Latest / Inside Integration / Episode 119: - AVIXA Buys Lightapalooza: What It Means for Resi

Transcript

Episode 119: - AVIXA Buys Lightapalooza: What It Means for Resi · Inside Integration

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Inside Integration Podcast.
• 0:01
  My name is Chris. I am joined, as always, by my
• 0:03
  partner Jason. What's up, everybody?
• 0:06
  And man, we are. It seems that we should just
• 0:10
  rename this to the the mergers and acquisition in AV podcast
• 0:14
  because. Mergers and acquisitions
• 0:16
  Commentary podcast. I mean, forgot, yeah, it it
• 0:18
  could just be on our our summary is just two idiots who don't
• 0:21
  know anything talking about mergers that we're because here
• 0:25
  we are again. Just like like 2 idiots in the
• 0:29
  yard barbecue and watching cars drive by and talking about the
• 0:32
  cars. If it's basically what we're
• 0:34
  doing, flipping sausages, you know, if I'm grilling, grilling
• 0:40
  chops. If the guys from King of the
• 0:41
  Hill had a podcast, it was AV centric.
• 0:45
  That would be two out of the four people.
• 0:47
  Right here. All right.
• 0:47
  Well, I'm Boomhauer. I'll just go ahead and claim
• 0:50
  that one. Pocket sand.
• 0:51
  I'll pocket Sandy right now. OK.
• 0:54
  But yeah, what we are talking about is the big news that Vixa
• 0:58
  is buying Light a Palooza, which is is interesting.
• 1:03
  And I had to go back and look and, and see if that was the
• 1:05
  actual headline. But yes, they they have bought
• 1:08
  Light a Palooza. And you know, this is, this is
• 1:12
  kind of an odd, an odd move it seems, at least from the, from
• 1:16
  the residential standpoint where, you know, you're kind of
• 1:19
  looking at the headlines and saying, well, who, who the F is
• 1:21
  a VIXA, Like where's, you know, CEDIA is, is the group that is
• 1:26
  more readily, you know, associated with residential
• 1:30
  lighting and residential AV and, and that kind of thing.
• 1:32
  And yeah, I kind of had the same thought and had to, had to look
• 1:37
  this up a little bit and, and see like, wow, OK, this is, it's
• 1:40
  true. Like a VIXA is one of the oldest
• 1:45
  trade organizations in in pro AV, but doesn't really touch
• 1:50
  Rezi as as much here. And you know, it, it's it again,
• 1:56
  it's it's very strange. It's a weird, you know, on the
• 1:59
  surface it seems like a a bit of a weird move.
• 2:01
  And I think overall the take away here is like, well, OK,
• 2:03
  well, why didn't Cedia do this? Or why wasn't there something
• 2:08
  there? So right, like.
• 2:12
  Does CDA have the same kind of resources or has made the same
• 2:16
  kind of strategic investments in the industry and in shows as the
• 2:22
  folks from Infocom slash evixa have?
• 2:24
  I'll go ahead and say probably not.
• 2:27
  Well, and that's my guess. I think that's where most Rezi
• 2:30
  integrators would would know Evixa from.
• 2:31
  Is that ever you know, you pretty much know what Infocom
• 2:34
  is, right? Like that's, you know, that's
• 2:37
  that's a pretty well known thing.
• 2:38
  And you know, Infocom, there's two of them.
• 2:40
  There's one coming up out West and then there's, you know,
• 2:41
  there's usually East Coast 1/2, which is cool.
• 2:46
  But yeah, a Vixa primarily a, you know, pro AV, commercial AV,
• 2:51
  been around forever, you know, been around since like 1939,
• 2:55
  which I don't know what kind of video conferencing you were
• 2:56
  doing in 1939. You know, maybe you're, you
• 2:59
  know, setting up a Victrola in a conference room to, you know.
• 3:02
  Well, that was yeah. I was actually looking at some
• 3:05
  of the history here. In 1939, 8 dealers of audio
• 3:08
  visual equipment formed the National Association of Visual
• 3:12
  Education Dealers. So these are guys that's, you
• 3:15
  know, so think about 1940s. You're gonna bring the projector
• 3:18
  into the classroom. Holy shit.
• 3:19
  That that is mind blowing to, to know like, you know, when, when
• 3:23
  you really think about this, like we, I, I, we're, we're an
• 3:27
  old industry, right? But I tend to think of like, you
• 3:29
  know, an old industry as like, OK, mid 80s.
• 3:32
  No, you. Know this is something that's
• 3:35
  been, you know, the mid 80s as as the things that we kind of
• 3:39
  understand it right, like rolling in an AV system in a
• 3:41
  projector and that kind of thing but Nope, 1939.
• 3:45
  So, so in like in the, in the context of history, I think the
• 3:49
  first time that a television was displayed to the public where
• 3:53
  you could see a picture on it was 1937.
