The AV industry is changing so rapidly it can be difficult to keep up. There are a number of trade shows and conferences throughout the year that aim to bring the newest products into the awareness of industry professionals and to help those professionals network and meet manufacturer reps to establish relationships and talk shop face-to-face.
This may not sound like an ideal place for church volunteers to participate in, but I assure you that these events offer a myriad of useful and practical experiences and educational opportunities.
Some of the key benefits include:
- a chance to get face to face with a manufacturer rep to ask questions and get in-depth information; often times the manufacturers will send engineers to these events to handle those discussions that a normal sales rep cannot speak to.
- the opportunity to see all the latest gear in one place without visiting hundreds of websites and reading trade magazines.
- the chance to use new gear, hold it in your hands, feel it and see how it performs-this alone is invaluable.
- often these shows include workshops, demos, training, and definitely lots of literature to take home.
For me, as both a volunteer and a professional consultant, I find immense value in attending these shows for all the reasons listed above and I’m shocked to not find more church personnel attending. I know the cost can be steep, but if you have one large expenditure each year, it should be to send a few of your techs to one of these events. The simple truth is that if church leadership wants high-quality tech, they need to invest in the proper training and education of their people. Period.
Technology Conferences To Look Into
Below, I’ve outlined a few of the shows and their dates and locations for 2014 (if available). Keep in mind that most of these are not church tech specific but there’s enough cross-over that it’s still very beneficial to attend!
NAB 2014 (National Association of Broadcasters) April 7-10, 2014, Las Vegas Convention Center
This show definitely markets to the broadcasting crowd, but if you are a video or cinematic production enthusiast or professional, this is the show for you to attend-many of the new products from the likes of Sony, Canon, Panasonic, Toshiba, Avid, Telestream debut at this show. The show is so huge in the industry that most of these industry power players will release some kind of teaser in the weeks and days leading up to the show. Certainly one to check out!
InfoComm 2014 (Information Communications Marketplace) June 14-June 20, 2014, Las Vegas Convention Center
InfoComm is very similar to NAB, but the focus is on representing the professional audiovisual and information communications industries worldwide. This includes system integrators and consultants, event AV, and installation AV. I have never personally attended InfoComm, but I’m planning to this year and I hope to see you there. From my experience thus far with the InfoComm organization, it’s clear that this show would be the one for church techs to attend as it would cover audio, video, projection and likely lighting. Training is top-notch, though do expect to pay for that education. The focus is on professional education and training and you will need to be prepared for that. Registration opens in February and you can find out more information here.
Seeds Conference, March 5-7, 2014, Tulsa, OK
This event is hard to get a lot of information on, but I did find that it is “…a conference for pastors and creative leaders passionate about reaching the next generation.” They will have many speakers at the upcoming event and it would be another great event to check out as it’s specifically geared to churches and would be a great place to network and learn what others are doing, how they have surmounted obstacles that you now are facing, etc. Find more information here.
There are many other conferences and tradeshows, including LDI, which focuses primarily on lighting and projection technologies, and several regional and city-wide events. Here in the Northwest, we have AVL Expo twice a year in both Portland and Seattle, and in Portland we are coming up on our annual Cascade Mountain Video Show. I encourage you to take advantage of these resources; I know that for NAB, several vendors offer free exhibit passes, which takes your costs down to hotel and airfare (you can ride shuttle buses from many of the nearby hotels, or hop the monorail).
In closing, I also want to mention that there are many professional system integrators and consultants across the country that are happy to work with you to answer questions you have or to give you advice on what equipment you should be looking at. Please take advantage of them; we love what we do and are happy to share our knowledge, but we need to you reach out and let us know how we can help you.
Is there any conferences you plan or would like to attend this year?
Jesse Gruber says
Man, personally, I’d love to attend any of the mobile events. I’ve never really delved into anything huge since we’re still a small plant with minimal resources. But I love to see what’s coming and how to prepare now for the future, church resourcing included!