ISC Solutions opens

NEW YORK—The transformed ISC East, now called ISC Solutions, opened here with a new look and crowded aisles yesterday.

Was it a function of more people being at the show this year as opposed to last? Or was it the skinny aisles that gave the illusion that there were more people? The official audited numbers won't be available for more than a month, according to Ed Nichols of event organizer Reed Exhibitions, but attendees who spoke to Security Systems News said it didn't matter. They were pleased with the number and quality of people attending the event.

The event was in a different hall in the Javits Center and the design was more narrow and deeper than last year. The design worked well, according to many. “The energy is really good,” said Matt Barnett of AMAG, who was among those fording the aisles on Nov. 3.

The show has a new end-user focus this year. “We made a commitment to the industry to improve the number of end users to 40 percent,” Nichols said. Pre-registration numbers showed that they were on target—with 39 percent being end users, he said.

Keith Jentoft, CEO of Videofied was up front of the show floor in a Videofied booth that was bright yellow and appeared, at first, to be a Stanley booth. “Stanley shared our booth expenses,” he explained. Jentoft said he, for one, met a lot of end users at the show. “I met eight end users from Fortune 500 companies in the first half of the day,” he said, noting that many of those companies have headquarters in or around New York. He was handing off leads to Stanley NAMs (national account managers), he said.

Others told Security Systems News that they were seeing the same integrators and installers they always see at this show.

“I don't mind that, though,” said Fredrik Wallberg, marketing manager, Americas for Milestone. He said several integrators brought end users along with them to the show. Wallberg said he'd met with a number of local integrators who are on the verge of making the move to IP, and he was talking to them about Milestone's new free software, released a couple months ago (XProtect GO) that's designed to provide the temptation those integrators need to finally take the plunge.

Jennifer Toscano, portfolio marketing manager for Ingersoll Rand, had similar observation about visitors to her booth.

�“A lot of the end users I've seen have been with integrators. They've brought them along because they can drive in from New Jersey, New York or Connecticut. You don't get that at a lot of shows.”

That's the idea, Nichols said. “We don't want to lose the traditional core [attendees] of the show, rather we want to do more to attract end users.

He said Reed Exhibitions worked at a grass roots level with local ASIS chapters and organizations such as the International Association of Hospital Security and Safety to get those end users there.

It worked so well that Reed has decided Nichols should focus on that role. Nichols has a new title, VP of strategic accounts. Ed Several is the new SVP who will drive the strategic direction of the show and oversee the operations of this show and ISC West.

There was praise for Reed's decision to make educational content drive the end-user participation and for its decision to bring educational sessions to the center of the show floor.

The “hub” at the center of the floor had two glass-enclosed classrooms, with well-attended ongoing end-user focused education all day long.

Usual suspects in their big booths at the front of the hall included Assa Abloy, Aiphone, Speco, Door King, Digital Watchdog, ADT, Tri-Ed and CMS. And for the first time in a couple years, Honeywell brought a big booth. One of the biggest crowds of the day was at lunchtime around the Honeywell booth. A line of attendees snaked all around the Honeywell booth, to grab a free lunch.

“We set up a hotdog stand,” said Honeywell spokesman David Gottlieb, “It's New York, after all.”