Nearly my entire team is walking the InfoComm floor this week. I am not. This year, I am home in Houston, with a young son to watch in the evenings while my wife works through her busy season. Before the team left I told them the same thing I tell every customer I send to the show. The most impressive product on the floor is not always the right one for your project.
I have attended since 2015, not long after I joined Ford, and I go for real reasons. I make a point of the audio demonstrations. I attend the lectures from the leaders shaping this industry, on new technology and on leadership. I encourage customers to go, and when they do, our vendor relationships let us walk them through private booth tours built around their actual project. The show is great and is an amazing event for the AV industry.
But the floor is engineered to sell you the newest, the brightest, and the highest resolution, and newest is not the same as right. A booth sells a product, while your project needs a decision. The senior person signing a contract is not buying the most featured box in the hall. They are buying the system that fits the room, the budget, and the team who has to run it for the next 10 years. Specifications photograph well. They do not commission a building.
The value of the floor was never the gear. It is walking it with someone who can tell you which of it matters for you, and which of it solves a problem you do not have. That is the difference between a tour and a purchase.
Buy for the application, not the spec sheet. The newest thing in the hall is not the answer until someone who understands your project says it is.