• 3:55
  Wow. So two years later, after the
• 3:57
  World's Fair and exposition, it's 1939 and these guys are
• 4:01
  like, hey, I sell that gear, whatever, ATV is whatever, CRT,
• 4:06
  hey. Let's let's collude to drive
• 4:08
  prices. Up.
• 4:08
  Yeah, some. Tammany Hall shit going on.
• 4:12
  Let's let's go have two steaks and three bourbons for lunch.
• 4:15
  Yeah, yeah. You know, like, like, you know,
• 4:20
  this is a different time, but the the these guys get together
• 4:26
  to form naved and really to try to gain increasing American
• 4:32
  engagement and funding in buying education for, you know, buying
• 4:36
  this equipment for education. So I mean, if you think about
• 4:39
  what the classroom was like circa 193919401941, Can you
• 4:46
  imagine like they roll in with a projector, they roll in with a
• 4:50
  projector in your classroom And it's, you know, like they fire
• 4:54
  up the, maybe they've got a record or something as an
• 4:57
  accompaniment. Or maybe it's just, you know,
• 4:59
  overhead projection, like anything to create, you know, an
• 5:04
  interactive or visual experience to engage with the, with the,
• 5:07
  you know, with the classroom. I mean, it's, it's crazy to
• 5:10
  think that this organization has roots going all the way back
• 5:14
  that far and, and from that kind of foundation.
• 5:16
  And, and largely at that point, you know, media was consumed in
• 5:20
  a theater, right? Like you'd, you'd go to the
• 5:22
  theater to, you know, you'd pay your nickel or whatever it was
• 5:25
  you'd go to the theater to, to watch your talkies and there'd
• 5:28
  be news reels ahead of it, right?
• 5:29
  And like, that's how people figured out, you know, that this
• 5:32
  is during World War 2, right? So like this is when, you know,
• 5:34
  people were getting their news and figuring out what was going
• 5:37
  on overseas because TV's and homes was was crazy to crazy
• 5:41
  talk at that point. You know, it wasn't wasn't the
• 5:44
  thing it is now, but. It's like, it's like buying the
• 5:49
  HDTV when there was no HDTV, right, Right.
• 5:54
  You've just kind of over and over again.
• 5:56
  What do you what do you think the 1939 equivalent of HD Net
• 6:00
  was back then? Do you think, do you think it
• 6:02
  was the same thing? It's just nature.
• 6:03
  Just nature films or. Sure, Well, even just you.
• 6:07
  Maybe you bought ATV and God damn it, you know, our, our,
• 6:13
  our, our house can't receive the, the broadcast as we're down
• 6:17
  in the valley. Yeah, we gotta, yeah, we gotta
• 6:19
  put up this big spaghetti noodle on the top of my house and try
• 6:22
  to everybody try to catch some some local broadcast or some
• 6:26
  skip over the mountains, you know, from the the next town
• 6:28
  over. Right, right.
• 6:29
  That's crazy. And and.
• 6:30
  Yeah, and again, and that's if you live near a dense area,
• 6:34
  right, Like if you live near a city, then you had that.
• 6:37
  If you were anywhere even remotely rural, you're effed.
• 6:40
  Like there's you're not getting this on your farm, you're not
• 6:43
  getting this, you know, where, where you might live or
• 6:45
  whatever. But anyway, so it's it's
• 6:47
  interesting to me that this has been a Trade Organization since
• 6:50
  since that time, right? Like here's, you know, here's
• 6:53
  the real history of our industry and it's not, you know, it's not
• 6:57
  the Tron wars. It goes way back further.
• 6:59
  Oh, this is, yeah. This is like the roots of the
• 7:02
  Tron Wars. This is like before this is this
• 7:06
  the, the tale of the Seven Kingdoms?
• 7:08
  Like this is before, you know, the Iron Throne and all.
• 7:12
  Sure, we're we're going way back.
• 7:14
  I was just looking here like when we were talking about shows
• 7:17
  and Infocom and not to take this too far ahead of where we're
• 7:20
  talking, but they put on their first exposition in 1946.
• 7:25
  So post post World War 2, wherever all the GIS are back
• 7:29
  and let's have. A.
• 7:32
  Let's, you know, let's have a let's have an exhibit in
• 7:35
  Chicago. I think it might have been maybe
• 7:36
  World's Fair or something like that, but you know, these guys
• 7:40
  have been doing shows for a minute.
• 7:44
  Yeah, exactly. You know, if you thought your
• 7:46
  your ribbon for surviving the CEDIA in New Orleans during the
• 7:49
  hurricane goes back a long way, it's like, Nope, these guys
• 7:52
  weren't. This is the world.
• 7:53
  Fair. 80 years these guys have been putting on conventions.
• 7:57
  Anyways, just back to what we were sure about.
• 8:00
  Just crazy. I just did the math in my head
• 8:01
  on that. I was like, what?
• 8:03
  Are we doing? Sure.
