San Francisco AIA show thoughts

On Friday I went to the AIA expo in San Francisco just to check out expo floor and see what’s out there. In general it looked like a successful show, a little slower then I remember past shows, but still good. I spent some time checking out the architectural visualization companies that had booths there. I found 6 or 7. Here are some quick observing that Id like to share:

Observation 1: 5 of the 7 were based in china, had Chinese people in the booth and frankly I did not really understand why they were there. All spoke poor English and on display had mostly Asian/middle eastern projects. I understand that the AIA reaches far, but it looked to me like these companies have not really done any real work on US soil are trying to infiltrate the US market and are just not quite getting it right. The booths were a bit cheap looking and the staff was nervous and I had a hell of a time trying to communicate with them. I was a bit nervous about this invasion into the US market, but after seeing how few people were interested in even looking at them, im a little more at ease now. I met up with a few of my clients there and they told me flat out that they get pummeled by these Chinese and India companies left and right but ignore them because they are well aware of the communication issues. They tell me that having the USA based “go-to-guy” means lots to them.

Observation 2: I saw 2 very large American companies and met the owners. The owners were willing to answer some of the more private questions I asked. I was not aware how large these firms are! With the current economy sucking and they have very little work compared to the insane monthly expenses, I would be surprised if they can stay in business much longer. These people spend more money a month then I make in 4 years! Being a business owner myself, I know that all the profits from years past can be erased in a matter of 6 months for these guys! Very high stakes game they play. When I started 11 years ago doing this, I never thought that such large companies would exist. In comparison, I’m a tiny studio with essentially no expenses. Granted, I don’t do the giant projects, but I do have plenty of small projects that keep my busy. Anyway, I learned that it’s ok to be a small fish in a large pond. I think the next few years might be good for the small time operators.

Observation 3: The show seemed like a complete waste of money for all the 3D companies there. I know all about the trade shows. I did about 10-15 national shows including the AIA while I was an employee of a software company. I also have done 20 or so smaller shows with my own company over the past 10 years. I spend about 10 minutes observing each one of the company’s booths and saw essentially zero traffic in the booths. I know that these shows are expensive, and I also understand that you just need to get 1 or 2 giant projects to roll in and the show will pay for itself no problem, but it just looks like a huge risk with little pay off.

Observation 4: The Autodesk booth and Sketch up booth was overflowing with people. Literally lines of people waiting to get in. The rest of the CAD software companies it was like crickets. I saw one guy giving a demo to a 30 empty seats and honestly, 3 booths over, google sketchup people had 2 independent demos going with probably 60 people watching each, all seats taken back row people standing. This did not slow down at all during the day. Just wild! I wish we had that response when I used to do these demos with our software 10 years ago!

Anyway. These were just my observations. Our industry is defiantly at a cross roads. The 3D company booths were essentially abandoned for the sketchup and autodesk booths. It seems like architects are now going to 100% incorporate this technology into their office and will only go outside of the office for the few project that need that special sparkle. I think with what I saw with the demos of the new software’s, we are just around the corner to the “easy” button were the architect will not really need to know that much about 3D to be able to produce very nice work with very little effort. Perhaps not as good as the stuff I see you guys produce, but hey 90% of the work out there does not need the realistic or breathtaking images. Id like to hear other attendees observations if you are willing to share. All you small timers out there, keep your head high!