What am I thinking? What are you thinking? : LDI 2006

LDI - over

dlincecum — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 16:42:00 GMT

I traveled home on Monday and had the pleasure of saying farewell to the Las Vegas Airport. It was about as much fun as arriving there.

I am always fond of saying that, "LDI is only 3 days in the year." Usually, I utter this to someone saying, "we have to have that at LDI." It's as if a product does not exist unless it is shown at LDI. I do not subscribe to this point-of-view. We do marketing and sales efforts throughout the year. The Web is a great place to launch a product. There are other trade shows. (We hope to have a new thing or two launched at USITT in 2007) That said - LDI is a great medium for product launches.

This was one of the best LDI's we have ever had at ETC. People were comparing it to 1992. Do you remember 1992? The launch of the Source Four, Sensor and Obsession? I had to stand in line to get on the ETC stand (wasn't an employee at the time.) This year was similar - but the booth was roomier. Thanks for all the visits from our dealers and end-user customers and for all the enthusiasm as well.

I'm interested in other reflections on LDI - please sign up for a user account and post away. This is a dialogue and you are invited to speak.

David

LDI Preshow - Day 2

dlincecum — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 05:37:00 GMT

The show floor is still a huge mess at 8pm Thursday night. It is amazing that it will look very complete by 8am Friday morning - but it usually happens that way.

Let me first report that my friends at Barbizon were able to resolve their union troubles - and once again put up a nice stand.

Their stand even includes a fine blimp! Is that the IATSE or the teamsters filling the blimp?

LDI is an opportunity for peoples real personalities to come out.

Imagine my surprise to encounter Dr. DMX - standing very still in multiple booths.

It seems that Doug Fleenor - AKA Dr. DMX has planted himself all over the show floor this year. I will look for more instances tomorrow.

Coemar with a beautiful display - nicely lit.

And Robe - also a nice display. They have a large stand and seem to be increasing their prescence in the US market.

I have no idea what this is. Looks like a prop from the movie cocoon or something. I'll go back for a better look tomorrow.

We at ETC held a rep meeting this evening. Had a good rep turnout and a great opportunity to get our reps up to speed on what we are doing. Here you will see David North showing off our new Emergency Lighting Transfer Switch (ELTS)

Did I mention that David Smith loves his Congo jr? It's hard not to love a desk so cute!

Anne Valentino showing the latest Eos software release to the demoers.

The latest release has really cleaned up many areas and added the really nice features. The demos tomorrow should go great! There was a lot of energy in our group tonight and I think this is a moment we have all been waiting for.

Does this guy look happy? He should. Dan Duffy is one of the lead software developers on the Eos and he is happy to see it in action on the stand! Good luck tomorrow Dan.

Wish us all good luck! Tomorrow begins a new day. Opening day.

David

The LDI Preshow Game part1

dlincecum — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 02:08:00 GMT

I arrived in Las Vegas today. My advice, relax when you get off the plane. Stop and eat, use the bathrooom, shop. Take your time. When you arrive at baggage claim - stand back. I saw a guy take out 2 people diving for his bag! He just couldn't stand to see it go around another trip. Don't plan to rush - you cannot. The airport is really a madhouse - a fine gateway to the city.

So I thought I would blog about LDI. Surely that will be of interest to some people! I'll offer a daily update (if possible) and try to get you some nice photos as well.

I arrived at the the Las Vegas Convention center to see our newly designed and built booth looking good. Now folks - a team of elves - headed up by Fred himself -- have been working non-stop on constructing this booth for 6 weeks - ever since we got the quote from the display house on what it would cost to have them build it.

It is a new look and feel for us - more open and airy - more focus on the product. This will be a great booth to work at the show!

But - as usual in the Vegas trade show scene - labor relations were of interest. RUMOR has it the Barbizon (ETC Dealer) load in was shut down for a whie via IATSE and IBEW. There was no action (and no people) at their booth when I arrived.

I was told that Troy Starr (Former ETC employee and sometimes former Barbizon employee) was involved. Ofcourse, Troy being a close personal friend I have a hard time believing he would get on the bad side of the union. This was very hard for me to believe :-)

The scuttlebut was that these DVD players - electrical taped to the truss - was the final straw.

Oh well - Troy knows how to handle union conflict! On to more observation.

The folks at Ocean Optics have an interesting booth - looks like a kitchen in the corner! I'm interested to see what that is. The Kitchen usually draws a crowd - but the Seachanger should do well drawing a crowd on its own. The product is a great add on to a Source Four.

Back at the ETC load-in I captured discontent at its best. Are these men happy?

OK - more from Vegas later on. For now - night night.

David