Siggraph is coming fast
So Siggraph is fast approaching. Too fast if you ask me. I am currently up to my eyeballs in conference calls about our user group, booth, party, demos, classes, guest speakers, AREA upgrade, etc. In the end it really is a huge effort not to mention credit card bill for a large company to go all out at these shows.
Fun Fact: For us to give out beer at a tradeshow event often costs as much as $130 a case. And thats for Coors light. (If thats not a crime I don't know what is) Multiply that by 2000 people, add another 30 to 50 percent for mandatory service, shipping and bar tending fees and imagine how much software needs to be sold to cover that.
I'm curious to know if anyone has thoughts on the future of our industry and tradeshows? My personal opinion is that the show floor is going to continue to shrink. Why would I pay lots of money, suffer through a flight in a sardine can and room with a friend who snores just to see the same stuff I see on the internet. On the other hand I'll put in my earplugs and suffer to be able to take classes with top talent in the industry and catch up with old friends over a coors light(sigh) at one of the parties. Assuming you agree with me on those points (and why wouldn't you) you might start noticing that tradeshows are in the same awkward position as broadcast television.
The exhibit floor is essentially a word from your sponsors. The thing you look at between classes and events. Sure some commercials (booths) are fun to see but would you pay for a whole channel of them? Any large vendor can see this and so they start to look at spending less on commercials (booth) and more on product placement (classes). So does this work for you? would you all rather come to a show that had little to no exhibit floor, just classes, lectures and parties? Would that be enough?
Well I think I've badly mixed metaphores for long enough here. So let me just point out that over the next few weeks information is going to start coming out on what we are doing at the show. Keep an eye out. Here is a tip if you are at Siggraph keep Monday night, august the 6th, free.
P.S. For anyone that runs into me in a bar I prefer martinis to beer, yes even Canadian beer. I know, I'm a bad Canadian.
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Posted by ecraft on 06/06 at 02:24 PMWell the show floor is a great place to make contacts, too. If it wasn't for talking with you at the Autodesk booth Shawn I probably never would have gotten so software issues I was having resolved. So if Ken P. and Chris V. are reading this Shawn is the reason you got the "I broke my software again" e-mails from me :X
-Eric
-Eric
Posted by maxplugins on 06/05 at 05:14 PMThe underwear probably had Combustion written on the back :o)
Posted by wade s on 06/04 at 11:14 PMThe exhibits are valuable to compare hardware and software side-by-side: mo-cap comes to mind. I'd never get a chance to see how haptics felt anywhere else. Plus there's always 1 or 2 really cool products that you find tucked away in a corner. Also it's really cool to see the advancements in Rapid 3d Prototyping from yr to yr. And the SWAG.... my God, the SWAG!!! 
Wade S
Wade S
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