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At CEDIA Expo 2025, Attendance Continued Its Multi-Year Decline

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A sparse crowd gathered for the CEDIA Town Hall at CEDIA Expo 2025

Emerald Expositions, part of Emerald Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: EEX) and owners of CEDIA Expo and CEPro, has reported that final attendance at CEDIA Expo 2025, “the premier event for the custom systems integration industry,” establishes it was yet another year of declining participation. This rather sobering news is consistent with feedback I received from several exhibitors at the event this year – almost all of whom told me that attendance was noticeably off, with several saying it was significantly down from last year.

Now we know with certainty, even with Emerald’s attempt to hide the real attendance figures, that attendance at Expo 2025 was in fact appreciably below attendance at Expo 2024 last year.

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CEDIA Expo 2025 Town Hall: Is the Connection Between CEDIA & Its Members Getting Staticky?

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Title slide for CEDIA & NKBA Town Hall

The night before CEDIA Expo 2025 opened, CEDIA, the trade association, held a “Town Hall” with members on the subject of partnering with the National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA). Actually, the organization’s formal announcement of this event said it was to “debut and discuss brand-new joint research between the two organizations.” But actually, it was setting the membership up for the Association to propose a new relationship between the organizations.

It was a proposal that did not appear to resonate with some in the audience at the Town Hall.

See more on CEDIA’s Town Hall presentation at CEDIA Expo 2025…

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After Years of Member Requests, CEDIA is Finally Launching a Smart Home Consumer Campaign

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Image of girl with magic wand to control a smart home

The Magic of a Smart Home

The Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association (CEDIA) announced on Tuesday that it is launching its first-ever consumer advertising campaign – something members have been asking it to do for years. The campaign is a professionally conceived, created, produced, and now distributed advertisement that includes, amongst other things, a 60-second video that educates consumers on the “magic” of a well-designed smart home and the need for a professional installer.

Learn more about the new CEDIA Magic of Smart Home consumer campaign

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Walt Zerbe Leaves CEDIA to Join Perlisten Audio as Director of Global Business

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Walt Zerbe, Perlisten Director of Global Business

In an announcement seen on LinkedIn, Perlisten Audio announced that it has appointed Walt Zerbe as its new Director of Global Business. Prior to joining Perlisten, Zerbe was with the CEDIA trade association as its Senior Director of Technology and Standards.

Learn more about Walt Zerbe and Perlisten Audio

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CEDIA Tech & Business Summit – An Impressive Show from a Well-Oiled Machine

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Badge to enter CEDIA Tech & Business Summit

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the CEDIA Tech & Business Summit at the Hilton Hotel in Hasbrouck Heights in Northern New Jersey. To my eyes, this was a well-attended event and I was impressed with how the Association has put together a well-oiled machine that shows some real progress in elevating the value of attending a regional industry event like this.

See my thoughts on this 2024 CEDIA Tech & Business Summit in NJ

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Troubling Trend: 2024 CEDIA Expo Loses Hundreds of Attendees This Year

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Scene from the 2022 CEDIA Expo
On-site registration and badge pickup at the 2022 CEDIA Expo

Data from the 2024 CEDIA Expo in Denver, CO this past September shows a troubling trend – attendance actually declined…and declined appreciably – from the 2023 version of the event. And this decline took place even though the promoter has combined CEDIA Expo with a new event (new last year), the Commercial Integrator Expo (CIX), which was probably an effort to boost attendance numbers.

See more on the attendance at CEDIA Expo 2024

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Will CEDIA Expo 23 Be a Rocky Mountain High? Or Will It Be a Low Rider?

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CEO Daryl Friedman kicks off CEDIA Expo 23
CEDIA CEO Daryl Friedman kicks off CEDIA Expo 23

It’s September again and that means the approach of Fall, kids are back in school, and it’s time for CEDIA Expo. So like many of you, I packed my bags and headed to Denver, which almost feels like coming home again. But will the show this year be [musical reference] a Rocky Mountain High? Or will it be a Low Rider?

See more on the kickoff of CEDIA Expo 23

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CEDIA Bars All News Media from CEDIA Symposium on AI

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Photo of CEDIA HQ
CEDIA’s headquarters building in Fishers, Indiana

At the end of July, CEDIA announced that it would be holding a new kind of event called the CEDIA Symposium on the day before the CEDIA Expo 2023 opens. The association is all-in on AI apparently, and this symposium is all about AI in custom integration. The announcement promises it will offer “an engaging afternoon of thought-provoking discussions led by industry visionaries, AI experts, top integrators, and manufacturers.”

From the very beginning, there were, in my eyes, troubling elements to this initiative. Little did I know what was to come – that CEDIA would choose to bar the news media from its CEDIA Symposium

See more on CEDIA’s decision to bar the media from its CEDIA Symposium

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CEDIA Intros New Workforce Initiative – NextGen: Smart Home Career Toolkit

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CEDIA NextGen Smart Home Career Toolkit image

CEDIA has launched a new workforce acquisition initiative called CEDIA NextGen: Smart Home Career Toolkit. Designed to provide integrators the tools they need to improve and expand their outreach to attract new candidates to the smart home industry, the association has created an impressive series of multimedia tools to grease the skids in getting new recruits through integrators’ doors.

Learn more about this new CEDIA workforce initiative

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2022 CEDIA Member Meeting was a Glossy Display of Overt Positivity

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2022 CEDIA Member Meeting title slide

Selling a Vision Rather than Briefing Members w/Data

CEDIA held its annual member meeting just a couple of weeks ago in mid-December. The version offered this year was decidedly different than those in the past. This is likely due to the professional association management style of the organization’s new Global President and CEO Daryl Friedman.

CEDIA and staff offered members a slick marketing package of largely pre-recorded content and carefully controlled live content. But was it too slick? Did it really brief members with a balanced picture of both the successes and the challenges that CEDIA is facing? Or was it just a form of advertisement for the association?

Learn more about CEDIA’s 2022 annual Member Meeting…

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