The InfoComm Show (June 17-19, 2015, at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla.) has emerged as the premier pro-AV show in the U.S. in recent years. That's due to the growing importance of media in every aspect of culture, an exigency that house-of-worship leaders are intimately familiar with.
Church is, at its core, about communicating a message, and doing so accurately and emphatically. For better or for worse, today that requires AV media technology to achieve. The InfoComm Show, now the largest professional AV trade show in North America with more than 10,000 technology products from 980+ companies spread over 500,000 net square feet of show floor exhibits, has become the nexus where what's now and what will be come together in a way that users can get close up and hands-on with it. Here are five key areas that will be addressed at the show this year and why you need to be aware of them.
1. Education
InfoComm has training initiatives by the bushel: more than 5,700 seats were filled at InfoComm University sessions at InfoComm 2014 last year, on courses ranging from acoustics to videoconferencing. This year, at InfoComm 2015, you'll find three-day courses to learn the latest technology and best practices for AV installation, design, networking technology and other specific subjects, as well as special sessions such as the popular Tuesday program including Future Trends, plus a new Advanced Series designed for AV professionals with at least five years of experience that focuses on cutting-edge areas of systems integration including networking and multicasting, power and connectivity, and virtualization of AV components. Also, manufacturer-specific training sessions from companies including Cisco, ClearOne and Jupiter Systems offer training on industry-standard platforms.
2. InfoComm is more HOW-specific than ever
AV in the HOW sector is one of the industry's fastest-growing areas, and that's reflected at the show. This year, Church Technical Leaders, an international group comprised of more than 5,000 staff and volunteer church technical artists is partnering with InfoComm to provide an educational conference. There will be sessions, scheduled for June 17 and 18, offered in audio, lighting, video, and leadership development. These include: Live Production Tips, Working with Creatives, Visual Worship—What Does That Mean? Mixing Worship 201, Lighting Worship 201, How to Lead Up, Down and Sideways, and Videoing Worship.
3. Audio networking is here
Proprietary platforms such as Dante, Q-LAN, RockNet and CobraNet have been joined by open protocols like AES67 and Audio-Video Bridging (AVB). Audio is moving from a one-channel/one-wire paradigm to a multiplexed environment in which many channels move as digital packets on networks that can be hosted on a single Cat-5 or Cat-6 cable. What's more, video will soon be coexisting in this packetized environment. The InfoComm Show will have over 120 exhibitors in the networking category. It's another step in the progression of digital technology—and this is the time to embrace it, because this is where the future is going.
4. Get a chance to really hear a big PA system
Loudspeakers for days, as they say. From Bose to Yamaha, there will be nearly 150 speaker and PA system manufacturers on hand at the show, and many of the leading ones will present their wares in large suites off the show floor where they can crank it up. It's not all about volume, though. A major focus this year will be on steerable-beam PA systems that use complex DSP to precisely focus sound on seating areas and specifically off of intelligibility-marring reflective surfaces. This kind of precision is revolutionizing sound system design and it's taking the HOW market by storm.
5. 4K? Try 8K
The HD-to-4K transition is well underway, but 8K looms around the corner. As usual, content development is the speed bump and it will take considerable time for even 4K to amass a tipping point's worth of content. Nonetheless, history tells us that once a tipping point is reached things can change rapidly. 8K—Super Ultra High Definition—may seem more like fantasy than reality now, but you'll get a peek at what's coming at this expo.
