Strategy in TECH...
Emerald Exposition, one of the largest exposition companies in the U.S. and the owner of the CEDIA Expo (and CE Pro), announced this week that they will be offering “reinvigorated educational programming” at this year’s CEDIA Expo 2022. This initiative will include a range of more than 150 sessions, including seminars, panels, workshops, and manufacturer product training.
CEDIA announced yesterday its keynote speaker for the upcoming CEDIA Expo 2022 show who appears to offer an interesting departure from past more directly technical keynote presentations. This year’s presenter is Greg Durkin, a marketing and data guy who comes from an entertainment industry marketing background and appears to have expertise in content curation and data analysis.
In a special briefing for the media, new CEDIA Vice President of Education and Training Amanda Beckner revealed the organization’s upcoming program for this year’s CEDIA Expo coming this Fall. It was instantly clear that Beckner, formerly involved with AVIXA education, completely understands both the importance of and the unique demands of education in a technical association.
It was also clear that the Association is taking a fresh look at ways to elevate CEDIA’s education to the next level. And that is a good thing.
Emerald Holding Inc., the parent company of Emerald Expositions, a division that owns the CEDIA Expo trade show and CEPro media, announced its results for the first quarter of its fiscal 2022 year today – and these results clearly showed a strong rebound from the last two COVID-19 impacted years. With both revenues and earnings showing substantial increases, Emerald’s President and CEO Hervé Sedkey stated that “…we are in the midst of a robust recovery.”
Emerald Holding Inc., [NYSE:EEX] parent company to Emerald Expositions, which itself is the parent company of CEDIA Expo, and CE Pro (and other former EH Publishing properties) announced this morning their financial results for both their fourth quarter and full year, fiscal 2021. As the company has begun to restart their live in-person events, they reported a revenue gain over fiscal 2020 – a year of almost total lockdown and the absence of live events.
But the gain seems surprisingly small.
Last week, Crestron Electronics, a leading provider of control and automation solutions, wrapped up their two-day regional show, the Crestron Next Road Trip, at the Westin Copley Place Hotel in Boston. The well-attended two-day event saw hundreds of integrators descend on Boston to participate in an event that included whole sections of their displays from the CEDIA Expo and InfoComm trade show booths and offered full-day educational courses for both their residential and commercial dealers.
Emerald Holding, Inc. [NYSE:EEX] (Emerald), formerly Emerald Expositions and owner of the CEDIA Expo and CE Pro, announced this week that, thanks to the restart of live events in the third quarter of fiscal 2021, they were able to see a substantial reduction in their net losses on a significant revenue gain as compared to the same quarter in 2020 – the year of COVID shutdowns. While the company is still battling its event cancellation insurance providers in a California court for reimbursement for past canceled and impacted events, they say that they see the road to recovery ahead.
CEDIA recently filed their Form 990 with the IRS – a required filing by non-profits disclosing key financial data – and for the first time in a while, I found some interesting and somewhat confusing things in there. Yes, I obtain the organization’s 990 filings every year just to get a sense of how things are going. Like all of us, the organization is filing for, at best, the previous year and often they request and receive an extension. Hence, we are just now getting a glimpse of their 2019 results…and it was an eye-opener.
As the first and one of the most prominent brands that decided to pull out of the recent CEDIA Expo in Indianapolis last month, Savant based their difficult decision on placing the safety of their employees and customers as their key concern in a time of surging Delta-variant COVID infections. But that decision did not mean that they didn’t want to communicate with their dealers about the many exciting developments at the company. So Savant developed a powerful two-pronged approach (the 1-2 punch I mentioned) to deliver their dealers a better – virtual – trade show.
As I am sure that most readers of this post will know, during CEDIA Expo at the beginning of September, I published a continuously updated post tracking which previously announced exhibitors subsequently made the decision to pull out of the event as the COVID Delta variant raged on. A remarkable realization occurred as I worked on that post, literally speaking with dozens, if not hundreds, of exhibitors and attendees for that event – many of them were confused about who owned the CEDIA Expo!
