Jenn Heinold, InfoComm

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The next plus-sized pro AV trade show on the annual calendar is InfoComm, coming up in mid-June in, yuck, Orlando, Florida.

I'm always curious about what will be new and different with the show, and that's particularly the case in 2025, because there's a new person running things.

Jenn Heinold joined show owner/operator AVIXA late last year as the Senior VP Expositions, Americas, so for the last several weeks she's been in drinking-from-the-firehose mode as she learns more and more about the industry, ecosystem and how people think about and use InfoComm.

Heinold is a lifer in the trade show business, and while she has run tech-centric trade shows, pro AV is new to her.

We had a really good conversation that gets into her impressions and thoughts about the industry, her perspective on ISE, the AVIXA co-owned sister show, and plans for what will be her first InfoComm in June - including what will be different and new.

We also get into what, if anything, will be affected by all the trade and geopolitical turmoil that's bubbled up since the US presidency had its four year shuffle.

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TRANSCRIPT

Jenn, thank you very much for coming on. You've been on the job for how long now? 

Jenn Heinold: I've been with AVIXA for just over three months. I joined in December as the Senior Vice President of Expositions for the Americas, and I'm over InfoComm in the U.S., which will be June 11th through the 13th in Orlando, Florida and then I'm also responsible for our new InfoComm America Latina launch event, which will be in October in Mexico City. 

Did you know anything about the Pro AV sector before you got involved? 

Jenn Heinold: No, honestly. I ran the largest satellite technology show in the U.S. for 15 years. So I've worked in technology, but Pro AV is different and I find myself now everywhere I go looking for display screens and how audio sounds. It's so fascinating how quickly you become immersed within the industry and you notice that it's everywhere and it makes our experiences better. 

You'll be a display nerd in no time. 

Jenn Heinold: I'm working on it.

So have you always been in the trade show business? 

Jenn Heinold: I have, yes, I dedicated my career to trade shows. I am super passionate about what happens in a face-to-face environment. I love the serendipity of it. I love that what I do helps businesses grow. The community aspect is amazing, right? Bringing people together with a common goal or challenge. The education that we can provide at trade shows. You can do a month's worth of meetings in three days. You can do a trip around the world in three days in some cases, right? 

So I just love the format and really believe in what it can do for businesses and I'm excited to produce InfoComm.

Because you had some background working with technology trade shows, has there been much of a learning curve? Setting apart the obvious that there are different companies and all that, but I guess their needs aren't all that dissimilar, are they? 

Jenn Heinold: No, I think the commonality in working on technology shows is that you have the same structure where there are channel partners that are working to sell and integrate products, but then you also have all of the end users who use a specific technology. So I think it's important for us to be a forum for both Pro AV as well as our end-user audiences, and make sure that they each are fulfilled and feel welcome at the show and find value in the show. 

You went to Integrated Systems Europe a few weeks ago, I saw you there. That was your first big Pro AV trade show, I assume, and I'm curious about your impressions. 

Jenn Heinold: Oh, gosh, I was blown away by ISE. How could you not be? But for me, I was just so impressed by what the exhibitors did on the show floor. They really pulled out all the stops for ISE and the energy is amazing. It was so valuable for me to see the technology all together in real life, and then also to be able to meet with exhibitors here directly to know what are your strategic priorities for 2025 and beyond. Who should I be focusing on making sure that I have at the show, so it's the best for our exhibitors and our attendees alike? 

I'm sure you were walking around with people like your boss Dave Labuskes both at ISE and InfoComm. Did you get some sense that ISE is its own thing? InfoComm runs differently. Yes, there are the same vendors and everything else, but apart from the obvious of Barcelona versus Orlando or Las Vegas, it does do things differently in some respects, at least.

Jenn Heinold: Yeah, absolutely. I unfortunately don't yet have the comparison for InfoComm. I know what our plans are and what we're focusing on. ISE clearly has an amazing global footprint and InfoComm, while it is international, does skew a little bit more to North America just based on the location. 

