Overall Grade: B-
Strategies in Light: A
Exhibitions: D
Sapphire Awards: A
The content at Strategies in Light was excellent, especially the Investor Forum.
Phillip Smallwood, Director of LED & Lighting Research, Strategies Unlimited, always does a great job at explaining the state of the industry. His main message encouraged the industry to focus on key niches such as Health and IoT where we can earn strong margins, as opposed to fighting the Chinese on high bay and panel lights. Ben Pouladian, CEO of Deco Lighting gave a talk about their fast-growing and refreshing company. One of the most important and hard-hitting talks came from Mark McClear of Seoul Semiconductor, where he took on BigChinaLED and exposed the Chinese government’s funding of specific companies. He challenged the audience about supporting Chinese companies who constantly sell to our customers. Dennis Wells, CEO of LSI, gave specifics of how LSI focuses on the profitable products and services, while still offering a competitive line. LSI seems to have figured out how to compete in both worlds.
One has to remember that our industry has lost favor with much of the investment community with the exception of IoT, so we don’t see a lot of the boys from Sand Hill Road. Although Canaccord Genuity sponsored SIL in London in November, they did not sponsor the US show. However Roth Capital did sponsor the event and Craig Irwin did a great job.
Exhibition needs work. Attendance was light for most exhibitors, which was actually good for the EdisonReport because it provided more quality time with which to speak with people. The vast majority of exhibitors said the show was slower and more sparsely attended than last year in Anaheim.
The LED Show which has been part of SIL for the past few years was nowhere to be seen or mentioned. lightspace California took a major step backwards. Most exhibitors voiced concern with the location of LC being at the back of the hall. The first four rows upon entering the show were all Chinese booths—very odd first impressions.
We contacted show management who was very forthcoming and said it may have been a mistake with the dates so close to Light + Building. However, Pennwell actually ending up finishing the show with 19% higher signed rebooking contracts than last year (a total of 105%) showing that the exhibitors have faith in the show and will follow it to Vegas and give Pennwell the chance to bring more traffic next year.
The Sapphire Awards is now without dispute the most elegant event in our industry. The awards were held aboard the Queen Mary and was sold out. A four-person band gave it a real ‘professional’ feel. The crowd is interesting as well, because it is not a typical ‘IES’ crowd per se, as many of the attendees are from Silicon Valley-type lighting companies, so it is largely a different crowd than at the Lumen Awards.