International. Back in Denver, where it hadn't been held since 2014, Cedia Expo surprised. After its purchase by Emerald Expositions at the beginning of 2017, changes have been seen in the expansion of the approach that the expo offers to link other sectors of the industry that generate synergy to home automation integrators in the world.
Hence the great variety of content that this year was included in the fair and that attracted many exhibitors and visitors. According to the final official statement, Cedia Expo received 500 exhibitors and 20,000 visitors this year.
Brian Pagel, executive vice president of Emerald Expositions, said that the feedback received after the 2018 fair was key in the strategy of bringing new content to the 2019 edition. "Based on this, we distributed all the innovative activities of the fair throughout the exhibition floor, which resulted in content that attracted the public and allowed them to make new business contacts," pagel said.
The 4 new content areas to highlight were:
Innovation pavilion, design and connection pavilion, wellness pavilion, and security pavilion.
"The objective of this content on new complementary areas with home automation is to expand the audience base of the fair, both in visitors and exhibitors," added Pagel.
The Smart Stage Expo was also created, a space for continuous discussion panels that included short talks on technology, talks for beginners in technology, tours for the specialized press and prize for the best stand.
"With all these new initiatives we have seen the number of new visitors grow by 25% and the number of professional design visitors by 700%, to cite figures from 2018," concluded Brian Pagel.
A strong partnership
Tabatha O'Connor took the reins of Cedia more than a year and a half ago, when the association's board of directors promoted her to this position after 16 years of work at the association.
"Supported by so many years in the association, after taking the reins as CEO of Cedia, I would like to highlight two important points in my management during this time: the first is to have moved to our very modern headquarters, our own building, which has become an excellent collaborative workspace among all cedia staff and a large classroom in which we have implemented our intensive course of 12 weeks, multi-level for new technicians in the industry," says O'Connor.
"I am also proud of the progress in our strategic plan. We have had important advances in key areas of development such as: improving our educational offer, leading the design and installation standards in home automation, and guides for best practices. This is important because we also promote the interests of Cedia associates and all the work they do," adds the CEO.
Tabatha also talks about the short-term challenges, which include analyzing the results of the extensive educational and conference program of Cedia Expo 2019 and thus be able to plan what will be offered to all associates and visitors of Cedia Expo 2020.
"We are also working on our new website, which will include important tools for online education. When we launch the revamped website in the coming months, Cedia's online education will be more interesting and accessible globally."
Cedia held 125 courses during the last edition of Cedia Expo in Denver, 6 of which were offered entirely in Spanish.
The expo continues to be the destination to start a new career or for veteran industry professionals to earn credits in the field of residential technology," concludes O'Connor.
Cedia Expo will be held again in Denver, September 8-12, 2020.
