a specialist area, it involves us, it’s encroaching on what we do. I think the AV people already know the relevance and significance of IT in their business, but hopefully this will bring it more to the forefront – they need to understand more about what IT professionals want, and what makes them tick. A show director (in another industry) once said to me, only half in jest: “If only we could find a way of holding a show without a final day.” Do you think that exhibitors and attendees will treat Friday like a ‘proper’ show day? I wrote a blog on the ISE website where I gave my opinion about why last days are always an issue. It’s one of these chicken-and-egg situations. If the key managers from the
exhibitors don’t come then the attendees don’t come, because they say there’s no-one important to talk to. And the exhibitor executives say, if nobody important comes to talk to me, I’m not going to stay. So we’ve got to kick this one. We’ve done a big campaign, working with most of the manufacturers – I’ve made personal calls to a lot of these guys, telling them, I need you to stay Friday, and you need to tell your customers you’re there so they know they can see you. We’ve done some spot surveys with people who have registered, and we’re getting a very good response about the Friday. We’re pretty optimistic – it’s one of those things that can work if everybody goes with the right attitude. Finally, is there anything about the ISE show that you would like to change, but can’t? There’s one particular issue where Jason McGraw [who runs the InfoComm show] and I have the same problem but the opposite way round. When he’s in Orlando or Las Vegas it’s always too hot, when we’re in Amsterdam it’s much too cold. The ideal solution would be to flip – we do June and they do February – but unfortunately the logistics of making that happen are almost impossible. You can imagine: us trying to get a slot in the RAI in June would mean moving around 20 other exhibitions to free up space for us, and Jason has exactly the same problem in Orlando and Las Vegas. We’re such big events now. So Jason will continue to give out cold water during build-up, and we’ll keep giving out tea and hot soup!
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