AVIXA realigns organization as it contends with the impact of the pandemic on the AV industry
In a letter to its members late yesterday afternoon, AVIXA revealed that a number of the organization’s staff has been let go due the pandemic and its impact on the AV industry.
In the letter, written by AVIXA’s CEO Dave Labuskes, the organization’s future is laid out with a focus on three priorities: “balancing the needs of our members, the needs of our business, and the needs of our team,” the statement outlines.
“While difficult to act on, these changes must position AVIXA to support our industry in 2021 and beyond,” Labuskes writes. “If we’ve learned any lessons in 2020, one of them is that we cannot clearly anticipate all futures. We don’t know when trade shows will come back. And we don’t know what they will look like when they do; but we do know that this industry will continue to grow in importance and vitality.”
Early this year, as COVID-19 gained a foothold around the world, AVIXA decided to take InfoComm 2020 virtual under the InfoComm 2020 Connected banner. The event set the standard and tone for other AV industry events to follow as the pandemic continues to disrupt in-person conferences around the world, including Integrate later this month in Australia, CEDIA in September, and CES in January of 2021.
IC20 was, anecdotally, a success, with many praising the larger audience capture due to the virtual platform, but much has been discussed about how the AV industry will move forward when many of its foundational events have had to rethink stagings and maintain audience attention as revenues plummeted. Labuskes’ acknowledgement that we don’t know when trade shows will be back is sobering commentary on where we are as an industry trying to overcome the economic and physical hurdles put in place by the pandemic, while hoping for the beginnings of recovery in 2021.
Read AVIXA’s letter to its membership in full here.
