A Word About the LDI Expo
Oct 1, 2002 12:00 PM,
NATHANIEL HECHT
IT WASN’T LONG AGO THAT MANUFACTURERS WERE STILL BOLD enough (and empowered with marketing dollars) to branch out and try different approaches to market expansion. One effective way to get your company’s name and products noticed in new markets is to take things directly to the interested parties by selecting the best trade show events to attend. Before I was the editor of S&VC and a cosponsor of the LDI Expo, I discovered that LDI was an excellent show for viewing a whole range of products that can enhance your business. True, the show has a large focus on lighting, but many exhibitors of video, audio, and systems control products have discovered the big secret: lots of brand-new sales leads from folks who are some of the hardest to reach because they do not attend many other shows. Add the excellent classes and offerings that are targeted toward the very markets that readers of S&VC (as well as advertisers) need to be exposed to, and what you find is that many of LDI’s attendees are people from areas all across the range of installation and contracting in the audio and video marketplace. How do I know that? Because at one time, I was an exhibitor at LDI.
Here are some of LDI’s advantages. The expo is the last professional show of the year in our market segment. When I was an exhibitor, this positioning let me show off products to key clients before NAMM in January. I planted seeds in the minds of professionals who entered my booth, which let me pick up on leads before the beginning of the new year’s buying season. Many professionals who, after seeing us at LDI, knew what we were about at Winter NAMM and therefore were eager to do business. The show also generated quality leads. We garnished more real sales leads at LDI than any other show we attended, partially because we were unique as a speaker company showing at a predominantly lighting-oriented show. Many professionals who install lights are also installing audio and video products. Those lighting professionals are eager to learn about new products and ways they can enhance their business, which is a good reason for A/V installation professionals to attend the show. Learning more about lighting will only increase your revenue, because if you don’t have the skills to provide the whole package, you’ll miss many opportunities. Lighting is used in every Broadway and theater venue, auditorium installation, sports arena, and themed entertainment venue out there. Those venues require copious amounts of audio and video products, and while you are there, you might even find a new niche as a lighting systems provider.
So don’t count a well-established show such as the LDI Expo out of your trade show plans, whether you are an exhibitor or an attendee. Opportunity lies in diversity. Find out what many have already discovered — the LDI Expo can put money in your pocket.
On another note, in the case of Bill Whitlock’s July column, “Losing the Hum Bar,” S&VC inadvertently (and inexcusably) erred in allowing the article to run. Whitlock is an employee of Jensen Transformers, and he is a knowledgeable and capable professional. However, S&VC recognizes that the potential and perceived conflict of interest that exists is too great for him to be discussing and comparing products that are manufactured both by his company and its competitors in his monthly column. It is understandable that Extron and Inline have contacted us with a number of issues regarding how performance characteristics were weighted, additional relevant factors that should have been considered, and how those issues would affect the article’s conclusions. And, certainly every engineer has a philosophy for design and performance. Being employed by a manufacturer, however, can affect an engineer’s objectivity in a comparative product review. I want to offer our sincere apologies to Extron, Inline, and to you, our readers, for this error.
