The Integrated Systems Europe (ISE), the most important audiovisual fair in Europe, expects this year's edition to be a record-breaker, coinciding with the celebration of its 20th anniversary. As more exhibitors have joined in recent months, the congress has gained square meters at the Gran Via exhibition center and will end up filling almost every corner of all its pavilions, occupying a total of 82,000 square meters, the largest area in its two decades of history. Only some areas in pavilions 1 and 8 will remain free.
"ISE 2024 will be the largest edition ever held," remarks its general director, Mike Blackman. Not only because of the area it will occupy but also because of the attendees and exhibitors it expects to attract. The organizers expect to be above the 58,100 attendees of the 2023 edition, but also above the hitherto record attendance, the 81,000 congress participants in 2019 at its previous venue, Amsterdam. After a change in the method of calculating attendees, counting them individually and not their entries into the venue, ISE has re-dimensioned the flow that existed in the Dutch capital, becoming 62,000 congress participants, a figure they also expect to exceed this year. A greater economic impact than last year, when it was 385 million euros, is also expected.
From Tuesday, January 30 to Friday, February 2, more than 1,300 exhibitors will participate in the audiovisual fair, including Cisco, Epson, Google, LG, Logitech, Panasonic, Samsung, and Zoom. About 80 companies will debut at ISE 2024, some of which will be local, such as Simon and Televés. Spanish companies are the majority at the congress, where English, German, Italian, and French companies also predominate. One nationality that will grow considerably this edition will be Chinese, which highlights the increasing internationality of the event. All of them will be accompanied by a program of talks featuring almost 200 speakers, among whom the award-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, in charge of directing the next installment of the Star Wars saga, will stand out.
One of the novelties that can be seen at ISE 2024 will be an enormous LED screen that will be placed at the south access of the Gran Via exhibition center, as a small outdoor sample of what can be seen in the stands during the days of the congress. It will be the largest in Spain and in any exhibition center in Europe, with 193 square meters. In addition, it will remain permanently in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, being able to be used for other congresses to project images and videos upon the arrival of their attendees.
With the aim of explaining the audiovisual industry to more than just its congress attendees, the show will project an immersive spectacle on Wednesday, February 31, on the new screen created by digital artist Jeroen van Most. This desire to be more accessible to the residents of the city that has hosted them since 2021 will also translate into a new mapping at Casa Batlló, after the success of recent years. It can be seen on Saturday, January 27, starting at 9 p.m. and on Sunday, January 28, starting at 7 p.m. This year it will be led by Argentine artist Sofia Crespo. In addition, it will once again sponsor the Llum BCN festival, which will begin when ISE 2024 ends.
A long-term relationship with the city that ISE projects, Blackman emphasizes, who hopes that what the audiovisual sector entails will be increasingly understood and more companies will set up in the Catalan capital, as happened in Amsterdam and has already been detected here with the arrival of multinationals such as Lang, Aztec, Midwich, Lightware, InFiLED, and LiveU. To encourage new investors, the show will organize visits to city spaces where its technology is applied in an innovative way, such as the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), the Barça immersive museum or the America's Cup dissemination center.