Show moves
Blackburn tells EW his team spent
18 months researching ISE’s future
and looking into alternative venues.
“There wasn’t a massive number to
choose from: as well as having space
to accommodate our planned future
expansion, any new venue also had
to be located in a city with good
international flight connections. In the
end, it was a unanimous decision.”
The decision process also entailed
polling exhibitors and visitors and
finding out about the different things
they wanted to get from a new
location for the show. “Barcelona came
top of the list when it came to favourite
European cities for food and hotels,”
says Blackburn.
“We’ve had great support from the
City of Barcelona, and the Regional
Government is working closely with us
to ensure a smooth transition.”
The new location announcement
came at Barcelona City Hall last July,
with the Mayor of Barcelona and
the Catalan Minister of Business
and Knowledge attending the press
conference.
More recently, the Mayor attended
an event hosted for exhibitors in
66
Issue 3 2019
Above: Views
from ISE 2019
and, below right,
Mike Blackman
Barcelona on 9 May.
Blackburn anticipates both fresh
attractions and likely logistical
challenges in Barcelona and jokes that,
“at least, the weather is likely to be a
few degrees warmer in February than
Amsterdam”.
Joking aside, when you relocate a
show, the main operational challenges
relate to getting to grips with how
the new venue operates. “We’ve built
up a lot of knowledge about the RAI
over the past decade and a half, and
while many of the principles and
practices will be similar at the Fira,
the implementation will obviously
be different. Fortunately the Fira has
state-of-the-art infrastructure, and I
think our exhibitors will appreciate
that,” he adds.
Aside from running the biggest AV
and systems integration show in the
world, what is Blackburn’s view of the
company’s other shows and how does
the organiser relationship between
trade associations AVIXA and CEDIA
work exactly?
“Our other shows are organised in
conjunction with partners. For more
than a decade we have worked with
Moscow-based MIDEXPO to organise
Integrated Systems Russia, which takes
place each autumn.
“Also, we entered into a joint
venture with Munich-based digital
signage consultancy invidis consulting
in 2015; we came on board to co-
organise the Digital Signage Summit
series of conferences, which now take
place in six cities around the world.
“AVIXA and CEDIA are our co-
owners: I report to a board that
contains representatives of both
organisations and of some of the
major companies in our industry.
We also work with the organisations
in hosting and promoting their
professional development and thought
leadership programmes at ISE.
“The two organisations also have
their own show programmes: AVIXA
organises the InfoComm series of
exhibitions around the world, while
the CEDIA
show in the US
is now owned
and run by an
independent
exhibition
organiser.”
w w w.exhibitionworld.co.uk