This week’s LightFair trade show and conference had more than 320 exhibitors and offered attendees 41 educational sessions. Booth traffic was decent on the first day of the show and notably stronger than the 2021 Lightfair event in New York, which struggled to overcome required vaccine and mask mandates. Show organizers estimated that the 2022 event would draw over 10,000 visitors over three days.
There was a lot of chatter on the show floor about the smaller number of exhibitors and attendees compared to previous LightFairs and the decisions by several large companies, including Acuity Brands and Lutron, to not exhibit at the event. However, the roster of exhibitors on the show floor was a good representation of the major players in today’s lighting market and there were plenty of new products for attendees to check out on the show floor.
Several vendors that we visited with at the show were working on tunable LED lighting that can be customized to specific applications, including classrooms, factories and horticultural lighting. There’s a lot of research into how certain type of lighting can increase students’ attention spans, help productivity and safety on the factory floor and be optimized for individual plants to enhance growth.
On the first day of the show, LightFair announced the winners of its 2022 LightFair Innovation Awards (LIAs) in 14 categories, along with four overall excellence distinctions: Most Innovative Product of the Year (MIFOR 70 Lighting System by Klus), Technical Innovation (TruBlu Bluetooth Mesh Fixture Controller with Long Range Antenna by McWong International), Design Excellence (Easy-Link by Edison Price Lighting) and Judges’ Citation (CombiCable by Gripple) awards.
Next year’s LightFair will be held at New York's Javits Center, May 21-25, 2023.
About the Author
Jim Lucy
Editor-in-Chief
Over the past 40-plus years, hundreds of Jim’s articles have been published in Electrical Wholesaling and Electrical Marketing newsletter on topics such as the impact of new competitors on the electrical market’s channels of distribution, energy-efficient lighting and renewables, and local market economics. In addition to his published work, Jim regularly gives presentations on these topics to C-suite executives, industry groups and investment analysts.
He launched a new subscription-based data product for Electrical Marketing that offers electrical sales potential estimates and related market data for more than 300 metropolitan areas, and in 1999 he published his first book, “The Electrical Marketer’s Survival Guide” for electrical industry executives looking for an overview of key market trends.
While managing Electrical Wholesaling’s editorial operations, Jim and the publication’s staff won several Jesse H. Neal awards for editorial excellence, the highest honor in the business press, and numerous national and regional awards from the American Society of Business Press Editors. He has a master’s degree in Communications and a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Glassboro State College, Glassboro, N.J. (now Rowan University).
