AV Technology's content director, Cindy Davis sat down with AVIXA's, director of Live Content, U.S./Canada, Annette Sandler, to learn about the InfoComm experience for end users and what’s in store in Orlando.
Cindy Davis: Over the years, more and more end users have been attending InfoComm. Can you point to a few trends and efforts that have made this successful?
Annette Sandler: We have widened our education offerings at InfoComm to have more end-user-focused sessions around use cases and best practices while balancing that with the technical deep dives for pro AV integrators.
Last year 40 percent of InfoComm education participants were end users. In addition to the strong participation from the higher education community, we’re seeing more and more technology managers from corporate, venues, and government entities making their way to InfoComm. End users are increasingly tech-savvy and being asked to do more for their organizations, so they need to get closer to the latest technology, which they can find at InfoComm.
"Last year 40 percent of InfoComm education participants were end users."
CD: What vertical markets do the end-user attendees to InfoComm hail from?
AS: For InfoComm 2022, nearly 30 percent of our attendees were end users. Education end users substantially led the way, making up 30 percent, followed by consumer manufacturing, entertainment, and government/military. We welcomed attendees from Harvard, MIT, Disney, The Ritz-Carlton, Costco, Publix, Coca-Cola, NASA, Lockheed Martin, and many more major organizations.
CD: Products and solutions shown at InfoComm are not sold directly to end users. We've been told that there can still be a bit of reticence on behalf of some exhibitors to speak to end-users without their integrator present. Do you have a recommendation on how end-users should approach exhibitors?
AS: The feedback we received from integrators (and from some end-users, especially in higher education who are very AV savvy) is that they would love an “ask the engineer” button that immediately gets them access to the R&D team member to talk about feature changes/improvements and their needs. They are ready to dive into the technical specs for their use case right away—they know the product and have come to solve some pain points.
For any first-time end users at InfoComm or end users who are working on a new project, I recommend signing up for a show floor tour, where they’ll join a group of like-minded end users and others. The manufacturers have a lot of advance notice to find the exact person to speak to that group when they come on their tours stop. These are focused on the most popular solution areas at InfoComm—conferencing and collaboration, digital signage, learning spaces and more—and offer a great way to quickly find new technology and exhibitors at the show. Check out the tours here.
CD: What does AVIXA/InfoComm have in store for end-users attending InfoComm 23?
AS: For the 2023 InfoComm call for presenters, we requested case studies for almost every track of content, and the industry responded with some truly cool examples of their work. Look for sessions on “How Costco Improved Company Culture for a Deskless Workforce,” “A Metaverse Learning Experience at Scale,” and “Seneca College's Hyflex Classroom Technology Journey.” For enterprise attendees, InfoComm will address top-of-mind issues including “How to Get People Back in the Office?” and “Solutions and Strategies for Shared Desktops.” And, we’ve partnered with HETMA to bring their peer-led “Higher Education Summit” to Orlando.
