If the intention of the Americas’ Security Expo Borderland was to bridge the home and commercial security market with the U.S./Mexico border region and Mexico’s maquiladora industry, then the event was clearly a formidable start. Drawing attendees largely from the southwest U.S. and northern Mexico, the trade event, held Feb. 1-3 in El Paso, Texas, made significant inroads in developing communication between the show’s exhibitors and the region’s security dealers, installers and guard services.

The more than 30 educational sessions—which included such topics as CCTV trends, access control integration, biometrics, and residential cabling for voice, video and data—were instrumental in helping educate dealers who may not have otherwise had easy access to such seminars. The casual show floor, too, provided a prime opportunity to network and meet new industry contacts.

From the exhibitor’s perspective, however, several companies had expressed discontent with the overall number of attendees the event drew. While most acknowledged the issue of slow foot traffic, other exhibitors were quick to point out that although the number of leads may have been lower than other comparable trade shows, those that did attend mostly represented companies with which there had been no previous contact.

In fact, many attendees found the event’s exhibitor numbers and attendance figures to be similar to the first Americas’ Security Expo Miami six years ago, which has obviously outgrown any of its initial growing pains and continues to see success every year.

The good news for the industry is that none of the complaints that exhibitors had about the event—whether it be slow foot traffic, awkward show hours or that the show could have been reduced to a two-day event—were things that couldn’t be fine-tuned the next time around.

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