My Take: InfoComm 2019 to 2025
By Tim Neviska
Infocomm 2025 was a brand new experience for me. Oh, it’s not that I have never attended Infocomm before. In fact, I have attended Infocomm multiple times, but this year was different. Let me explain why.
My earliest positions within the A/V industry proper, were with companies that focused on rental and staging, along with service, installation, and some sales. It was in those formative years that I first became aware of what is now Infocomm. My first boss fondly talked about his experiences at NAVA (National Audio-Visual Association) events. At my second stop, the boss attended ICIA (International Communications Industries Association) events, but the team stayed at home. At career stop number four, a sizable number of the staff attended Infocomm, as the trade show was now called, each year and other ICIA events as well. So naturally, I attended when my number was called and I was able. Where else could I see a side-by-side shootout of the latest three tube CRT projectors?
As a representative of a company that was known not only for its rental and staging and in-house hotel divisions, but also for its integration and sales operation, I found manufacturers almost universally willing to spend time talking to me about their products and services. Little did they know that I was spending a very small percentage of my time at that point doing integrations. However, because my employer was a part of that inner circle, they treated me as one of them. As a bonus, this included admission to some great manufacturer parties at Infocomm as well.
Fast forward to 2019 when I attended Infocomm as an audiovisual professional in the higher education sector. As I made my way from booth to booth on the show floor, my experience was much different from the old days. If one of the folks in the booth was a manufacturer rep that I knew, or perhaps someone in the booth was a former coworker, it was much like before. I could get all of the information I needed and I felt treated as a professional. In most of the other booths, ! To them, higher Ed A/V equaled the end user. Sure, in some cases that is true. Those of us who support events are certainly end users.
having the name of a college on my tag signaled that I was an outsider
What about the stuff in the classroom spaces? Regardless of who does the integration, the faculty are the end users. We may have played a number of roles in the process of outfitting that classroom space, up to and including the installation, programming, and commissioning. For the most part, I, and others in higher Ed, were outcasts.
This year, I returned to Infocomm for the first time since 2019 (I attended virtually in 2021). This time felt different. New, but old. My nametag still said “college”, but I felt like an integrator’s representative again. No matter which booth I visited, they were willing to talk shop. They were interested in what products we were using, and what products could be useful to us. Some of the same vendors that back in 2019 instructed me to go to an integrator to obtain their products, told me to call them directly. What was the reason for this change?
higher Ed is more than ever, speaking with a unified voice
I believe that a large part of the change is that higher Ed is more than ever, speaking with a unified voice. Audiovisual professionals are sharing resources and communicating with each other as never before. At the forefront of this change is HETMA. HETMA has opened the doors of communication not only amongst the higher Ed community, but also to manufacturers, integrators, and others within the greater audiovisual community.
In 2025, when I visited a booth, I was a representative of this larger unified group of A/V professionals with similar goals and challenges. Booth tours were filled with higher Ed professionals (shout out to HETMA, AV Superfriends, AV Buyers.Club/AV Nation). We now have strength in numbers; we can be ignored no longer. We have made it to the inner circle.
we can be ignored no longer. We have made it to the inner circle.
Tim is currently the Senior Audiovisual Solutions Manager at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, and serves as the Membership Chair for HETMA. Before entering the higher education vertical, he spent a large portion of his career in rental and staging, specializing in corporate productions and trade show A/V support. His goal is to learn something new every day.
