In early February amid global health concerns about the Coronavirus (COVID-19), Clockaudio, and thousands of other manufacturers and show attendees had to make some tough decisions. To show or not to show.
For each company that was registered to exhibit at ISE2020, this was not a decision to take lightly. Preparing for a show takes a good year and countless resources while products are developed, exhibits are designed, sales teams are prepared, tickets are purchased, hotels rooms reserved. For any one company, making this 11th hour decision to show up or pull out was not an easy task.
Ultimately for Clockaudio and over 1,200 other exhibitors, the decision was to proceed. It cannot go without saying that the professionalism and care in which ISE General Manager, Mike Blackman and the entire show team handled the days and weeks leading up to the show, were critical in building a sense of confidence in exhibitors and attendees about proceeding with their planned show participation and we are sincerely grateful to them.
Known for being the “largest AV show in the world” ISE2020 had one last chance to show Amsterdam what it could do and despite attendance being down for the first time in 16-years, the show still brought together over 52,000 people for what turned out to be, another amazing event.
From the show floor, Clockaudio’s Product Manager, Ravindra Parmar shared some thoughts about the show saying, “This year, we had a larger booth that was located in Hall 1, situated next to our friends at QSC. We were on a well-trafficked aisle and the stand design was spacious. Of course, with regard to the Coronavirus, we put into place some new protocols and guidelines for do’s and don’ts in order to keep our team, and our guests healthy.” When asked about the pre-show set up, Ravi commented, “Due to storm Ciara, there were many flight delays and cancellations. So, some of the people could not make it to the show on time, but our stand builders did and they did a fantastic job.”
About the show in general, he shares, “In consideration of COVID-19, ISE placed hand sanitizers around the building and also gave away miniature bottles. Whilst at our booth we also had a lot of hand sanitizers just in case. The traffic was still great and people who came to the show were truly vested in attending, so they were quite interested in spending time in our booth.”
Ravi goes on, “Of course, there was a remarkable lack of Chinese companies and visitors from China. This is not to say that there wasn’t any, but their numbers were appreciably down. There were some European vendors that also pulled out of the show at the last moment due to the virus, but overall the show had a good level of exhibitors and traffic.” He adds that there was a good-natured approach to greeting each other and says, “Some of the visitors offered up “fist-bumps”, “elbow-bumps” or even “Namaste greetings”. It was all taken in the stride and no offense taken.”
As for the activity at the Clockaudio booth, Ravi shares that the first day of the show was a real banner day for the team with a lot of activity. He says, “The first three days were quite busy with great leads coming in. We even felt that we had more leads in 2020 than in 2019 and we were pleased to see people from Europe, the far east, Africa, India, America, Saudi Kuwait and the UAE.
Proving the decision to have the show go on, the team report’s that ISE2020 was a success from Clockaudio’s perspective despite the effects of Covid-19. Ravi adds, “There were some really good success stories shared and some incredible photos of Clockaudio product installs. We’re looking forward to capturing that information and sharing it with the rest of our team around the world.”
Next year, ISE2020 moves to Barcelona, and Clockaudio is looking forward to the new venue. Join us in Spain in 2021 or on the road later this year at Infocomm2020 in Las Vegas, NV.
For now, stay informed, stay healthy, and a big thank you to Amsterdam, ISE and all who attended!
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