By Gina Ferrara, Senior Analyst, Madison Advisors

I had the opportunity to present at XPLOR19, which was held April 23-25 at the Mandalay Bay Conference Center in Las Vegas. I have had the pleasure of attending this conference every year since 2014.

With the hope of increasing attendance and interest in XPLOR19, two big changes were made for this year’s conference. The first was location. For the past 15 years, XPLOR had been in Florida. As a native of New England, the Southeast is always a welcome change from the cold winter months. This year, it was located in Las Vegas, also warm, but, of course, much farther to travel. Second, the conference was co-located with the ISA (International Sign Association) Expo and although ISA boasts somewhere north of 20,000 attendees, the Xplor team did a great job of making sure our conference within the conference was centrally located, with the educational sessions and the exhibitor forum conveniently located within the same section of the conference center.

XPLOR prides itself on providing attendees with high-quality educational sessions, typically broken out into three different tracks. This year, the tracks were business, delivery and marketing. All of the sessions were part of the overall conference theme, “Linking People, Technology & Solutions” and provided a mix of topics that covered print, digital transformation, customer experience and artificial intelligence.

In addition to the educational sessions, there were four general sessions that were specifically focused on the topic of customer experience and how CCM has become the pivot point for increased consumer loyalty and market share. Although the convergence of CCM and customer experience is not a new topic, it still captured the interest of attendees hungry for the latest insights and ideas to bring back to their respective organizations.

As the post-conference dust settles, and the post-conference surveys have been distributed to attendees, it will be interesting to see what is in store for XPLOR20. While moving to Las Vegas and co-locating with the ISA Expo might not have provided the boost in attendance hoped for, one thing is for certain: No matter how big or small, you can always count on XPLOR for quality presentations and an opportunity to learn and network with industry peers. I am definitely looking forward to next year.