LEDucation 2022 recap — Delivered Lumens

When LEDucation didn’t happen in March of 2020, it was the first domino to fall in a seemingly endless cascade of cancelled events on our way to the strangest year of most of our lives.

There was so much to see

It’s been 2+ years of product updates and development and manufacturers had plenty of goodies to show. Many were incremental improvements on existing products, but there were also plenty debuts. SDA covered an epic 5 aisles of the grand ballroom. I can tell you that even walking our aisles was overwhelming, I can’t imagine being a specifier trying to take the entire show in. The takeaway?

We need to catch up on product developments from the last two years and one trade show isn’t going to do it.

An overview of the SDA portion of the grand ballroom at LEDucation

It was amazing to see so many familiar faces (many in new places)

The great resignation had it’s effect in the lighting industry. It’s always great to see so many familiar faces, but I can’t remember a show where so many of those faces were in new places. No matter where people have landed, the lighting industry remains incredibly tight and so it’s always wonderful to see so many familiar faces.

I’ve been fortunate to grow into my role at SDA. I’m so appreciative of all of the designers I get to work with everyday. And I am so amazingly lucky to represent the best architectural manufacturers in the industry.

What comes next?

So much has changed in the last two years, but in a way LEDucation felt like the end of a long pause. While no one I know stopped working (in fact most people got busier) the way we worked radically changed. Remote work is not ideal for discussing light. Speaking as someone who’s done a lot of video content in the last two years I can tell you it’s still nearly the best way to explain light that is supposed to be experienced in person with your eyes. But that said, we’re not going backwards, remote work and virtual learning are here to stay. The question is how can we make the best of both worlds? How can we inspire questions and quickly garner interest remotely, then dive deep in person? These are open questions and I can’t wait to see what we all come up with.