Srajan, I just checked out John Darko's show video then skipped over to Michael Lavorgna's site. He has nothing up yet on personal impressions of the Munich show. Do you by any chance know whether he's still planning to? Thanks, Barry
All I know is that Michael was in Munich this year but what his plans for a show report are, if any, I haven't the faintest. To be sure, fairaudio.de haven't posted anything either yet though over the past years always have so likely will again. Unlike the real-time bloggers and vloggers, my magazine colleagues of roughly my age tend to approach show coverage the old-school way. You attend, you canvas, you take notes and photos, you return to the office, you sift through what you discovered then organize what you mean to use into a cogent narrative. Unlike dumping a memory card of photos into an online gallery's cache and calling that a (cough) report, digesting impressions, going through notes, sequencing them in a thematic order, vetting facts like specs and pricing, editing and post-processing photos and more – all of that takes time. The show just closed its doors two days ago. I'd wait for at least a week before wondering whether sites known for proper reports will publish anything this year. You may not realize it but it can be a rather thankless job. It's a ton of work to do properly and the best one can usually hope for in turn is filing complaints from brands whose names weren't listed in particular exhibits.
As I wrote in a recent feature, not publishing show reports because I've opted not to attend shows for a number of years already has had zero impact on my little venture. But it's saved me time, money and grief so has been a total win. How useful and trustworthy are 'best of show' awards or claims? Do you enjoy reading laundry lists of model names and prices with a few throwaway sonic comments as though the sensory overload of a show and noise pollution allowed anyone to come away with impressions mirroring proper reviewing? Do you find photo bombs without photo credits or web links useful? If yes, all of it already exists massively paralleled after the first day of the event. For deeper coverage alas, one must hope that the few outliers continue to invest the considerable energies it takes to create such quality content. There still are some. But they're getting fewer as the years go by. And I for one can't blame them. In fact, I hope that shows as they're currently run go away entirely, to be replaced by a pure B2B approach of static exhibits. If I could quietly sit down with say 20 manufacturers over 2 days for a half hour each, I might go again. The current MO of most playing DJ or having to put up with the incessant background noise of the ground floor rather prevents any such quality time. And without it, being a press member I don't see any real utility. Right now I rather pick up the phone or book a Zoom chat from the comfort of my own home office to get that kind of work done. The advantage of a show run that way would be to get to know new people and brands. That would certainly be worthwhile and automatically generate deeper intel to then spin off into a targeted show report. Srajan
