President's Post - May 2025
As I write this, the seasonal changes around the country really seem to be hitting us in full force. Major flooding in Christchurch, snow to 700m in Canterbury, the windiest storms in Wellington in over a decade, ferries cancelled for a couple of days, rain and high winds in Auckland with warnings the bridge will be partially closed. I was initially going to be flying back to Wellington today, but my flight has been changed to avoid the Wellington roller coaster ride onto the runway that I am sure will be in full swing today.
This is all a far cry from the very settled and warm weather I experienced last week whilst I was attending the ISA sign show in Las Vegas. We had 8 New Zealanders make the trip over the Pacific for this sign show, and I particularly enjoyed the time I spent with each of you who made the trip. The show this year was getting back to pre-covid size, and clearly the R&D that our global industry suppliers have been able to work on since the Covid disruptions are starting to show through now with new technologies, modifications and upgrades to existing methods, and just a general feeling of getting back into it and getting life back to normal. Or at least as normal as things can be at the moment, especially over in the ol’ US of A.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I had a couple of seminars that I was booked to attend outside of the large number of steps walking around the sign show, and the general city of Vegas (the time sitting was greatly appreciated). The 3D printing one was interesting and went over the various types of printers and materials. It is not that far off from being a viable way for our industry to use this technology to assist with replacing smaller fabricated letters, and offering a different way to have a halo illumination with the printable translucent plastic now, which can be placed anywhere on the letter return for selected side illuminated if required.
Sometimes it is the simplest things that really stood out, a new banner tensioning system was one of the first things I saw that looked very simple yet effective. A stud welder that would make life so much easier for inserting threaded pins, or a threaded sleave. I was particularly impressed with how they used this system for acrylic too. I see that there will be a few orders for these welders heading to the suppliers over the next week or two.
To those that have always wanted to go to one of these large sign shows, I really encourage you to put some time and money aside to attend these, you get a really interesting snapshot of where technology is going for our industry, particularly in the larger markets, and you get to talk to a lot of like-minded people. You do come away in a very positive mindset, which does last longer than the 13 hour flight back across the Pacific.
I was also booked into an AI seminar, but unfortunately, I missed this one, slightly ironic as I also offer a digital wayfinding service here in New Zealand and Australia for complex buildings, and I had a few issues looking for rooms. I would love to have the opportunity to install our system into these huge convention centers over there to make it easy to find selected rooms.
I am looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible at our 2025 conference in Nelson in June, and our Awards of Excellence evening. I have just completed round one of judging the award entries, and it just stuns me the quality of the entries. There are some incredible branding projects and jobs entered this year, and to everyone who has entered, the work you are producing is just outstanding, and it leaves me just so damn proud of what our industry can produce, and I wish you all the very best of luck as we work through the incredibly tough process of judging.
Until next time
Kind regards,
Shae Goom