• 8:03
  So they've been around forever. Infocom has been a thing for
• 8:07
  whatever they've, you know, they've done that.
• 8:08
  They also do, if you've heard of or wiggled yourself into a
• 8:12
  junket trip to Barcelona, they also do ise they do that in
• 8:16
  conjunction with Cydia. But like that's the, the
• 8:19
  European version of Cydia Expo, which is very highly attended
• 8:24
  over there and, and, and by people here who can wiggle their
• 8:27
  way into a trip to Europe for, for business purposes for sure.
• 8:32
  So it's a collab. It's a collab between CEDIA and
• 8:35
  Infocom. That's what.
• 8:37
  That's what IC is, right? Exactly, exactly.
• 8:40
  So, you know, they're, they have a little bit of, you know,
• 8:44
  notoriety or, or, or known or whatever.
• 8:47
  And so, and to bring the other side of it.
• 8:49
  So Light a Palooza, what is it? Five years old?
• 8:52
  It's been going for five years or something like that.
• 8:55
  And oh wow, even even less so four years.
• 8:59
  Light a Palooza has been a thing and it was started by HDSA,
• 9:03
  which is the home technology specialist of America.
• 9:05
  It's big buying group, you know, here in the United States in
• 9:09
  residential and it's it's member group.
• 9:12
  It's just like it's, it's a, it's a peer to other groups like
• 9:15
  Azione and pro source who you might know something about and,
• 9:18
  you know, these, these other buying groups and these guys
• 9:22
  decided probably, you know, it was a good idea that, you know,
• 9:27
  we need to put more focus on residential lighting.
• 9:29
  And you know, there isn't we've, we've done countless episodes on
• 9:32
  light of Paloozas and, and how they came about.
• 9:34
  But the, the Long story short of it is Cedia Expo didn't really
• 9:39
  have a, any kind of residential lighting focus.
• 9:41
  So light of Palooza was born. And that is a strictly or, or
• 9:45
  very close to being strictly a residential lighting show.
• 9:50
  So you'd go there, see the fixtures, meet the
• 9:52
  manufacturers, you know, go through, go through the whole
• 9:54
  thing. And we've talked about that a
• 9:57
  lot. And that's that is what Evixa is
• 10:00
  buying is this residential lighting show, which makes it
• 10:05
  all the more weird, I guess, because again, Evixa not
• 10:08
  traditionally residential light of Palooza completely
• 10:11
  residential, you know, in in its charter, it's it's essentially a
• 10:16
  residential show. And OK, great.
• 10:20
  So what that means is that the next light of Palooza.
• 10:24
  So the previous light of Palooza just wrapped up.
• 10:26
  The next one is going to be it's going to be Co located with
• 10:29
  Infocom at the next one in Orlando in 2027.
• 10:33
  So next year light of Palooza will be with Infocom.
• 10:37
  So that is probably going to be like an, you know, it'll be a a
• 10:40
  wing that's just residential lighting focused, which is a
• 10:46
  little strange because again, you would think that this would
• 10:50
  be something that CEDIA would be would be trying to stand up and
• 10:54
  do and are not. And it kind of calls into
• 10:58
  question like, all right, so now that a VIX has got light a
• 11:02
  palooza, are they going to make more moves?
• 11:05
  Is that going to become, you know, is, is Infocom now going
• 11:10
  to become the CI community? You know, it's just going to
• 11:13
  kind of encompass all of us, whether you're residential or
• 11:15
  commercial or, or lighting or, or whatever.
• 11:17
  Like is that the play? Is that where, where we're going
• 11:21
  here? And I think that brings up some
• 11:24
  questions for, for Cedia's future for sure.
• 11:26
  You know, like it's, there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot
• 11:31
  of clues here, you know? Yeah, like, and it is odd just
• 11:37
  because of how all these things are intertwined with each other,
• 11:40
  right? Because, you know, not to name
• 11:42
  drop too many folks here, but I mean, you know, Tom Daugherty is
• 11:47
  the founder of Light of Palooza. And HDSA I'm.
• 11:51
  So part of HDSA, so you know, even though it's a, you know,
• 11:56
  non profit Trade Organization, some I'm thinking somebody
• 12:00
  probably changed hands here along the way.
• 12:03
  Well, sure, you know, and, and you know, that's the light of
• 12:06
  Blues has been something that has built up right.
• 12:08
  And, you know, it started started small and now it's a lot
• 12:10
  bigger and. Well, yeah, I was just looking
• 12:13
  here at the at the tracking, you know, it was 225 attendees the
• 12:18
  first year and then more than 1600 in 2026, right.
• 12:21
  So what I would call that, you know, well, not.
• 12:25
  Exponential growth, yeah. I mean, in terms of actual
• 12:29
  numbers, OK, we're not at CD, right?
• 12:31
  We're not in the 10s of thousands by any stretch of the
• 12:33
  imagination. But the flip side of that is
• 12:36
  it's a much. Narrow focus.
