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Digital Signage Expo 2007 Recap

By Josh Coffman

The Digital Signage Expo (formerly Digital Retailing Expo) experienced its third Chicago installment May 16-17 as it returned to its original host location at Navy Pier. It is the largest international tradeshow and conference exclusively dedicated to digital signage and interactive solutions. Co-located with the Interactive Technology Expo, it featured numerous self-service, kiosk, and rfid technologies as well.

Promising to be bigger and better, this years show delivered. There were 4 tracks and 20 sessions, as compared to 3 tracks and 18 sessions last year. The sessions were more valuable and better targeted as well, providing a healthy dose of topics to satisfy all the various players in the industry.

For those that are unfamiliar with the DSE, it is organized into several tracks based on topic. Unless you are a Digital Signage Nightcrawler like Lyle Bunn of Alchemy, you can only attend one session per 1 time slot (how does he do it?). As a result, you miss out on some other great sessions so it is important to choose wisely.

This year’s conference session breakdown was as follows:

• Track 1: Assessing Results
• Track 2: Technology
• Track 3: Strategy
• Track 4: Content

The only gripe I heard in talking with attendees was that there were too many vendors and not enough end users. One gentleman I met was looking for some tech partners and he mentioned nearly getting mauled by the exhibitors. Luckily for me, I kept an extremely low profile with my press pass.

My various theories for explaining less end users:

• Companies that attended in the past and those like them are further along in the digital signage adoption process.
• When it was the Digital Retailing Expo last year, for example, it was part of Retail Week along with Retail Interiors Expo and the Retail Construction Expo. Many of those attendees trickled over to the DRE to see what all the fuss and talk was about. This year did not provide that crossover.
• Perhaps it wasn’t actually less end users; end users connected with vendors that were smart enough to find them off the show floor. If vendors didn’t have reps out and about and were expecting large retailers to come up and say “give me a digital signage solution”, then of course they are going to be disappointed.

Regardless of this point, the Digital Signage Expo provided a vast wealth of applicable information from industry veterans and newcomers alike and was a highly rewarding show. I highly recommend next year's event, which will be located in Las Vegas.

This recap will cover each conference session and workshop that I attended separately. Make sure to check back, as I will keep adding to it.