I think we at InfoComm have a much more training program and educational offering, which I really think is valuable. We need to not only nurture our current workforce and make sure that they have all the tools they need to succeed, but focus on the next generation as well, and I'm really proud that InfoComm does that.

One of the things about ISE, as you said, there's not as much of a focus on training, there are certainly conferences and things like that, but it's more aimed at end users. 

Do you find that you're getting exhibitors and other people saying, hey, it would be great if we had more end users if there was more kind of focus on that part of it, as opposed to, I sometimes refer to InfoComm is something of a gearhead show, and I don't mean that negatively, but it attracts the people who are going to go look at things like cable connectors and mounting infrastructure and so on and stuff that maybe somebody who's an experiential designer for a creative tech shop maybe doesn't care that much about.

Jenn Heinold: Yeah. I will say that for 2025, we definitely are emphasizing the end-user audience. They are a key segment for us. Actually, one of the first things I did within my first week, Dave, was look at our end-user segments and compare what groups naturally grew when we were in Orlando versus Las Vegas, right? Just who organically was coming to the show and what I saw was a big increase in education when we're in Orlando, house of worship, retail, restaurants, and hospitality. None of this probably surprises you, but as we built out our marketing campaign, we've decided to really double down our investment on those segments that are organically growing in Orlando.

I grew up in trade shows and marketing, so this has really been a passion project for me. Making sure that we have the right audience in InfoComm 2025 is my number one priority and I had to prioritize when I started at AVIXA so I had six months to really execute the show. So if there is one thing that I'm focused on day in and day out, it's the audience at InfoComm this year.

When you say audience, are you hearing from exhibitors that they want to see more I end users or they want to see more partners because I think of an InfoComm as being a hyper-efficient way for a manufacturer to have a touch with a whole bunch of existing and potential resellers, and maybe not as worried about having like General Motors or some big retailer walking around. 

Jenn Heinold: I hear both, Dave, and I think distributors and integrators are a super important part of the ecosystem, just as the end users are. We are putting more end users on Stage on the show floor this year, as well as within our conference program and I think, having the end users talk about how they are using AV technology only drives more end users to come to the show. That's what they want to hear, right? Uses cases of how they had successful installations, and how they have better employee engagement because of their conferencing and collaboration tools. We've got some retailers actually who will present how they're deploying AV technology in their stores, and what it's doing to improve their business. So we are making a real focus on that piece along with, of course, all the traditional content and certification we offer for the gearheads, as you said.

I assume that's a bit of a tactic as well in, that if you invite, the Head of Digital for a big bank or big retail or whatever it may be to the show to do a speaking gig, there's a decent chance he or she is gonna bring some other people with them and then you've got people with big bank on the name tag walking around the show and you're able to talk about, look at the kinds of companies we're attracting.

Jenn Heinold: That's absolutely a tactic. The other tactic is when we market to these end-user segments, and they go to our website, perhaps cold, having not really known much about InfoComm, and they see like-minded people on the website speaking, they realize it's an event for them too. 

When you got involved, was there a discussion about how are things working right now? The old line about, if it ain't broke, don't fix it? Or were there things that you were told that are where we would like to grow, here's like where we would like to change things, that sort of thing? 

Jenn Heinold: Yeah, I mentioned some of the deep dive I took into the show data when I first started. I also read the last five or so years' Exhibitor and Attendee Surveys. In reading those, one thing that bubbled up was just the onsite experience overall, and it is hard when you compare a U.S.-based show to an ISE at the Fira Barcelona is lovely and the food options are really healthy and great, and, unfortunately, we're a little bit behind in the United States on those things, but we are making 

It's mind-blowing. 

Jenn Heinold: It is a little embarrassing sometimes, but, I will tell you, I have already met with the team in Orlando. I actually was there about three weeks ago and talked about how we want to upgrade the food and beverage experience, have healthier options, and have more seating. So you will see an upgrade in the onsite experience as well. 

That's something that we've done mindfully. When you have a better experience, you want to spend more time on the show floor, right? So, there's definitely another strategic priority for us. 

