In a joint statement, CEDIA executive director Stephen Miller and ETF managing director, Matthew Walton said: "Our announcement today is just the start of an ongoing relationship between our two organisations. With merging technologies meaning products and technologies are used across a wider range of applications plus a changing landscape in the way many of our stakeholders conduct their businesses we saw a great opportunity to add value to the industry and our events by working closer together."
The first phase of the relationship will see co-operation and cross promotion between the CEDIA Expo in July 2009 and ENTECH Expo in February 2010 and comes after a consultation process across the industry.
"The ETF team has spent the last few months engaged with our exhibitors and key stakeholders including hosting industry forums in Melbourne and Sydney," said Matthew Walton. "We received some great feedback from the industry on the things ENTECH does well and, more importantly, the things we can do better. One of the things the industry clearly said was 'with so many events and groups creating uncertainty in the marketplace please explore ways to work with other industry players and make things more efficient'. We took this input very seriously and one of the first organisations we spoke with was CEDIA.
We were very pleased with CEDIA's positive response and we now have in place our initial plans to work together to drive even more qualified visitors to both our upcoming events. Importantly CEDIA and ETF see this as the start of an ongoing relationship and we are already discussing further ways we can add value to all the stakeholders we represent," Walton said.
The initial project focuses on education and training across the range of technical, design, project management and small business skills that represent key buyer groups at both CEDIA Expo and ENTECH Expo. CEDIA will provide education sessions targeted to the needs of these important visitors at both Expos.
(Lee Baldock)