• 12:37
  That's a pretty stellar growth starting in 2022 to 2026 to
• 12:43
  grow, you know, 4X Sure, sure. You know, like, you know, like
• 12:51
  times itself, like that's a, that's, that's a pretty solid,
• 12:54
  pretty solid growth. And that seems like, I mean, it
• 12:57
  seems like the move and again, just kind of reading between the
• 13:00
  lines and and you know, me being the typical idiot who doesn't
• 13:03
  know anything and just kind of throwing stuff out there into
• 13:06
  the other and getting in trouble for it.
• 13:07
  You know, essentially a VIX of buying light of Palooza is going
• 13:12
  to attract, you know, the same people who would go to light of
• 13:14
  Palooza, right. So you know that those 1600 or
• 13:17
  2000 people or whatever, but I think it also.
• 13:20
  You mean the same people that go to CDA?
• 13:22
  Well, the same people that go to CDA, right?
• 13:24
  So now there is, you know, we've talked about this a lot.
• 13:27
  That calendar is already really tight, right?
• 13:29
  Like the year calendar, you're going to your pro source event,
• 13:32
  you're going to your as your own event, you're going to letter
• 13:35
  Palooza, you're going to see Expo.
• 13:36
  There's there's a whole bunch of stuff on the calendar.
• 13:39
  I mean, I feel like in my gut that this kind of pulls away
• 13:42
  from CDA little bit, right? So now Evix has got a lot of the
• 13:46
  same manufacturers that are exhibiting at CEDIA, right?
• 13:50
  So you know, Sonance goes to Evixa, Crestron goes to Evixa,
• 13:55
  you know, Savant Control 4, all of these guys, they go to Evixa
• 13:59
  anyway. So when you're looking at your
• 14:02
  calendar, like, you know what, we could just do this trade show
• 14:06
  instead of that trade show. And now maybe we're, you know,
• 14:10
  maybe we're in a bad place with, with, with CD of this, this
• 14:14
  thing that we love, right? Like I would tell you that as a
• 14:17
  dealer, I would say, you know what, I, I kind of always wanted
• 14:19
  to go to a light of Palooza. Going to a light of Palooza in
• 14:22
  Orlando or wherever it is, you know, because it's part of
• 14:26
  Infocom is good. Because now I can see the
• 14:29
  Infocom stuff and I could see the light of Palooza stuff and I
• 14:32
  don't have to go to Denver. And, you know, maybe that's
• 14:35
  maybe that's where we're heading, boys, like.
• 14:37
  Yeah, I mean, well, and the fact that, you know, VIX is
• 14:42
  headquartered in Orlando, I mean, that's homecourt advantage
• 14:45
  for those guys, you know what I'm saying?
• 14:47
  Like that's, that's probably not a bad place to to be, you know,
• 14:52
  relatively speaking for them. You know, it's, I mean, I guess
• 14:58
  maybe I have to say it, but you know, I think it kind of calls
• 15:00
  into question what CEDIA is now, you know, like what, what are
• 15:06
  they? If a VIXA has these, you know,
• 15:09
  nationally recognized or certified, you know the CTA, the
• 15:12
  CTS, you have all of that, you know, legit accreditation where
• 15:16
  they back it, they fund it, they push it hard.
• 15:19
  People are putting CTS's and Ctas on their headers on the.
• 15:23
  Link I was gonna say you see way more CTS's and Ctas than you do
• 15:28
  like certified CD of designer you know cuz that's you know you
• 15:32
  see these credentials. Yeah, I remember having.
• 15:35
  I remember sure seeing that out. There I said to that installer 1
• 15:38
  installer 2 designer. Sure, of course, you know so.
• 15:43
  And maybe it's just, you know, somebody, you know, the within
• 15:46
  the rank and file at, at CDA maybe lost the, the beat on that
• 15:50
  maybe had a, you know, personal change.
• 15:52
  I don't, I don't know what the shift in focus is or you know
• 15:55
  what, you know what all that entails, obviously.
• 15:57
  But you know, when you sell off the trade show and you sell off
• 16:00
  some of the things that could be really profitable for your, for
• 16:03
  your organization, just, it makes you wonder, you know,
• 16:08
  looking back, if you had a crystal ball, like what, what,
• 16:10
  what were you looking at? Or if you were a family on the
• 16:11
  wall, what were they talking about in that room?
• 16:13
  But right, it's really an interesting development.
• 16:18
  And I, I think, you know, again, I'll say it again, I wonder what
• 16:21
  the future of CEDIA is if, if we're seeing mergers and
• 16:25
  acquisitions and all these other fronts, does, does, does, does a
• 16:29
  VIXA, does Infocom merge with CDA at some point?
• 16:32
  Like does that become a thing? I mean it seems and and again,
• 16:36
  no, no inside information, nothing other than.
• 16:38
  No feeling none at all. Just your.
• 16:39
  Conjecture your conjecture. Don't sue us, please.
