Being at IBC 2014 has been quite an experience. Spending time in Amsterdam is great, but it’s hard to even remember you’re in such an amazing city with so many people to see, so much technology to check out and so many ideas to talk through. People in the industry only gather like this a couple times a year, so you want to maximize every second you have with everyone you can meet with and try to visit every corner of the event. It’s easy to feel that your reach is consistently exceeding your grasp with so much going on.

Nonetheless, we packed in as much as we could and if you missed any of our coverage, make sure you check out our PVC at IBC intro, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 entries. All of those articles lay out details around what companies like AJA, Canon, Adobe, DJI, Zeiss and plenty more showed to attendees of IBC 2014 along with hundreds of pictures from the event.

Much of what exhibitors were looking to talk to attendees about was either around how the announcements that were made public back in April at NAB (such as Avid) are now being realized, or that they had something brand new for this show that they wanted to highlight (such as Sony).

That’s an oversimplification, but the general approach that focuses on attendees is very different from how companies like Teradek and Maxon presented themselves and their message at IBC. They place just as much if not more of a priority on the people who aren’t in attendance, and it makes you wonder whether or not certain paradigms have shifted.

Teradek put together an entire program for IBC and streamed it live just as they have for previous IBC’s and NAB’s. It’s similar to what Maxon does with their stream of live presentations from the show floor.  Along with IBC’s own live stream and daily that is also available online, you could get a great sense of what the show was like without ever leaving your house.  So how essential is it to make it out to events like IBC?

It’s a question our own PVC writers discussed earlier this year, and for all the talk of events like IBC no longer making financial sense, trade shows will always have a place in the industry. It might not be as essential to attend in order to see what new products and technology have been rolled out, but there’s simply nothing like physically being in front of the people you work with.

We’re becoming more and more virtualized as the years go on, and that trend will certainly continue. But being able to put a face to the name you’ve just been emailing, being able to talk through an idea in person, and the opportunity to actually meet someone you've been trying to track down will always be invaluable. And that’s without even considering how being at shows like this will always help you see how the present and future of the industry is shaping up in a way you cannot just by looking at streams and news.

IBC 2014 saw a number of new products rolled out, and topics like 4K and working in the cloud, which in previous years were discussed more as concepts than actual solutions, are now being talked about as reality. In fact, some are even talking about jumping right to 8K, but that’s a topic for another discussion. The mentality of the industry as a whole continues to evolve, and it's interesting to see. 

Whether it’s digital sketches or life-sized Legos, you really never know what you’re going to find from year to year and that alone can make the trip a worthwhile one. And besides…there are plenty worse places to spend a long weekend.