It’s just six weeks until ISE 2022 opens its doors for the first time in Barcelona, and with seven conferences, around 800 exhibitors across six Technology Zones and a whole host of lounges, experiences and showfloor features, it’s shaping up to be an engaging, informative and eye-opening week at the Fira Barcelona, Gran Via.
Visitors will find it particularly easy to navigate the showfloor this year, thanks to the dedicated Technology Zones that group together exhibitors in major technology areas.
While Halls 3 and 5 contain ISE’s flagship exhibitors, plus companies whose multi-technology offerings do not fall easily into a single Technology Zone, elsewhere you’ll find Audio and Lighting & Staging in Hall 7, Digital Signage & DooH in Hall 6, and Residential & Smart Building along with Unified Communications & Education Technology in Hall 2.
•NEW: Unified Comms & Education Technology (Hall 2) – newly combined zones
•NEW: Residential & Smart Building (Hall 2) – newly combined zones
•Multi-Technology Zone (Halls 3 and 5)
•Digital Signage & DooH (Hall 6)
•Audio (Hall 7)
•NEW: Lighting & Staging (Hall 7) – featuring special Lighting Demo Zone
Conference Programme
This year’s conference programme covers a whole host of hot topics across multiple verticals, starting with the full day Smart Building Conference on 9 May, the day before ISE opens its doors. With a focus on smart, safe and sustainable building technologies, SBC will welcome speakers including Erik Ubels, Owner, Metisreal, Kathy Farrington, Global Lead for Digital Buildings Program (Bos) And IOT Team Manager, Google, and Matthew Marson, UK Sector Director – Manufacturing + Technology, Arcadis.
The Control Rooms Summit will kick off the content programme on 10 May. This half-day event will explore the way control rooms are changing and how the community must work together to deliver appropriate and outstanding new models. It will be followed by the first standalone Smart Workplace Summit, which will delve into the innovations reshaping the workplace.
Digital Signage Summit will return on 11 May with a packed agenda covering green signage, industry consolidation, best practice and the latest tech trends. Speakers include Kai Hendrik Müller from Porsche, Valentina Candeloro, Director International Marketing, Mood Media, and Judith Palmés Bosch, Managing Director/Business Consulting/Customers and Services, Accenture.
On the afternoon of 11 May, the Digital Learning Summit will look at digital transformation within higher education. Zoom will give an inside view of its success and insights into its product roadmap as it positions itself at the heart of the learning ecosystem. There will also be great success stories of universities developing creative solutions to deliver hybrid learning at scale.
Taking place on the morning of 12 May, the first Superyacht Technology Summit will host inspiring global technology speakers and thought leaders discussing the integration process, immersive hands-on demos and workshops, and Tech Talks explaining how to succeed in the industry and highlighting how blue-chip companies can work successfully with superyacht R&D teams.
At the Live Events Summit, experts from the world of pro audio, top manufacturers and professionals at the coalface of the live events industry will be sharing their expertise on topics including immersive audio, remote mixing and networking.
Association Activities
In addition to these conferences, AVIXA and CEDIA will also be hosting extensive education programmes and special events.
CEDIA’s comprehensive offering will be delivered by subject matter experts from across the globe and also includes the opportunity to take CEDIA training in Spanish along with a wide range of opportunities to learn new skills. Sessions begin on the morning of 10 May with a Future Technologies Update led by Rich Green. Other topics up for discussion include design documentation, power and energy storage, WiFi6 and WiFi 6E, and video technologies. CEDIA will also host a number of more business-focused sessions, including 20 Ways to Increase Profits, A Project Manager’s Guide to the Financial Stuff, and Building your Business with Training.
AVIXA will kick off its ISE offering on 9 May with a regional meetup for the French AV community. It will stage similar events throughout the show for Italian and German attendees.
On 11 May, the AVIXA Women’s Council will host a Shared Experiences Panel in the Projection Dome in Hall 5. Panellists will discuss practical ways to inspire and empower women in AV and look at what companies are doing to tackle gender imbalance and promote and encourage women in the workplace.
The following day will see two panel discussions organised by AVIXA’s Diversity Council taking place on the Conference Stage in Hall 5. First up is Designing for Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility, which will look at equity in leadership and building a culture of inclusion, the benefits of diversity and how technology helps diversity efforts.
This will be followed by Intersectionality and AV/IT/AI. Intersectionality is the acknowledgement that everyone has their own unique experiences of discrimination and oppression and we must consider everything and anything that can marginalise people. This session will discuss how to create safe spaces and build communities, while establishing paths and opportunities for individual and organisational growth.
AVIXA is also organising the AV Experience Zone, also in Hall 5. Featuring Spanish-language content showcasing cutting-edge AV solutions and the latest trends within the industry, different sessions will be held for targeted vertical market audiences, professional technicians and students.