• 16:42
  But I mean, I can, I can see that, you know, that that's, it
• 16:46
  would, it seems like it would be a pretty trivial thing for a
• 16:49
  Vixa having just completed this purchase to, to turn around and
• 16:53
  say, OK, you know what, we're going to, we're going to merge
• 16:55
  with CDA or we're going to absorb CDA and we're essentially
• 17:00
  going to stand up a residential focused part of this
• 17:04
  organization. And now all your CDA dealers are
• 17:06
  now a VIXA dealers. And you know, your creds maybe
• 17:09
  transfer over or whatever. And then there's new
• 17:11
  opportunities for new creds that that seems like, it seems
• 17:15
  likely, frankly, you know, to be honest, like I wouldn't be
• 17:18
  surprised in the next 6 months if that's the, you know, if
• 17:20
  that's the move. I know, you know, just hearing
• 17:23
  through the Grapevine that there are a lot of manufacturers who
• 17:26
  have not signed up for CD Expo yet.
• 17:29
  I mean, we're in May and this show is in September.
• 17:33
  So you know, where, what do we do?
• 17:37
  Like how does how's that going to go?
• 17:39
  It is a question I haven't heard any chatter frankly about CD of
• 17:44
  this year. And I I have to say, I'm
• 17:46
  guessing that the Denver fatigue is probably real.
• 17:49
  You know what I mean? Not we.
• 17:51
  We talked about it on the show before.
• 17:52
  But to have the same show in the same city for what, five years
• 17:58
  in a row? Yeah.
• 17:59
  I mean, it's, it's a great city. Everybody loves Denver.
• 18:01
  Fantastic city. Easy.
• 18:02
  For everybody to get to. But it's true.
• 18:04
  It's we're over it. Yeah, you're not.
• 18:07
  You can easily, you know, psychologically, you can look at
• 18:09
  it and say, you know what, I've been to Denver three times in
• 18:12
  the last five years. I don't need to go again.
• 18:14
  But you know, then again, ISC or you know, Infocom is in Orange
• 18:20
  County, Florida, right? Like it's, it's in Orlando.
• 18:22
  And then there's also, there's another one, there's Infocom in
• 18:26
  Vegas. So that one is coming up.
• 18:28
  I'm going to be there, you know, come by and say hi.
• 18:31
  Tell me I'm an idiot to my face, please.
• 18:34
  But you know, they already have, you know, they, they have the
• 18:37
  structure ready to run 2 shows a year on each coast.
• 18:40
  And, you know, I think that's, I mean, maybe that's a better
• 18:44
  model, right? Like they do the same, you know,
• 18:46
  they do Orlando every year. They do Vegas every year.
• 18:49
  So you get your Westies going to Vegas and you get your Easties
• 18:52
  going to Orlando. And it's an easy trip for both.
• 18:55
  You know, nobody's really got to jump across the country to go,
• 18:59
  you know, and but maybe maybe that's more the thing, right?
• 19:02
  Like maybe it's more assume that, OK, we know that people
• 19:06
  are only going to go to, you know, Infocom every other year
• 19:10
  and that's maybe that's perfectly fine with one thing
• 19:13
  less on a calendar. Maybe that makes a lot more
• 19:15
  sense, you know? Sure.
• 19:18
  Yeah, it's interesting to think. I mean, again, I think it is
• 19:22
  just a mirror of the broader landscape that we're looking at,
• 19:26
  right? Like it's just where a company
• 19:29
  that was defined or defined itself singularly as this one
• 19:33
  entity that manages this one segment of the business.
• 19:37
  Now all of a sudden it's just a component of a larger
• 19:40
  organization that, you know, covers that.
• 19:43
  I mean, I think it's, you know, that's obviously the corporate
• 19:45
  model where you just gobble things up and and make them, you
• 19:49
  know, one of the pillars underneath your under your, you
• 19:51
  know, under the table of your corporate structure.
• 19:53
  But it's crazy to think and again, I think I'm just thinking
• 19:58
  about it even now as we're as we're talking about it.
• 20:01
  But the ripple effect and the knock on effect of this
• 20:04
  acquisition, I think, you know, this happened very quietly.
• 20:08
  There was not there was not a lot of conversation.
• 20:11
  There was not a lot of fanfare or hints that this was going to
• 20:15
  happen. It was just sort of like, Oh,
• 20:16
  and by the way. Of extra bot light of Palooza.
• 20:21
  Yeah, what? What happened?
• 20:22
  Right. And a bunch of AV nerds emailed
• 20:24
  each other and sent each other the article.
• 20:26
  And those are the only people on the planet who really care.
• 20:29
  Because you know, it ain't it ain't, it ain't a big pie for
• 20:32
  that. No, but you know, when you think
• 20:35
  about what the media effect and what the PR effect of that
• 20:40
  happens, you know, that kicks off here in June, right?
