ISE 2011 exhausting but worth it

Sid Stanley reports back from the largest audiovisual trade show ever

This year's Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) was the biggest yet, and what a show it was!

It was very, very busy, particularly on the first two days with a real buzz – an energy level that I have not experienced at such events for some time. I returned home with an extremely positive feeling about the market.

The level of attendance was very high, and the visitors knew what they were looking for. Certainly, our experience on the Maverick stand was that all visitors were attending with a real need or desire to get value from the show.

We hosted some 100 of our top resellers on an all-expenses-paid trip to ISE, and we worked and played hard for the whole week, with the UK attendees generally going to bed last.

We also announced a new European-wide partnership with Sony on its professional display products

The show content itself reflected some very strong brand statements with a high levels of investment from the likes of LG, Epson, BenQ, and Samsung – the latter had an especially strong presence with impressive stands.

You can sense that vendors recognise we are in a tough market and they need to raise the bar. They did not disappoint.

Customer feedback that we received about the show content indicated that 3D and digital signage featured heavily across a wide range of vendors.

Digital signage had its own hall at ISE and one of the strongest stands came from HP Scala.

A technology giant like HP partnering with Scala and entering the audiovisual market is a real game-changer, and a signpost of where resellers should be looking for opportunities to grow.

But I am now just looking forward to catching up on my sleep!

Sid Stanley is general manager at Maverick