Also focusing on students, AV Career Day returns to ISE on 11 May. Organised by AVIXA, CEDIA and ISE, this year’s event will see participants come together in the Projection Dome to enjoy panel sessions and presentations before heading out on guided showfloor tours and finishing with networking drinks.
Show features and experiences
Also sure to impress visitors on each day of the show, the ISE Sound Xperience will take place at the Eventos Filmax Cinema Gran Via complex, a few hundred metres away from Hall 5. The cinema will host a number of uniquely configured audio spaces allowing leading audio brands, including Martin Audio, L-Acoustics and Adamson, to present a realistic representation of their latest technologies. Equipped with the latest Dolby digital cinema surround sound processors and high-end Barco projectors, the rooms range from in size from large-scale spaces to more intimate venues.
For those interested in the worlds of audio and live events, the Live Events Arena in Hall 7 has been specially created to augment the visitor experience. As well as the latest solutions for the sector, the arena stage will host 15-minute product demonstrations to provide a more detailed understanding of the latest technologies. A dedicated networking space will also be available.
Visitors looking to unearth new technology and identify opportunities for collaboration should head to the Discovery Zone in Congress Square. Featuring exhibitors including DronePixel by Ehang, Convergent Design, StreamIt, Imago, PlaceOS and more, the Discovery Zone will host everything from young ground-breaking companies to prestigious PLCs. Congress Square will also be the location of pavilions organised by Barcelona City Council and the government of Catalonia, hosting local and regional exhibitors.
Making its debut in Hall 6 at ISE 2022 will be the Retail Experience/Digital Signage Avenue. This multi-application show floor feature will bring together and present a selection of the world’s leading digital signage and DooH technologies. Visitors will be able to experience state-of-the art digital signage in action and find out how it is being used extensively for advertising and information delivery.
Lounges
A number of lounges will be situated throughout the show. In Hall 2, ISE will host a dedicated Influencer Lounge where social media influencers will interact with exhibitors and create and post show-related content. Facilities will include a podcast studio, photobooth, meeting areas and a live Twitter wall.
Also new for this year, Women in Live Music (WILM) will host a lounge in Hall 7 as part of an ISE-supported initiative to encourage more women to visit the show and to join the AV industry. WILM will be joined by representatives from Women in Lighting. Malle Kaas, founder and CEO of WILM, says: “We hope to encourage more women to come to the show by offering them a ‘safe space’ where they can hang out and connect with other women. But I also hope that both exhibitors and male guests will visit the lounge and learn more about the industry from a woman’s perspective.”
Awards and events
ISE attendees will also be able to explore IOT Solutions World Congress (IOTSWC), the largest international event devoted to industry transformation through disruptive technologies, which runs from 10-12 May at the Fira. The sixth edition of IOTSWC will take place under the theme Game-changing technologies for industry transformation and the two events will provide a unique opportunity for visitors to explore the crossroads between different sets of disruptive technologies.
Visitors can access the IOTSWC exhibition area at no extra cost, while those registered to any of the ISE conferences will benefit from a 50% discount on the IOTSWC congress programme – and vice versa.
The ISE Open Innovation Challenge, hosted by ACCIÓ (the Catalonian Agency for Business Competitiveness) and Enterprise Europe Network, will take place in the Catalonia Pavilion throughout the show, with eight corporations looking for new technologies and solutions partners to help solve a range of business issues. The event features challenges across seven categories: live events; broadcast and content creation; residential and smart building; hotels and hospitality; digital signage & digital out-of-home media; unified communications & education technology; and audio.
Technology providers that have the potential to help solve these challenges can register to participate in the event and arrange physical or online meetings with the companies involved. On-site corporate challenges will take place between 10:00 and 12:30 and between 13:00 and 15:00 each day of the show.
And, of course, no ISE would be complete without the Stand Design Awards. Managed solely by EXHIBITOR magazine, an award-winning print and online magazine featuring best practices for trade show marketing, the awards acknowledge ISE exhibitors and their stand-design efforts. Every stand on the ISE show floor is automatically entered into the free competition and judged on site during ISE 2022 by world-renowned designers and marketers. The winners will be revealed at the Stand Design Awards Ceremony, which takes place at 16:30 on Thursday 12 May on the Live Events Stage in Hall 7.
Make sure you are following ISE on twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook and use the hashtag #ISE2022 for up-to-the-minute news, event highlights and exciting announcements.
Integrated Systems Europe, ISE 2022, will take place at the Fira de Barcelona Gran Vía on 10-13 May 2022. The ISE Conference programme runs from Monday 9 May through to Thursday 12 May.
ISE: iseurope.org
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