As unlikely as it sounds, your reaction to this picture is probably similar to my reaction to Solar Power International 2011. Allow me to explain…
Aside from the fact that both the picture and the conference took place in Dallas Texas, there was another similarity: The show seemed to lack a clear audience. Just as you might ask, “Why am I looking at this picture?”, or “Why did you take that picture?”, I could not answer my own question of “Who is the audience for SPI 2011?”.
At SPI there were vendors who were selling retail solar water heaters, there were big name module assemblers, and there were materials manufacturers like us. There was no clear group of people on which the tradeshow seemed to focus. The result was a slow stream of traffic throughout the show compared to events like InterSolar, PVSEC, and SNEC.
In the end, it was still a good chance to meet with some industry partners, and with customers I haven’t seen in a few months. It was also a great chance to work with the IPC team on the upcoming module assembly documents. That, in itself, was a good enough reason to visit Texas!
~Jim