Might as well talk about it now, I, people like me would be very happy if we never went to Orlando or Las Vegas again, and in the past, long before your time, InfoComm did move around a little bit. I remember the first one I went to was in Anaheim, and then it got in this rota of, back and forth between Orlando and Las Vegas. 

Is that a finite thing or is that just how things are going to be? 

Jenn Heinold: I don't think it's finite. The reality is InfoComm can fit in about five convention centers in the United States based on its size and Orlando and Vegas are two of them. Chicago could be an option, Atlanta, and New Orleans might work, but there are just not that many venues that can hold a show of our size, and also where the cities have the infrastructure to host us, so we are a little hamstrung that way. 

I'm not opposed to looking at other cities. I think when we look at different cities, of course, we look at the cost structure. We look at the audience that is within a couple of hundred-mile radius and how accessible it is for air travel and everything else. I'm not opposed to it. We do have quite a few years booked already for Orlando and Las Vegas, but it's definitely something that I'm looking into. 

If you come to the show, you'll see a lot of questions about our future cities and where we might be in the post-show survey, because it's something that I'd like to look into in the future.

You've only been with AVIXA for three to four months, so you don't have a reference point for last year, but I'm going to ask anyway, what's going to be different this year with the show? 

Jenn Heinold: Yeah, I mentioned our focus on the audience. That is a big priority for us. We always do local tours where you're able to see Avian Action. But this year I'm really proud that we're in Orlando. We've got a few new tours added to the schedule. One is, the Cirque de Soleil show behind the scenes in Disney Springs. We are going back to the University of Central Florida. We're also doing a large mega-church in Orlando for a house of worship tour. So we've added some fresh content there. 

We also have a brand new panel discussion that we're launching this year called 2030 Vision. It will be moderated by Dave Labuskes, and we've got three visionaries from our industry, plus an end user up on stage to talk about what Pro AV look like in 2030, and what are the factors shaping our market. Our visionaries will be from Shure, Crestron, and Diversified. I'm really excited about having some different content models at InfoComm. 

I talked earlier about the upgraded experiences. Again, we're really being mindful about making the event more comfortable and enjoyable to be a part of.

I think in the last couple of years, AVIXA has really put a push on AVIXA Exchange and AVIXA TV. So I get a sense there's a lot more effort to educate the ecosystem and also use very modern ways to do it. It's not just the written word and case studies and so on. You're doing a lot of proper broadcast studio on-site at ISE and I assume probably something similar at Orlando. 

Jenn Heinold: Yeah, absolutely. We'll have our AVIXA TV studios. The coolest thing about that, beyond being able to watch some of the interviews as they are recorded live, is that you get to see a fully functional broadcast studio on the show floor, right? You get to see how technology converges. It's not about just one box. It's about the whole solution and being able to present the whole solution is really special for us. 

We've also got three stages. You mentioned AVIXA TV, that's more of a campfire format, right? So huddle around, and talk about different challenges that we're facing. We have our technology innovation stage which is really about highlighting new products that are coming to market and then we have our innovation Spotlight Stage and with the Spotlight Stage, we will have some exhibitors presenting thought leadership, but we also have some content partners there like Digital Signage Federation Plaza. We'll talk about lighting and staging. IABM will focus on the broadcast market opportunity and specifically the intersection of broadcast AV and IT. And FutureWorks who will talk about content creation. 

Are you getting into some areas that - I saw at ISE that I didn't have enough time to really get over there and look at any, but it's enough just to get through those four days - but things like drones? 

Jenn Heinold: We don't have a dedicated section of the show floor for drones. But certainly, there is some content about the use of drones projection mapping, and other applications. 

What about the digital signage side? Through the years, AVIXA at InfoComm has tried to do “digital signage” pavilions, zones, and all kinds of things, and then in the last two to four years, I'm not sure of the number, you've worked with the Digital Signage Federation on a conference day called D Sign. Is that being replicated this year? 

Jenn Heinold: Yeah, that'll return and we also have some content with Invidis who will cover a lot of digital signage as well so it's still a huge focus for us as part of the show.

One of the attempts has always been to try to create an area thematically around it, but I've always told people that's super difficult because there are exhibitors who've been at that show for 10-20 years, and they have their spot. So it's hard to just say, okay, all of you digital science companies, you go over here, the audio people maybe do.

