The State of Shrinking Expos and Budgets (or more, really, What I Found Interesting at Createasphere’s ETE)
I find it kind of sad to see expositions like DV Expo and Createasphere’s Entertainment Technology Expo shrinking in size. But, I guess, that’s a sign of the times.
I don’t know what that sign represents but it’s a sign of something.
One thing I’ve found is that while there are less companies and attendees at these expos, there is an opportunity to get more quality networking accomplished.
I also like the fact that I can discover cool things based on what others find interesting at the show.
The first, most vocal, booth wrangler was, I’m assuming, Alex Mikhaylov (at least that’s what the card he gave me said) from Production Tube (www.production-tube.com). He basically stated that it was a free site to post Who you were, what you did and videos, etc.
I ran into a few people I knew there. One, Thomas Mathai (@rebeldigitalgod), pointed me to Scayl (www.scayl.com, @scayl). I went there and talked to the EVP, Lars Soderstrom. Scayl is apparently “email without limits”. In other words, you can share large video files via email, as long as you both have a Scayl account. The service is free, up to a point, but can be very scalable to large companies. He wants people to give it a try, to see how they like it and to help get the word out about it. This is a new service that has a lot of potential for many uses. So you got a large file you want to send to someone? Give it a try.
Noah Gusdorff and crew from Creative Mobile Solutions (http://www.cmsi.tv) introduced me to the Magma (www.magma.com, @magmaexpressbox) folks who have a *very* interesting Thunderbolt to PCI-E slot solution. Take a look at these pictures and see if you can see what I mean.
Yes. All that stuff is connected to the 15″ retina display macbook pro!
Michael Kammes from Key Code Media was on hand to show off their interesting take on LEGOs and clay (actually he was showing shooting with a Red and splitting the signal off to a couple of places for PRoRes files (or DNxHD) and proxies and live streaming through a NewTek TriCaster) but he also pointed out Assimilate’s booth which was showing off a 4K Dolby monitor, which didn’t really impress me. Maybe because the guys working the booth were too busy sitting around bullshitting with each other to give a crap about us being there.
LAPPG (http://www.lappg.com) had a booth there. Yay!
And there were a couple free magazines on hand.
For my entertainment value, I sat in on the Peter Deming, ASC presentation. What a career this guys has! That was quite a presentation. Very glad I attended that one. (I’m sure they’ll post the video soon.) (It’s now posted! Click link above or on pic.)
And then the “reception”. Last year it was bigger and had free grub. This year, you had to buy at the taco truck.
Of the 20 people that told me that they were going, I saw four and heard another two were there at other times. (I find people not so motivated to attend things, lately.)
The reception was a bit dull, so we opted to go to Denny’s across the street rather than even cashing in our free drink tickets.
Did have a great time meeting with Brian C. Janes (@briancjanes) and talking post, freelance and entrepreneurial slants.