Are camera shows dead? Is this the end of photography conference and trade shows? In 2019, Sony, ThinkTank Photo and Magmod dropped out of PhotoPlus Expo and 2020, Nikon, Leica, and Olympus dropped out of Photokina. Is that a sign of things to come? For changes in the photography industry?
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Are photography conferences dead, are they a dying breed? Are the worth attending as a consumer, as a photographer? Well what’s going on with them? Hey, this is Scott Wyden Kivowitz a storyteller with a camera talking about all the things for tography is like you and I are thinking about in this video. I want to talk about the elephant in the room or not in the room. Really you might’ve heard that Sony has dropped out of photo plus expo. This video is probably dropping right around the time when photo plus expo is happening. I don’t know it on my calendar in front of me, but it might be like the week of photo plus expo. So there was a rumor that Sony was dropping out and then that rumor was updated saying that Sony is not dropping out. That photo plus expo the people behind the planning did not actually update the map layout and did not update the vendor list.
And then I got good words from a friend of mine who used to be a Sony ambassadors. Not Anymore. Sony artisan rather is not anymore, but it’s still well connected with Sony and it turns out that they actually did drop out. They will not be at photo plus expo. Photo Plus Expo, like I said, is like right now so we will see if they actually did drop out or not. But here’s the really interesting thing. Nikon, Leica and Olympus are not going to attend photo Kina. Now, this is probably the first time ever that a, that Nikon and Leica are not going to be at photo Kina. The really, really interesting thing is that like as a German company [inaudible] in Germany and like I won’t even be there. So my question to you is, is is this a change? This is a shift that’s happening in the photo industry.
Is this a shift that’s happening in a lot of industries? Are these big industry events going to diminish and Trinkle out to be smaller, smaller events to make way for branded events? For example, Sony has their Kando event every year. This is big and Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon, they all do. There are smaller events that local camera stores are those going to be more popular? Are Those gonna be more effective for them than these big trade shows? I mean, these big companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on all those big trade shows between the, their giant booths between the manpower that they have to have forward the paying the union fees in order to set up a TV and to move a chair from one side of the booth to the other, they have to pay the union to do that. So there are tons of expenses that come into these big conferences when they could do their own branded conference, their ba branded event, and have complete control from top to bottom.
Maybe spend the same amounts as they would at a big trade show or less with a higher ROI. Because when it’s a branded event, you’re more likely to make sales than you would be at a giant conference when all of your competition is in the same. So what’s going to happen? I don’t know. I don’t know. I always look forward to photo plus expo because I’m so close to New York City that I been going every year since college and I’m gonna miss out if it really does go downhill or go away or I’m gonna miss it. But if it does go away, I know I would attend the smaller events more often. So maybe that mindset is the reason why these manufacturers are doing this now. Nikon and Leica and cannon and all these companies will be at photo plus expo. The only one that is already basically confirmed that they dropped out is Sony.
So my, my thought is that these big events are going to diminish more and more in favor of more educational events with less of the conference aspect, less of the trade show booths, uh, aspect. You’re going to see more of the smaller conferences gain more popularity like the of Chicago series, the inspire series, the mystic series and all of those. You’re going to see more local events like Connecticut Professional Photographers of America where I’ve spoken at a few times. You’re going to see more of their events get more popular because the bigger trade shows are gonna diminish. That’s my hypothesis. We’ll see what happens. What do you think it’s going to happen? Comment and let me know your thoughts and if you like this video, click that subscribe button below. Right now. I publish new videos every Monday and Thursday whenever possible. You don’t want to miss it.
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