Commercial Integrator January 2021 - 24

STATE OF THE INDUSTRY
Return to Live Events, M&A
NSCA recently announced that the 2021
Business & Leadership Conference will be a
virtual offering in February rather than a live
event as scheduled in Dallas. That decision
was driven in part by the fact that about one
in 10 NSCA members say they're ready to
travel early in 2021.
" I know what people want, " says Wilson.
" They'd love to get back together and be
face to face. It will happen but we don't
know when. It isn't just about the vaccine or
treatment is going to be available. We need
some time to rebuild our company too.
" We're getting better and better at delivering
the content and trying to create the
best we can where people can see each
other. We're trying to keep our community
intact. These are people who became such
good friends because of events like BLC, "
he says.
Labuskes has seen AV take great strides
in delivering virtual events in 2020 and
expects that to continue.
" I don't know that we could have
gotten worse, " he says. " You have to recognize
you have a different medium. You
can convert a book to a movie by having
someone read the pages of the book and
filming it. None of us have really done a
hybrid event yet.
" There are a lot of assumptions we
need to make sure we challenge when
putting together hybrid events. One is that
they have to be simultaneous. When you
release the bounds of physical connectivity,
you release the bounds of time, " says
Labuskes.
" Another is the word 'event' needs to
be re-examined, " he says. " Is it a four-hour
event or a journey you take in the way you
want to take it? Networking is an area for us
to explore, experiment with, make mistakes
and refine. It's an area where AV as an
industry is perfectly poised.
" We've been putting disparate components
into a system to create an experience "
says Labuskes. " I'm hungry to see
what our industry delivers in this regard. "
InfoComm 2021 is scheduled for midJune
in Orlando, Fla., and Labuskes says
that plan remains as long as AVIXA can
deliver the event safely.
" Those who've said we'll have virtual
24
Logistics & Staffing
Lack of
Qualified
Candidates
61.0%
Salary
Demands of
Candidates
13.6%
No Time to
Find/Recruit
Candidates
11.9%
Not enough
funds to hire
new employees
8.5%
How many positions are you currently trying to fill?
0 - 4.2%
1 - 14.6%
2 - 20.8%
3 - 6.3%
4 - 8.3%
5 - 14.6%
6 - 4.2%
7 - 6.3%
8 - 4.2%
meetings from this point forward understand
we need more than that to function as
a human race, to perform as a business, to
celebrate with family, " he says. " The thing
about holding a show is not about us having
a show, it's that our industry is hungry
for a show.
" We really feel obligated to deliver the
show if we can do so at all in a safe manner.
The value of creating the hands-on, visceral
experience of the event and reinforcement
of brand level is incalculable. I am optimistic
but I'm also certain the show won't look
like it did in 2019, " says Labuskes.
" I don't think we'll be setting attendance
records, and frankly I'm not sure that would
be a good idea, but I am confident we can
achieve the purpose of the show, " he says.
" If we are able to demonstrate that it's safe,
the human nature part is something you can
conceive of.
" What we're anticipating is more than
half of what we had in the past. I would be
disingenuous to suggest we'd have 45,000
people there, " says Labuskes.
Even those who own and operate convention
centers believe the hybrid model
will be the new standard, says Wilson.
" When things come back, they're going
to come back a little differently, " he says.
Wilson isn't sure the transition from
Donald Trump to Joe Biden as U.S. president
will affect integrators in ways beyond
increased taxation.
Commercial Integrator JANUARY 2021
10 - 6.3%
14 - 2.1%
15 - 2.1%
25 - 2.1%
56 - 2.1%
92 - 2.1%
" We don't see a heightened level of
legislation that are going to be signed
as executive orders on the first day (of
Biden's term), " he says. Even so, he's urging
all NSCA members to take a " realistic
and historic look at backlog and take it
project by project " when creating 2021
budgets.
" I can't stress enough the fundamentals
of business rather than the hope and hype
that vaccine is going to allow you to jack up
your billing rate, " says Wilson. " We fell off
the cliff and now we're climbing back up.
I'm wildly optimistic about the second half
of 2021. "
About 30 to 40 acquisitions involving
NSCA members got put on hold because
of the pandemic, says Wilson. He expects
the brisk pace of deals we saw from 2016
through early 2020 to pick up at some
point in 2021.
" My guess is about the same time as the
vaccine, the private equity firms and strategic
acquisitions will move back to the front
burner, " says Wilson.
Labuskes expects more deals as the business
landscape gains more clarity.
" One of the things that is fundamental to
business is businesses don't like uncertainty, "
he says. " If there's certainty about
growth or contraction, those are easy to
manage around. As those clouds drift away
and horizon becomes clearer, we're going
to see a reaffirmation of the core value of
commercialintegrator.com
Other
5.1%
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Commercial Integrator January 2021

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