Kiosk Tradeshow KioskCom Ends
From digitalsignagetoday — Joel Davis, the founder and CEO of CEW show organizer JD Events,
Lawrence at KioskCom Las Vegas and boom days
confirmed in an email that “JDE has restructured its event portfolio for 2015 and has decided to discontinue production of CEW in order to focus additional resources into new emerging markets.”
JD Events acquired KioskCom in 2005, also hiring show manager Lawrence Dvorchik, who launched and developed the show for events company IQPC. KioskCom was a four-time winner of Tradeshow Week Fastest 50 Award, honoring the fastest growing tradeshows in North America, and the world’s largest kiosk and self-service event, the company said.
KioskCom and the co-located The Digital Signage Show were held twice yearly, in the spring in Las Vegas and in the fall in New York City. In 2010 the two shows merged into Customer Engagement Technology World, refocusing the events on cross-channel customer engagement technology programs, including digital signage and mobile technologies among others.
The kiosk industry was still represented in later shows but in a smaller context. This despite overwhelming record profits and business for kiosk industry companies in 2014. Kiosk companies now exhibit at select focused venues such as the upcoming NRF show in New York and other verticals.
It’s a milestone for the kiosk industry. Many in the kiosk industry some years back lamented the end of The Kiosk Show that Lief Larson began and then was run by Networld along with Greg Swistak (who is admired by all for that show). That was a nice show but KioskCom was always top dog for us in the industry and we fought hard for awards (see story at end). We’ll toast KioskCom with a nice scotch and cigar in the future and lament its passing even more.
Been a few years since Compaq was around.
We talked with Lawrence and he had a great run. There are still dozens of case studies and award applications that the original KioskCom contributed to the kiosk industry and we thank Lawrence very much for his contributions over the years.
Excerpt from our conversation with Lawrence:
Finally, if people want to reach me, feel free to give them my email of [email protected]. You can include that at the end if you’d like.
Thanks boss – been a great run and a blast working with you the last 20 years. Not sure what the future holds, but over the years I’ve made some great friends, yourself included.
Back Stories from KioskCom (feel free to send us your own)
Craig Keefner – one of my favorite stories is the Awards competition and Solohealth. The company I worked for did the initial design and we entered the Solohealth unit in competition for Best of Show. It was 30 minutes before the judges were due to stop by and one of the LCDs inside failed. The eye diagnosis mech is actually two LCDs, one external and one internal which is really cool. Anyway, I needed a 17″ Dell LCD and needed it bad. I scanned the show floor and spotted one unattached on the SITA counter with nobody around. I grabbed it, left a short note, and ran to the booth where we furiously installed it and 30 seconds after we finished — the judges showed up. Bart Foster was ecstatic. We won first place…
Sandra Nix
President at Connected Technology Solutions (CTS)
Great trip down memory lane, Craig, thanks! We won 2 of those coveted KioskCom awards, 2004 for Best Interactive Gaming and 2007 for Best Digital Signage, and those trophies still hold special places of honor in the office. It’s a shame the show is gone, but progress must march on.
Janet L. Webster
President at Creative Solutions Consulting, LLC
Very nice write up, Craig. Many thanks to Lawrence for developing and evolving the shows over the years – he really knows how to focus things around customer experience. I still remember when the Postal Service won a “whole slew” of awards for the Automated Postal Center (way back in 2005) – it was phenomenal to gain that recognition for the program!