My Trip to InfoComm 2022

Tuesday IC22 Show

Last night (Monday), I went and met some of my ex- @Peerless US and Peerless UK colleagues. Unfortunately, due to COVID and a number of other factors, I was unable to get back out to #Chicago before I finally stepped down at Peerless a few years back. Having spent a ridiculous amount of time working in the US and alongside that team, it was always a point of great personal sadness to me. So I have to admit, one of the things I was super excited about for #InfoComm22, was getting to meet up with them all again. Whilst I had already booked my place at the legendary Peerless Party on the Wednesday night, it’s normally pretty loud, and you don’t get much chance to actually chat. Therefore, I headed off to the Cosmopolitan to catch up with John Potts, Nick Belcore and many of the US team, as well as the effervescent Matt Nixon, the fantastic Tom Fenton and the lovely Hannah Emery. And after a great evening recounting some of the amazing stories and times we had creating the Peerless-AV brand and reputation, I headed back to the #MGM at a reasonable hour; after all, I was here to work, not just play???

On the way back to my hotel, I got a cracking taxi driver from Croatia called Ennis, who was a big fan of Classic British TV Comedies. After a chat through Monty Python, he moved on to his love of Benny Hill and a discussion about what would even be allowable in today’s world… We then move on to US and UK politics, with the inevitable discussion around Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, at which point Ennis drops in that he believes that Boris Johnson is actually a by-product of an affair between Benny Hill and Margaret Thatcher… What a thought and with much laughter still ringing in my ears, I head off to bed for set up day at IC22.

One of the reasons I always head out to a show a day or two early (especially in the US), is that it gives you time to get acclimatised and also prepared. So I spent the morning sorting out everything I needed for my brief stay in #Vegas, including a ticket to the LVCC monorail. Back in the 90s, CES had over 250,000 people attend the show, and so traffic was absolutely awful. I learned early on that using the Monorail was a great way to get around Vegas and avoid lengthy cab queues and late meetings. Therefore, once I had sorted myself out, I headed over to LVCC to gran my pass. Another little tip, why wait to show day to get stuck in a massive queue if you can get along a day ahead and get your show pass…???

Once inside, I walked the show. Another little tip, if you want to get ahead of the game in terms of meetings and the show itself, organise important meetings and interviews the day before the show, when you can… and then walk the show. Whilst floor maps are great; there is nothing better than getting a physical imprint of where your key appointments will be. Taking the time to meet up with a number of key people I had never even met at DTEN. HYPERVSN and Jetbuilt. I also bumped into Julian Phillips at AVI SPL; in fact, I bumped into two of him, as Re-Sauce had organised for HYPERVSN to create a Holographic Human of Julian for the AVI SPL stand, which went down an absolute storm at the show.

After a fairly relaxed day, I headed off to meet up with some of the Jetbuilt US Team at their massive Air BnB with six bedrooms and a pool for some Pizza and beers. For those that don’t know about Jetbuilt, do take the time to visit their site?www.jetbuilt.com?or pop Dave Gledhill a mail?[email protected].?It’s a great platform and a fun company to work with. I finally got to meet up with the fabulous Jenna Dexter, as well as Matthew Mickels, David Boller, Anthony Tea and some more of their Dream Team. It was a great night, and I love working with Paul Dexter, Tom Peters and that team.

?Tune in tomorrow for more tips and stories tomorrow as the IC22 show opens, including the infamous Las Vegas Singing Karaoke Taxi Driver!!!