• 20:43
  We're talking about, you know, the the education part of it
• 20:46
  kicking off in the middle of June and then the show kicking
• 20:49
  off, you know, a couple of days later at the Convention Center.
• 20:53
  That's this is a huge PR opportunity for Infocom to say,
• 20:57
  look, you know, we're outside of all of the other verticals that
• 21:01
  we're in. You know, hardware isn't just
• 21:04
  the one segment that drives this industry.
• 21:07
  It's lighting, its ambiance, it's controlling, you know, of
• 21:11
  the environment in these spaces. They've got it on the, you know,
• 21:15
  they've got it on the show, right, to set the set the bar
• 21:18
  for what that business looks like.
• 21:19
  I think it's a really bold move and a really smart one.
• 21:23
  Frankly, I don't like. I think it's a good.
• 21:25
  One, I agree because, you know, as as knock on effects go, I
• 21:28
  would say that you're probably going to get you're you're
• 21:31
  probably going to get people who are going to go to their first
• 21:33
  Infocom because now they can kind of justify a little bit and
• 21:36
  say, all right, I'm going a lot of Palooza at the same time, you
• 21:39
  know, and I also think that a lot of manufacturers who have
• 21:43
  been a part of let a Palooza for so long will continue to be part
• 21:47
  of it because it exposes them to more commercial opportunities,
• 21:50
  right. Like, yeah, resident, you know,
• 21:52
  lighting in residential is a growing category.
• 21:54
  It's one of the only growing categories in residential
• 21:58
  integration. And, you know, these
• 22:00
  manufacturers, if you're looking at this thing, you're probably
• 22:03
  saying, OK, well, that growth is is great, but growth is never,
• 22:07
  you know, necessarily sustainable.
• 22:08
  Like we need to branch out a little bit more.
• 22:11
  And now you get access with Evixa to a bigger market.
• 22:15
  And, and it's probably, you know, markets that these lines
• 22:18
  were in already, right? Like, you know, their commercial
• 22:20
  specification market is a big one.
• 22:22
  But now you're going to get a lot more traffic, you know, at
• 22:26
  your event, at your thing, because you're specifically
• 22:29
  being called out as being lighting.
• 22:32
  And it's part of a, you know, that larger, that larger Infocom
• 22:35
  world, right? So it's, I mean, great.
• 22:38
  It feels like a great move on on all sides.
• 22:40
  It feels like the only one who's really getting screwed in all
• 22:42
  this is CEDIA. You know, Unfortunately, you
• 22:46
  know. Yeah, it is weird.
• 22:47
  I mean, and it's some, maybe that's just my perception.
• 22:50
  I don't have any insight or any inside information as to what's
• 22:53
  going on within that group. But it does seem very strange
• 22:57
  that, you know, at every turn the, the high ground seems to
• 23:01
  have been either sold off or surrendered or what have you.
• 23:05
  And again, that's just my observation from the outside.
• 23:08
  It's not an educated one, but it's like what happened, you
• 23:11
  know, like what, what, Like how did, how did we go from the
• 23:13
  thing, this thing of ours? This.
• 23:15
  This a murder that we all. Swore right exactly I mean how
• 23:20
  do we go from the how do we go from you know what having to
• 23:23
  explain what Cedia is and all of that stuff to like Oh yeah well
• 23:27
  it's info common people are like Oh yeah maybe maybe I saw
• 23:30
  something about that on a on a tech show or whatever yeah I
• 23:36
  also think with Infocom and the acquisition of light a Palooza
• 23:42
  the vendors that are adjacent to lighting I've got to be just
• 23:45
  licking their chops at this opportunity right like they're
• 23:48
  like Oh my God we're actually going to get to go into a
• 23:52
  lighting show we're going to get to show our massage chairs or
• 23:55
  our water table or our. Red.
• 23:58
  Light therapy, red light therapy, home sauna business,
• 24:04
  what whatever that is like all of those Wellness and like all
• 24:07
  of those home type products where it's OK last.
• 24:12
  Year. You know, like with infrared
• 24:13
  light, right? Yeah, like let's let's go.
• 24:15
  I mean, but you know, if to, you know, not to dilute what light a
• 24:20
  Palooza is, but just to make that magic part of a bigger
• 24:24
  circus or bigger show. I I think it's just going to
• 24:26
  draw more people to these shows on the coast every year.
• 24:30
  Yeah, that's just all there is to.
• 24:31
  It, I think you're right and, and again, it's an advantage,
• 24:34
  you know, they're, they're set up and used to doing 2 shows,
• 24:36
  right? Like, and you know, Vegas and
• 24:38
  Orlando are the two biggest places that you can do shows,
• 24:41
  you know, so, you know, we can handle it.
• 24:44
  And it'll be, you know, I think for for integrators, I think
• 24:47
  it'll be weird, but I think you'll get a lot of integrators
• 24:50
  who kind of want to try things out, right?
