Last month LEDucation ran its largest show ever … over 8500 people attended the first day and reportedly registrations approached 11,000! And there was a record 565 booths.

Talking about packing sardines into a can!

It then begs the question of “how many lighting people can you pack into essentially 3 floors of a hotel?”

LEDucation … 1 ½ days at a Hectic Pace

It was a packed, hectic, couple of days.

• LEDucation ran a number of educational sessions. Virtual and “live” (I know, vs dead?). And you can tell the topics were appropriate for the hard-core lighting community when 100-200 people attend each session. (We’ll be overviewing some of them in upcoming issues of US Lighting Trends, which is a lighting-focused service of Channel Marketing Group.)
  • These presentations were culled from 2000 submittals!
  • Note – if you submitted and did not present but would like to share your success, findings, or information via US LightingTrends, reach out to Linda Longo or myself.
• This was the 20^th anniversary of LEDucation and I, through US Lighting Trends, was honored to be invited to their 20^th anniversary celebration and for US Lighting Trends to be mentioned as a valued media sponsor. It was great evening and learned much about DLFNY (Designers Lighting Forum of NY) and how LEDucation started … impressive.
  • The first LEDucation, held in 2007, had 31 manufacturers and 350 attendees. In 2008 there were 50 manufacturers and 750 people. Now …
  • This year there were also 180 students who had lighting projects on display! The future of the industry.
• NEMRA Lighting held a membership networking event on Monday afternoon for lighting agents and manufacturers. The event, which enabled mingling which many found very beneficial, focused on AI. There was a panel hosted by Skip Pasternak from Elari Solutions, that included a lighting designer, contractor, lighting agent (Hagen Denton from ELA+Synergy) and manufacturer (Rob Mondillo, from Genlyte Solutions Group.) Interesting discussion and highlighted that all as using AI to some degree. All believe its utilization will grow but that human interaction via relationships, review, additional insights will be needed. Utilization related to research, emails, workflow management, attempts at takeoffs and design, business process optimization, and costing.
  • Jeff Bristol and NEMRA Lighting are commended for bringing this as a value-add to their members.
• US Lighting Trends had a booth where I was stationed for most of the time. Saw lots of people, many industry friends, chatted with many (and lamented with some) about the state of the lighting market, and talked about how US Lighting Trends shares industry information and product insights with about 30,000 readers every week. (And yes, I did talk about the benefits of advertising in USLT!

• The show had 8500 people reportedly participate on day 1. This included a reported 2000 lighting designers who entered early and had access to manufacturers for 2 hours before the doors opened for everyone. Originally the guesstimate was that there would be about 600. According to the vast majority, this was a tremendous success (and the dissenters were companies that are value-engineering oriented, white goods-focused companies … so not the audience for them, but hey, it’s only 2 hours and one or two people may benefit from seeing your product.)
• The beauty about LEDucation is that manufacturer booths are relatively small – 4’x8” with a few 4’x16” (or so … double booths) so it forces manufacturers to focus on new / important / highlight products. For the most part the manufacturers are segmented based upon their NYC lighting agents / rep companies. During my booth wandering on Wednesday I took a number of photos and converted them into this video.

• • Every booth was busy.
  • More component manufacturers than I recall seeing in recent years. These lines typically don’t have local representation.
  • More European lines than normal. Some seeking representation. Some trying to learn the US market. Some selling direct to lighting specifiers / designers.
  • A number of products that highlighted sustainability in their materials.
  • There were a number of very “niche” companies. One that was intriguing was Tweener Lighting whose sole focus is tennis lighting (and they are expanding into pickle ball). Yes, there are others who have offerings for this segment, but this is a narrow niche.
  • There is much going on with medical / healthcare lighting, inclusive of circadian lighting / human lighting. This vertical could be a growth segment and an area where an enterprising distributor, or agent, could build an offering and expertise within their territory.
  • There were a number of companies that I found intriguing, especially their niche, origin story, or technology, and I extended the opportunity to share more via an article in US Lighting Trends. If they do, I’ll share on ElectricalTrends. I also extended the same opportunity to some lighting agents and specifiers to highlight success stories.
• Linda Longo wrote a nice piece for US Lighting Trends highlighting some products.
  • And we also ran an article from Jeffrey Dross highlighting his observations from the show and the products that attracted his attention.

Ready for LEDucation 2027?

• Next year LEDucation expands to three days, April 13, 14 & 15, 2027. The format is unknown yet. Could be 1 day for lighting designers. Could be a couple of hours every morning. Could be everyone all three days. The one thing we do know is that it will be the place to be for lighting people.
• LEDucation has already opened up reservations for manufacturers to reserve booths.
• Some have said, “It’s packed. They should move it.” They listened and looked. Moving to the Marriott would have required the show space to be spread out over 5 floors! Going to the Javits Center increases booth space cost, moves the show to a less central location, changes the environment from intimate to spacious and a convention center and then you get the issue of manufacturers wanting more space … and the overall show gets more costly.

Congratulations to Cathy Bontempo and the LEDucation Committee on another tremendous event and contribution to the lighting community.

And, if you are a manufacturer and want to learn more about US Lighting Trends to increase brand awareness and advertise, share a story, or submit product information for consideration, click here or email me.