Forget about surveys to gauge the value of conferences at trade shows. The phone lights that go on in markets’ conference rooms are the best way to rate interest in the topics being discussed.
Soon, conference speakers at film-TV markets will be asking conference participants to remove their eyeglasses in order to better hear the proceedings. This is because Facebook’s Meta recently unveiled Ray-Ban smart glasses that have built-in displays that wearers can use to respond to text or watch videos — all of which is controlled by a wristband that translates discrete hand gesture instructions.
Today, there are two types of visual real-time audience responses to market’s conferences. The first is from those participants just looking for a place to rest between meetings, a place where they can calmly turn on their cellular phones, and the second is from participants who go to their phones when the discussion becomes boring. In both cases the dark conference rooms light up like summer nights filled with hundreds of lightning bugs.
With the advent of smart glasses, such visual real-time responses will be gone, but what will remain is the question of why market participants still attend seminars seeing as how they already know that top-level executives cannot reveal anything of substance, and topics about the future have become trite (read: boring).
There could be a way to solve the conference interest problem, but market organizers often refuse to recognize it. What is it? It’s simple really. It’s the fact that the conferences lack any sort of relationship with the main reason for an audiovisual content trade show — selling TV content.
In the May 2025 Issue of VideoAge, I dealt with the disconnect between the market floor (i.e., the exhibition side) and the conferences. Now, to enhance this disconnect comes technology in the form of smart glasses.
The reasons for this “disconnect” could be due to several factors. First, there’s the fact that, short of in-house personnel, many TV trade show organizers farm out the organization of conferences. Second is the fact that organizers often use feedback from market participants that are peripheral to the business of buying and selling. And third is the fact that organizers excel in putting together trade shows (selling exhibition space, arranging for accommodations, etc.), but know little about specific industry sectors.
Yes, markets might have industry advisory boards, but I’m not sure how effective they can actually be. Years ago, I asked Dick Lippin, founder of the PR firm, The Lippin Group, as well as one of NATPE’s influential executive committee members, if I could volunteer as a NATPE board member. He answered that “it will never happen.” This was because I wanted to move my observations from the printed pages of VideoAge to the corporate suite of NATPE (which subsequently declared bankruptcy, with the NATPE brand being sold to Canada’s Brunico Publishing group).
When the founders of the original TV marketplaces (including MIP-TV’s Bernard Chevry, MIFED’s Michele G. Franci, Banff TV’s Carrie Hunter, DISCOP’s Patrick Zuchowicki, etc.) used to run TV trade events, they put little emphasis on conferences, and those few that were staged were of great significance for the business conducted on the trading floors. Current market organizers should study the past to figure out their futures.
(By Dom Serafini)
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