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Hi all/ I have been away from the site since leaving for Cinmeacon and we were definitely not conned. It was a great show, well organized, chockablock full of good information, lots of film clips to charge the batteries for the season: train wreck alert: there is a phenomenal year coming with a train load of films that will pack our theatres. I have a crappy laptop and besides they charge 12.00 for internet at the Stratosphere. that's what i get for buying a 35.00 per night room. Plus: the show is daunting. Having paid some 750.00 for the show I go to the whole thing. It starts at 8 and goes till late. By evening all I want is to go to my room and go to bed. Due to bad ac and a room change by the end of day 3 I had had a total of 6 hours sleep in 3 days. Anyway: I had two trade shows back to back nearly: the National Hardware Show starts in the AM and they have a more civilized approach than NATO; it's all over by 5 and then back to the room, change, go out to dinner with friends. Will dine at Cafe Gabi at Paris hopefully on the deck overlooking the strip. Why didn't the girls wear the clothes they now wear back in the day when it would have been more of a priority? 48 frames per second? Great directors gone mad for 3-D, more equipment than Wall-E could ever clean up, and much more. Check out www.miniscraper.com if you want to see why I go hardware. Try to live without me for another 4-5 days. This is a 11 day trip away from office and I hate banging on a laptop. Let me ask you this; if you own a movie theatre whyt would you not belong to NATO? And why would you miss the yearly show where your industry reveals all? I'd be afraid to miss something. Cheers/ Mike

Mike is more an optimist than I am about the show.

I went for one day (Tuesday). Spent about 3 hours on the trade show floor and that was enough time to see everything and talk to who I wanted to.

What was new this year over 2 years ago when I last went? Not much besides more seat vendors and of course Dolby's new sound system. Digital equipment takes up a large amount of the floor space and that stuff is pretty daunting by itself. I rely very much on the tech people that I trust.

Thankfully I got a guest pass for free. So my cost was just travel and occupancy.

Good to go every couple of years IMO.

The trade show is only one aspect of the show. We saw 48 frame 3D and 120 frames per eye 3D. A laser light demo and many many updates on the industry as well as previews from every studio on the slate for the next year +. This you had to go to everything as Mike does.

The big thing at these show. Meeting other folks like your self. Hearing the good, and sometimes crazy things they do inspire you to take those ideas back to your own business and see what you can do to improve that ever important bottom line.

We always come home with new friends and ideas that we got while eating or mixing it up at an event.

dsschoenborn wrote:
I have been to 4 different industry trade shows. I agree seeing new things is good which is why i have gone twice in the last three years.

It will be interesting to see how The Hobbit turns out since the 48fps 3d got killed by many techies.

All in all the trade show is above average. The best one I have ever been to is IAAPA. (Takes at last 2 days to cover this)

The bigwig talks are average (which I do not like any of them).

Panels are below average as they seldom include folks that participate here. The last few years of the video store conventions were very good as they really good panels which almost all included small independents like my self.


Parties are average. (These will always be better if you know a lot of people who are there)