The main North American SID event, Display Week, is underway here in San Antonio, Texas. Everyone is noting how attendance is down and the exhibition floor is smaller and less crowded. This is true, but I am here to tell you it doesn’t matter. This is still a great show to learn about current, near-term and future display technologies.

Chris Chinnock
Senior Analyst and Editor
for Insight Media

So why is SID so important? For one, you often get to speak one-on-one with a researcher or developer about their technology. This is a fantastic way to really learn in a way that can be lost when corporate communications personnel are running the show. SID is also a place where you will see new trends in display technology via the business conferences, technical symposium papers or on the show floor. One clear trend this year: the proliferation of touch technology and its integration with displays. 3D displays, pico projectors, e-paper displays, OLED displays, energy saving technologies and thin LCDs are all hot topics at the show. This is not the place to highlight all the news, but, I can assure you, there is plenty of new good stuff here.

SID is also a place where display-related ideas, concepts or innovations are revealed and diagnosed by display experts. This can be very useful for companies as they introduce and/or test new technologies and concepts on their peers.

And, most importantly, SID is a place to do business. The meetings and networking that goes on at SID is very important for building business relationships, for finding component suppliers and for finding new display technology to drive product development.

Teleconferences are good for many things, but face-to-face meetings will always be needed to enable a level of engagement that is just not possible otherwise. And, there is often time to have a little fun and get to know your business colleagues on a more personal level. Heck, you might even find yourself inventing the first edible pico projector screen (here’s a hint: the Mariachi band leader also wanted to buy the pico projector).

Yes, there are other display-oriented trade shows, particularly in Asia, that can offer similar opportunities and benefits, but SID remains the premier North American trade show. North America is not a display-manufacturing powerhouse, but it remains a fertile place for technology innovation. It is also where many major brands are located and represents a huge market, of course. We need a show like SID in our backyard. We need a show like SID to bring in European ideas and to showcase the advancements coming out of Asia. We need SID to allow the major North American customers to have easy access to the latest display technology. Not everyone can travel to Asia, so having a strong SID event in North America is important.

So, while the numbers are down, the quality of the attendees appears to be very high (a similar theme was experienced at CES and NAB). 2009 has been a down year for almost everyone. While SID certainly did not pay me to say it, this show is important, so plan to come to next year’s event in Seattle, where I am sure there will be no issues with location, swine flu or the economy.