The spread of COVID-19 throughout the world has taken a toll that would have been unimaginable months ago. From quarantines to school closings to travel bans, no one has been left unaffected, and one way in which the majority of the security industry has been impacted was the postponement of ISC West 2020, the largest security conference of the year. 

Originally scheduled for this week in Las Vegas, the show has been postponed until July 20-22. And while all contracts for exhibit space will be rolled over for the July show, a number of companies have been taking matters into their own hands, thinking of creative ways to share what they planned on announcing in March. 

Axis Communications, for example, hosted its first virtual press breakfast. Titled “In Pursuit of Innovation: Big Developments in the Journey Toward a Smarter, Safer World,” the event took place on the morning of Wednesday, March 18. And, to keep true to its promise of breakfast, Axis sent each attendee a $10 egift card to Starbucks. 

“The importance of safety and security has never been more clear than during the crisis we are facing during the coronavirus,” said Fredrik Nilsson, vice president of the Americas, Axis Communications. “This pandemic has forced us to all reexamine how we live and how we work, including this press breakfast. Events like this show the strength of the security industry . . . There are many solutions today that can be put to good use in this time. For example: technology that reduces storage and limits bandwidth as people work from home; our ability to remotely monitor unsafe environments; and tools that can  manage thousands of devices.”

Watch the webcast of the breakfast here.

Genetec went so far as to announce a 3-day digital conference — Connect’DX — to take place April 20-22. Designed to connect security professionals from around the world to Genetec experts, the agenda includes sessions on key trends and new technology; keynotes from industry leaders such as Genetec President Pierre Racz; product demos and Q&As with the product team; panel discussions on topics such as privacy, cyber security and the cloud; and free training sessions from the Genetec training department. 

“Our team looks forward to bringing Genetec solutions directly to the customer and we are happy to do so in a new way this April,” said Andrew Elvish, vice president of marketing at Genetec. “Though we love connecting in person, we’re excited by the opportunity to bring everyone together online. We’re ready to showcase our portfolio of physical security solutions, discuss key trends and technologies that affect our industry and provide a preview of what is to come from our product teams.”

Pre-register here. 

DMP is hosting a virtual trade show at six different times throughout the week, live streamed from DMP headquarters. Here, the DMP sales and product management team is presenting a long list of new products the company previously planned on debuting at ISC West. 

Register for one of the time slots here. 

In order to fill the education void left by ISC West’s postponement, Emergency24 is hosting five unique webinars that showcase services and equipment. CHeKT, Alarm.com, WAVE Electronics, BluePoint Alert Solutions and M2M will all be featured. 

“ISC West is always a great show for us — we see many Emergency24 alarm contractors and meet new security professionals,” said Kevin Lehan, national sales and marketing manager of Emergency24. “Going into the show, we had goals to promote specific services, as well as the overall central station operations.”

And, Lehan said, the postponement of ISC West didn’t mean the message could wait. 

“Since we figured we’d tell people [what we planned on telling them at ISC West] during webinars, we acted quickly and the security industry has responded favorably,” Lehan said. “Now that some major cities are shutting down and more are certain to follow, webinar learning is likely going to be in great demand. We are happy to have started that fad.”

Arecont Vision Costar also hosted a webinar to provide product updates and unveil new ConteraIP cameras that were going to be on display at ISC West. 

Many other companies have been contacting those who originally planned on attending ISC West this week to conduct booth appointments via telephone. 

What has your company done to counter the effect of ISC West’s postponement? Let us know by emailing wolfec@bnpmedia.com.