CEDIA 2017 San Diego: A Drive Into the Future

July 8 2017, 00:00
CEDIA 2017 brings together more than 18,000 home tech pros and over 500 exhibitors, giving attendees concentrated access to the new products, breakthrough innovations and targeted training they need. CEDIA 2017 will be held at the San Diego Convention Center, September 5-9. Show floor open September 7-9. This will be a pivotal moment for the association and the show, in the middle of some of the most challenging market trends ever.

Read here all the CEDIA 2017 announcements 

With all the recent turmoil in CEDIA (Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association), following the sale of the trade show to Emerald Expositions (www.emeraldexpositions.com), followed by a 15% reduction in the organizations staff, the San Diego edition of the traditional residential technology show will be a pivotal moment. To make matters more critical, short after the CEDIA show was transferred to Emerald Expositions, the largest operator of business-to-business trade shows in the United States, its CEO, Vin Bruno and its VP of Business Development, Ron Fleming, have both resigned, apparently in disagreement with the Board. 

Nevertheless, there is a positive momentum in the industry with house sales and renovations growing again in the US, combined with strong technology trends and innovation. Now with the professional coordination of an experienced show promoter, CEDIA members and the board of the organization - representing 3,700 member companies worldwide and serving more than 30,000 industry professionals - there is a unique opportunity to restructure and relaunch the future of the show in a positive business environment, and with notable trends to have in mind.

CEDIA 2017 will feature a special presentation from a group of experts who are driving exciting advances in digital music delivery. The Stream the Studio keynote session, sponsored by DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group, will be held on Thursday, September 7 at 12:00 p.m. in Ballroom 20A at the San Diego Convention Center. 

"Distributed audio is one of the biggest project categories for home technology professionals and the new advancements in hi-res audio represents a huge profit opportunity for CEDIA members," says Dave Pedigo CEDIA VP of Emerging Technologies. "New hi-res audio formats combined with CEDIA member expertise will truly allow homeowners to experience music the way the producers and artists intended."

As Rob Baum, Pacific Audio Consulting noted for audioXpress in his impressions of CEDIA 2016, "CEDIA has followed a maturing market and broadened its focus to not only include connected home audio, video and security, but also home automation, networking and related training and certification. A CEDIA installation used to be more limited to higher end homes, but as the technology improved, all the components – such as large displays and networking – have become a lot cheaper over the years, making a custom installation more affordable.

"As the “IoT” or Internet of things goes mainstream, more devices become nodes on a network – not just a whole home A/V system. The industry needs to make the case to consumers as to why they should buy, foot the up-front costs, overcome security and privacy worries, and grasp the difficulty of getting everything to inter-operate. It is still far too complex for the average consumer to properly set up a typical multichannel home theater system’s audio and video display – and that is the reason CEDIA installers are still busy," Baum says.

Read here all the CEDIA 2017 announcements.

September 5 - 9
CEDIA 2017
Conference - 5 - 9
Exhibition - 7 -9
San Diego Convention Center
http://expo.cedia.net
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