Catching Up With LEDfair (or LightFair)

By Joe Salimando                 www.eleblog.com

Perhaps, like me, you didn’t go to Las Vegas the week of May 10 to attend the LightFair conference, meetings, and educational sessions.

I have a reason. Back when I worked for NECA as a young editor, during my first trip to Vegas, I fell in love.  With craps! The fast-moving “action” drew me in before I quite learned how to bet. Also, I was paid not very much, and. . . not very much goes not very far at the craps table.

Denouement: Upon our return to the D.C. area, I had to borrow money (from Bob White, the now-retired NECA government relations chief) upon our return – so I could get home from Dulles Airport via taxi. That’s a true story.

These days, I have exactly the same amount of self-control around craps that I had 30 years ago. However, the value of money seems to have changed somehow. I know that I need to studiously avoid craps – and I do that by studiously avoiding trade shows located in Nevada.

While I didn’t go to the 2010 LightFair, I “caught up” with some of what I missed via the web. Here’s where you can go and useful stuff you might find there.

LED perspective

From what I heard in advance and have read so far, LightFair 2010 totally dominated by LEDs. We non-attendees, then, are fortunate to have the services of LEDs Magazine – a fine publication – offering a “daily roundup” from LV:

Mon 5/10 – see especially the words from an analyst from Canaccord Adams.

Tues. 5/11 – coverage here includes a presentation by Jack Curran of LED Transformations Note that I attended LightFair 2009 (in New York City) and wrote up Curran’s LightFair remarks.

Weds. 5/12 – members of a panel on retrofits are quoted here, saying something rather unremarkable (but important to restate, I think).

Thur. 5/13 – “predominance” of LEDs seen in awards and on show floor.

Fri. 5/14 final – I don’t know if you can plan 11.5 months in advance, but next year’s LightFair will be in Philadelphia, due to a construction-forced detour away from New York’s Javits Center.

Other Online Coverage

Philips, Cree, Toshiba, Sharp & LEDs.

LightFair becomes LEDfair in 2010.

GreenTechMedia.com’s interesting pre-event take.

Lighting Technology Symposium — at Caesar’s Palace nightclub (@!?!)

Awards, Products & Manufacturers

LightFair provides Innovation Awards; here are the winners. Here’s the Edison Report’s write-up. Also: There’s a also an official microsite (a small web site) devoted to these awards.

27th annual IALD Award Winners

10 LED companies to watch at LightFair

Pre-event manufacturer announcements (as collected by CleanTech.com)

Press releases on products from LightFair were posted by BusinessWire (logically, this isn’t comprehensive – BW posts the releases of clients only)

30+ “featured LightFair products” (LightDirectory.com

OSRAM’s LED product is discussed on the NY Times’ Gadgetwise blog.

The search site “bing” has a results page with 60 items from LightFair, most of which seem to be product news.

Show stuff

From ExhibitorOnline.com – Record-breaking attendance.

See also the LightFair website itself.