Jenn Heinold: Yes. We don't have a dedicated pavilion for digital signage, but it gets back to our conversation earlier, Dave, I think it's a little bit less about one very specific piece of technology and more about the larger application and I think that's where our industry is going, and that's why really we can't box in those digital signage providers, right? Because they're doing so much more than just just a digital signage display. 

Yeah, and that applies to just about any discipline these days that everything is cross-pollinating. 

Jenn Heinold: Yes. So I think you'll see certainly some applications come to life at InfoComm 2025 and it'll be an even bigger part of our event design for 2026 where we are already having those conversations around what Infocomm 2026 looks like, which is really exciting.

There was some noise at ISE around some of the major exhibitors, like notably Samsung, suggesting that they're not going to be at the show, that they're pulling their big stand, and this and that, and those were swatted down at the time, but I'm curious where that's at. 

Jenn Heinold: Yeah, I personally speak to Samsung about every other week and they will be participating at InfoComm 2025. Will it be in the large booth presence that they have had in the past? Quite frankly, no, but, they will be there. They will have products on display. We welcome them and we're working with them to find the right marketing solution for what their needs are today and into the future as well.

I find that weird because they had a massive presence at ISE and you would think they want to be there and if they're just doing whisper rooms, that sort of thing, it seems an odd decision. Is there something behind that? I read stuff about Korean politics or whatever, Korean government stuff that may be in the way of it.

Jenn Heinold: I think that's a better question for them to answer, certainly, but they will do more than just a whisper room. They will have a presence at the show and we're working with them very closely on that. And they've been great partners. We want to continue to partner with them in a way that's mutually beneficial to both.

Of course. Are you seeing some new exhibitors? Again, I respect that this is all new to you, but, some significant exhibitors coming into the InfoComm that maybe didn't do in the past. 

Jenn Heinold: Yeah, I'm seeing, some more kiosk manufacturers. We're hearing more and more about that. Retail seems to be a really big end-user segment. That's a priority. We Just signed up AWS and they're bringing their equivalent of the Fire Stick for digital signage to the show. So those applications are fun to see and new for us. 

We are always looking at a little bit of AI technology, we're always looking to make sure that we're introducing new and innovative technology to the show floor and one of the most fulfilling things for me is when you see those new tech come in and they might come in a 10 x 10 in the far corner of the hall and then they work their way there, work their way up, and have a bigger and bigger presence.

Does your team do much coaching for some of the overseas exhibitors? 

I'm particularly thinking about Chinese LED manufacturers who show up at these shows and it's always been a source of frustration and bewilderment for me that they'll spend a lot of money to bring all their tech over and bring a bunch of people over, and then when I wander into their booths and start asking questions, they don’t tend to have many, if any people who can speak much in the way of English.

So do your people coach them by saying, “Guys, if you're gonna do this, here's our advice!” 

Jenn Heinold: We do. 

It doesn't necessarily work? 

Jenn Heinold: We do and we also try to help our exhibitors with their marketing campaigns and how to promote their presence at the show, and how to save money. A lot of the services are deadline-driven and talk through all of those things. 

Yeah, we do that. We partner with sales agents as well that are in the country and we encourage them to work with their exhibitors as well as to coach them on exhibiting. I don't know if that is not necessarily working, but I do think it's a longer process because there are so many elements that tie into that.

Yeah, and it's not easy to if you're in Shenzhen or Beijing or whatever, you just logically don't have a whole bunch of English-speaking people, but, I guess it's not that easy either to hire interpreters to come over and get questions thrown at them about chip on board and pixel pitch and things like that the interpreter is not going to understand either. 

Jenn Heinold: That can be a challenge. We hire some interpreters for our own staff to help interact. And, yeah, it definitely can be a challenge. I do think we are so close. You travel internationally. I travel internationally and with Google Translate and so many new AI tools, I feel like we are so close to really having some breakthrough moments with that though. It's so much easier now. 

