Yesterday, PMA announced that its 2011 trade show won’t be happening at all. Instead, PMA said it was “colocating” with CES 2012, which takes place between January 10-13 next year.
Rather than exhibiting at the Las Vegas Convention Center, PMA@CES (as they are calling it) will be located at the Sands/Venetian across town from the CES exhibit area. According to the press statement, “PMA@CES will offer industry-specific content and display products representing all aspects of digital imaging. PMA will also offer its well-known educational seminars, complementing and enhancing CES programming.”
PMA 2010 was held in Anaheim, California and Canon, which was typically a cornerstone exhibitor, declined to participate. Now, this latest news comes after PMA rescheduled from its traditional late-winter event to a late-summer event. Additionally, PMA rebranded the event as CliQ 2011 earlier this year and made a whole lot of hype about the rebirth of the event.
The press statement didn’t really dish out any specific reasoning behind the decision to move, which leads to the speculation that things are still on the decline for the PMA show after the lackluster PMA 2010 event – and perhaps a lack of interest in CliQ 2011. It wouldn’t be a surprise if PMA was still having trouble booking cornerstone manufacturers like Canon.
It seems that the show has been grasping for new life since Canon backed out of PMA 2010 and it has yet to find it. For the sake of the show, I hope this move gives it that life. However, it smells more like a last-ditch effort to save the event than actually stepping up to something bigger and better.