• 24:52
  And you know, if, if you're in Rezi, you're going to get
• 24:54
  exposed to a lot more stuff that you've never been exposed to,
• 24:57
  like QSC, right? You know, you're going to see a
• 25:00
  lot. Of you know.
• 25:02
  You're going to get to know bi Amp maybe a little bit better
• 25:05
  because that's not a Rezi product, right?
• 25:07
  Like. It is funny.
• 25:08
  Yeah. You're what you're describing to
• 25:10
  me is really funny. I'm just giving me a mental
• 25:12
  picture of the comparison between Acedia and Infocom.
• 25:16
  You've been to Infocom? Yeah, I.
• 25:17
  Sure have, yeah. Right.
• 25:19
  And, and you see the scale of it where it's the tchotchkes and
• 25:22
  the bag and the giveaways and the, you know, some of them are
• 25:26
  still doing booth girls because it's 1985.
• 25:29
  Well, you know, like. It's a much older organization.
• 25:32
  OK, 1939 is when it's. Started OK well that that's true
• 25:36
  you know I mean it's like you're.
• 25:37
  Wearing Yeah, it's the creepy uncle of shows.
• 25:40
  Yeah, they're not wearing saddle shoes and and poodle skirts like
• 25:44
  23 can do strats. Was prohibition still a thing?
• 25:49
  No, no. We were out of prohibition, we
• 25:51
  were we were at the pre war. And then they really got their
• 25:54
  start probably with, you know, anti communist videos that they
• 25:57
  used to just show people dot your name.
• 25:59
  Right. Well, yeah.
• 26:00
  I mean, God, they've got to be looking at the New Deal going
• 26:04
  like shit. FDR is giving cash away.
• 26:07
  We should figure out how to get technology into schools so we
• 26:10
  don't have a bunch of dodos in this country.
• 26:12
  Well, wait a second. The more things change, the more
• 26:16
  they stay the same, right? Like.
• 26:17
  Here's. Educational grants, you know, we
• 26:20
  can, we can make use of those. Yeah.
• 26:23
  But, you know, super, Yeah, I mean, super interesting.
• 26:26
  I, I think it's overall positive for, for the industry.
• 26:30
  You know, I'm curious to see where CDA pivots from here
• 26:32
  because a pivot is needed for sure.
• 26:35
  And yeah, man, I think, you know, I think residential
• 26:38
  dealers who go to an Infocom to, you know, and justify it by
• 26:41
  saying that they're going to light up lose.
• 26:42
  At the same time, I think that's, I think they're going to
• 26:45
  be delighted with what it is bigger show, more energy, you
• 26:49
  know, more people pushing, you know, trying to try to get their
• 26:52
  attention and stuff. And I mean, that can necessarily
• 26:55
  be that thing, right? Because one of the things that
• 26:56
  dealers like about CEDIA is that they get time to have
• 27:00
  conversations and they have whatever.
• 27:02
  So, you know, your manufacturers are going to need to, you know,
• 27:05
  manufacturers are going to need to, you know, to step it up a
• 27:09
  little bit and, you know, maybe increase their presence so that
• 27:11
  you can have those one on ones and you can have some, you know,
• 27:14
  quiet areas where you can have a conversation like that.
• 27:16
  But this is, you know, this, this is overall, I think a
• 27:20
  positive. And I mean, I'm excited.
• 27:21
  I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to Infocom in Vegas in a couple of
• 27:25
  weeks as a as a manufacturer. First time I've ever done
• 27:29
  anything like that as a manufacturer.
• 27:30
  That'll be fun for you, dude. That's a that's a big, that's a
• 27:32
  big change. Yeah, it's, it's going to be
• 27:35
  good and I'm looking forward to it.
• 27:36
  It's going to be, it's going to be really, really interesting
• 27:40
  just to kind of see the differences between because I
• 27:42
  mean, jeez, I can't even count how many CD's I've been through
• 27:44
  like this. Will this will be a good, you
• 27:47
  know, a good thing? For sure you'll come home with
• 27:49
  the bubonic plague. Well, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm
• 27:52
  going there with the bubonic plague.
• 27:53
  I got a, I'm surprised. I don't know if you heard the
• 27:55
  garage door open in my office, but my, my sick kid with the flu
• 28:00
  just got back from the doctor. So yeah, it'll be, it'll be
• 28:02
  great. Is it like set up like ET in
• 28:05
  your house where there's a bunch of like tubes and?
• 28:08
  It will be as soon as I as soon as I get off this call, it'll
• 28:11
  be. Masking Tyvek is door shut.
• 28:14
  Is that what we're doing? What we're doing?
• 28:17
  Yep, sliding food under the crack into the bottom of the
• 28:20
  door. All the Tamiflu A5 year old body
• 28:22
  can handle and. Oh boy.
• 28:24
  Completely seal everything and bleach, that's where we're
• 28:27
  going. So yeah.
• 28:28
  OK, but. Yeah, interesting times.
