I wanted to get your opinion on what you thought of this 2015 show. Would you say it was an improvement from the last DEMA show you attended. As an exhibitor from the 2014 show in Las Vegas I am interested in listening to opinions from other exhibitors as well as attendees on what they thought of this last show.
I can't comment on this show in comparison to LV last year. Compared to Orlando in 2013, I think it was comparable, although I had a vague sense that attendance was slightly down. If anyone else has statistics that support or dispute that subjective sense, I would like to see them.
Do you think it was worth going to?
Yes. I had an interesting, and very good, experience this year, but I changed my approach. First, I went for virtually the entire show, arriving on Monday and leaving Saturday. In the past I have 'dropped in' for a day and a half, maybe 2 days. Second, I mapped out my hour by hour schedule in advance, and STUCK TO IT. Too often in past meetings, I have missed seminars / presentations that I wanted to see because I ran into friends / colleagues, etc and ended up 'hanging out' with them, often wandering aimlessly in the exhibits, or so it seemed. Third, I stayed in accommodations that were not within walking distance and drove over early each morning with friends, and stayed all day, and into the evening (for social activities at Rosen Center), rather than going back to the room in the middle of the day as I have (too often) done in the past, and therefore missing things that I originally planned to do.
I cannot comment from the perspective of an exhibitor, only as an attendee. For me as an instructor, the exhibits are valuable, because I can see, and touch, gear that I have some interest in, and talk to manufacturers / dealers face to face. But, I knew in advance which exhibits I wanted to visit, and kept my sights focused on those. In doing so, I quite probably missed some learning opportunities but that was my choice. I do wish there had been more detailed information available online in advance about exhibitor seminars (and I don't understand why there wasn't).
The bottom line - for me, this was probably one of the most productive DEMA experiences I have ever had. I participated in some (paid) training, I attended every one of the exhibitor seminars that I planned in advance to attend (with one exception, a regulator service seminar that I learned was closed out before I even got to Orlando). I saw what I wanted to see, and made the contacts I wanted to make, in the exhibits. Whether DEMA was smaller or larger this year, whether the attendance was more, less or the same, didn't make as much difference as my actively preparing to get out of it what I drove 10 hours each way to get. Others may have had a different experience.