Kitcast at ISE 2024 Barcelona - Day 1

Welcome to our special blog series devoted to ISE 2024 in Barcelona. Kitcast is an exhibitor and we're happy to be a part of this massive event. This trade show is big, ambitious, and interesting. Let us share what we've seen on Day 1 of ISE 2024. It was a long but very productive day.

What is ISE 2024?

ISE 2024 is one of the world's leading trade fairs for the system integration industry sector. All the leading audio and video players are represented as exhibitors. There's a comprehensive educational programme, keynotes from industry leaders, and endless networking possibilities. In other words, it's a microcosm of AV, the huge gathering of the industry's brightest minds and products.

AVIXA, CEDIA and ISE are responsible for the conference programme including the European / Latin American AV Summit.

It takes place at Barcelona Fira Gran Via.

Dates of ISE 2024 are Jan 30, 2024 – Feb 2, 2024.

Why is Kitcast at ISE 2024?

We love trade shows. That's a fact. While our geography of conferences usually is focused on the US (we're frequent exhibitors at DSE, Jamf, and Infocomm), we simply couldn't walk past such a superb industry event as ISE 2024.

Here are some of the reasons why Kitcast is participating in this Barcelona trade show:

- to present our digital signage software for Apple TV

- to see the latest digital signage trends

- to network

- to exchange ideas and hear feedback about the product from the existing clients

- to promote the Apple TV-for-digital-signage format

Arriving at Barcelona Fira Gran Via

It's all about the booth when you're taking part in a trade show. While we've been to many trade shows in the US, nothing could prepare us for the scale of ISE 2024. It's HUGE.

You need to open the floorplan to understand the size of this conference. It's pavilion after pavilion after pavilion. Once we arrived at Barcelona Fira Gran Via (the venue), it became evident that there would be a lot of walking.

The grand size is the first takeaway from ISE 2024. If you're planning to participate in the following editions, keep that in mind.

Our booth is located in Congress Hall. Essentially, it's a big hallway that serves as a link between different pavilions.

Here's our booth:

Here's the Kitcast team at the booth:

Our team consists of 3 people. It's CEO Egor, CPO Alex, and Head of Comms Pavlo. Everyone has a role and that's something that your company should do to get through the trade show experience smoothly. Know your roles, allocate your time wisely, and, in the case of ISE 2024, be prepared to walk and walk and then walk again.

Practicalities of ISE 2024

As with any event of gargantuan scale, the flow of people and a number of things to see and do may seem intimidating at first.

In the case of ISE 2024, it's twice that. There's just so much.

It's digital signage, but it's the audio solutions too. It's the screens, but then there is content creation. To put the icing on the cake of the hugeness, ISE 2024 even has a drone zone where you can... fly a drone through the obstacle course.

We're here for four days, so Kitcast adopted a "take it slow" mentality.

We've browsed through sections that are closest to our industry, and we connected to people, but we didn't overdo it by trying to talk to everyone and try everything.

Knowing the floor plan beforehand is one of the key takeaways of the smooth experience at this trade show.

Still, the distances are quite substantial. The pavilions are large, the toilets are situated on the edges of the entrances to the pavilions, and the food options are limited.

The food at ISE 2024

Talking about the food, each pavilion has several options to choose from. You can have burgers, poke salads, fish-and-chips, paninis, pizzas, samosas, etc. Diversity of cuisines is a good thing.

The prices are on the mid-range Barcelona side with meals (including side dishes and drinks) at roughly 20-25 EUR.

There are also automated machines serving drinks and light snacks. In other words, you won't die of hunger here. But be prepared to walk a lot to find something to drink and eat.

What are some drawbacks of ISE 2024?

It's just Day 1 so there are no major negatives that we've encountered at ISE 2024.

One thing to consider for the future is the size, though.

While it's awesome for a visitor to have such a diverse set of exhibitors, we felt like the audience was almost too general.

We've had lots of interactions, including very specialized ones. We've had several leads. But the crowd generally was very different. It was hard to have any kind of stable flow of digital signage-interested people coming to the booth.

Size is not a negative thing, but it can be very tiring to commute between halls. That's just a fact you should be ready to accept.

Randomly, at around 3 pm, the main lights in the Congress Hall where we're based just went off. We still don't know what actually happened and whether it was a plan all along. But it was a bit of a disappointing occurrence at an event that has a lights section among its exhibits.

Conclusions

Otherwise, Day 1 of ISE 2024 was a blast. Dynamic, immersive, and productive. Let's see what the following days bring.

Keep up with the Kitcast ISE 2024 journey on our socials. We do coverage of the conference on X, TikTok, and LinkedIn.