• 28:31
  You know, it's it's it's kind of nice because this is one of
• 28:35
  those things and we talk a lot on this show about murders and,
• 28:38
  you know, people split apart and that kind of thing.
• 28:40
  But I think this is good. You know, this is I think this
• 28:44
  is going to be a good thing for for everybody.
• 28:47
  And frankly, you know, I think this is just probably the first
• 28:50
  battle of don't even call it a battle.
• 28:52
  But like, this is just the first move of, you know, Evixa kind of
• 28:56
  given this side of the world like a Big Bear hug, right?
• 29:00
  Like, you know, residential stuff.
• 29:03
  I could absolutely see the mechanism is there, you know,
• 29:07
  And if, if, if Cedia just kind of doesn't have the, the the
• 29:11
  juice that it did at some point, then yeah, maybe this is Evix's
• 29:13
  move to make. Sure.
• 29:15
  Well, I mean, maybe there just isn't enough money, you know, in
• 29:19
  terms of, you know, vendor participation or anything about
• 29:23
  shrinking profit margins and all that stuff to support both.
• 29:26
  So if you're the vendor, and again, pure supposition on my
• 29:29
  part, but let's guess you're the vendor and you're like, well,
• 29:33
  shit, I've got X amount of dollars that I can spend and I
• 29:36
  could do this really specialty residential show that kinda is
• 29:41
  my audience, but not 100% my audience.
• 29:43
  Or I can reach out to much broader, you know, customer base
• 29:51
  for commercial opportunities or resumercial opportunities.
• 29:55
  And then maybe some residential guys will catch on.
• 29:57
  Yeah, I think I know where my. I think I know where I'm taking
• 30:00
  my beans. Yeah, that's, that's a good
• 30:02
  place to put your beans. I would, you know, I would say
• 30:05
  again, with the certification structure that they have and you
• 30:09
  know, industry recognized, you know, support and that kind of
• 30:12
  thing, I think it'd be a real easy thing to merge into.
• 30:16
  And and also it doesn't take away anything that the trade,
• 30:19
  you know, the trade groups are doing right, like pro source is
• 30:22
  big on training. You know, those those programs
• 30:25
  could be officially sanctioned at this point, right.
• 30:28
  Well, I mean they're. They become additive.
• 30:30
  That's what I mean, right? And not that they're not
• 30:31
  wacedia, but it becomes additive on a much simpler scale because
• 30:36
  you've got a narrower channel to look through.
• 30:39
  Certainly you're not, you're not dealing with two different
• 30:42
  organizations with different account names and addresses and
• 30:46
  yeah, vendor lists and blah, blah, blah.
• 30:48
  It's just, oh, I mean everybody here just segment them off in
• 30:51
  this pivot table with by residential, right?
• 30:53
  Simple. I mean imagine, you know,
• 30:55
  imagine a, you know, Blue Stream or Sonance or or LA or whoever.
• 30:59
  Imagine them sponsoring a training that is like Dante
• 31:02
  focused and that training is accredited and it puts you
• 31:07
  towards your Evixa certification.
• 31:08
  Like that's the dream, right? And.
• 31:10
  Let's go. That makes it worth going to
• 31:12
  that makes worth sending your people to.
• 31:14
  That makes it worth you know everything you know, and I'm
• 31:17
  just using Dante as an example, but that could be lighting.
• 31:19
  That could be whatever, you know, like you know, customer
• 31:23
  service one O 1. Here's a learning track for you.
• 31:25
  Right like there's. Your DMX ready buddy, and I
• 31:29
  don't mean. Yeah, You're not a Rough Rider.
• 31:32
  You're not a Rough Rider. Stop, drop, shut them down.
• 31:34
  Open. Up shout galaxies and universes,
• 31:38
  pal. That's a wild.
• 31:40
  That's a wild place. Where about dogs at Yeah, fix
• 31:43
  it. Obviously that's right.
• 31:45
  But but yeah, I mean, that's, I think it's a good thing.
• 31:48
  So kudos to them. Excited to see how it develops.
• 31:51
  And if you're, you know, let's, let's, let's throw some plugs in
• 31:55
  here. If you want to e-mail me and
• 31:58
  tell me I'm a Jackass for, for, for my thoughts, hit hit me up
• 32:01
  inside.integration@gmail.com. Come see us on Instagram at
• 32:06
  inside under score Integration and subscribe to our show.
• 32:10
  We, you know, we, we, we, we do this every week and have been
• 32:13
  for three years now, which feels like a million.
• 32:17
  Not as old as a Vixa, but like getting up there for sure.
• 32:20
  And we've spent more money than we've made.
• 32:22
  Oh. Easily certainly spent more
• 32:26
  electricity, yeah, more electricity doing this stream
• 32:30
  than than anything else. But we we enjoy it.
• 32:33
  Hope you do too. And don't forget to steal your
• 32:35
  friend's phones and subscribe there.
• 32:37
  Thanks for joining us. Take care everybody.
• 32:40
  Bye bye.