Like the Facebook glasses, and there's some other ones out there where they can do real-time translation and it'll just show up on the lens, which would be amazing for just about anything I do once I leave this country or leave this continent.

Jenn Heinold: Yeah, I see it too. I'm hopeful that'll really transform our shows. 

I have to ask about the current political and economic climate with tariffs and everything else. How are AVIXA and InfoComm navigating their way through some of that? 

Jenn Heinold: Yeah, I think it certainly comes up quite often. I mentioned that was doing a trip in South America, Mexico last week, and I think it's a concern for our exhibitors, and what we can do is just help support their efforts. I feel really confident that our exhibitors know how to run their business and know how to do it well, and they will pivot and make adjustments I have studied the AV industry over the last few months, having joined AVIXA and having seen how our industry navigated COVID and having worked for an organization that had multiple trade shows prior where I saw a lot of industries not navigate COVID as well as the AV industry, I'm super impressed with how agile and smart our exhibitors are. 

I think this is just another challenge that we face. I have every confidence that we'll be able to navigate this too. 

Do you have any sense of companies deciding, given everything that's going on, really don't want to travel to the U.S. right now? 

I'm Canadian, so I suspect there's a whole bunch of people north of the U.S. border who are having second thoughts about, okay, do I really want to go to Florida right now or in June with all this stuff about Canada being the 51st state and so on.

Jenn Heinold: Yeah, so right now, we haven't had a lot of pushback on traveling to the United States. We have been able to maintain the exhibitors on our show floor, but it's certainly something that I'm watching very closely. 

As a show organizer, I do think it's our job to make sure that everyone feels welcome and that's what I'm focusing on. 

Yeah, I think most Canadians like me, I’ve got a bazillion friends in the U.S. and I would miss them and everything else and I don't think they're the ones who are stirring the pot here. So it's just unfortunate. 

Jenn Heinold: Yes, absolutely. 

We'll just leave it at that, right? 

Jenn Heinold: Yeah. 

So tell me about Mexico City. I'm curious how you guys, not really rationalize that, but you have to counterbalance that. Okay. If you do a show in Mexico City for LATAM, does that siphon away some of what is in InfoComm US? 

Jenn Heinold: I wasn't part of the initial launch conversations, but I will tell you having managed regional portfolios of shows, in my past life and now being part of a regional portfolio show, I really think that all ships rise with the tide, Dave, and having an event in the country and more specifically, the In the native language and being able to serve that community who may not be able to travel will only lift up and put calm in the U.S. as well. So I'm really excited about it. 

The pride that the local community feels to have InfoComm in their backyard is really palpable and energizing. I'm proud that we're able to do the regional event, and I do think that it'll feed even more of the audience to InfoComm in the U.S. because in many ways it's a great introduction to the brand and we can say, now you experience this and please come to the U.S.  show as well. 

Finally, I'm curious how things are tracking. I know that with ISE, I heard probably eight weeks out or something like that, it was going to be very busy, probably break records, and so on. I'm curious about what you're hearing or tracking for Orlando and also for Mexico City although I know Mexico is well out. 

Jenn Heinold: Yeah, so for Orlando, our show floor is about 95 percent sold. We're targeting around 410,000 net square feet of exhibit space and for registrations, we're targeting 40,000 which is back to pre-pandemic numbers.

Right now we're pacing really well. I'm watching it very closely, of course, and I'd love to check-in with you a little closer to the event and be able to share since we still have a few months to go. But all the indicators are really good for InfoComm in the U.S. We actually just added some hotel room nights because we were getting full with the hotels we're seeing our website traffic, pretty significantly year over year. We have to look at the full picture, but there are some really positive early indicators for InfoComm. 

It's probably a bit too early to know much about Mexico City, right?

Jenn Heinold: Mexico City's registration will open up in June, actually at InfoComm in the U.S. We've sold about 80% of the show floor. It's a much smaller show floor than InfoComm in the U.S., but I'm really happy with the early interest from exhibitors and support from the local community. We're hoping for about 5,000 attendees in Mexico City.

All right. Thank you very much for giving me an update. 

Jenn Heinold: Thank you. I really enjoyed our conversation.