Hi, everybody! Welcome to our ISE 2024 coverage and your first Daily Raff of the show. (If you are new here, Gary sends a show wrap-up newsletter each day called “The Daily Riff” and we named this blog series to match. Get it? Riff-Raff? Because that’s what Gary and I are? (Gary, if you’re reading this I am joking.) I’m coming at you from setup day, also known in the rAVe family as Day Zero. Today, our jobs included testing our equipment, taking the reporters for some authentic Spanish cuisine — McDonald’s (I’m just kidding please no one cancel me), and ensuring everything else is set up to go smoothly during the show tomorrow. I absolutely can’t wait for what this show will bring. I have said this before, but ISE tends to be a litmus test for technology trends later in the year that we can look forward to and expect.

I got a little bit of time to walk the show floor — Emily Dean and I chose to take a little walk around Hall 3 and do an episode of rAVe [TV] showing all of you a few of the things we saw. I can tell you that Samsung’s booth will include a version of The Wall built with a doorway in it, leading to their booth, Epson will do some really cool projection mapping on a giant umbrella and Sony is set with a really cool XR studio setup. And that’s just what we saw by taking a quick walk down the aisle.

Things I Like (in no particular order):

• The four-day metro transportation pass you get with your ISE show floor pass. It comes in handy and I love that ISE encourages everyone to take public transportation! The metro in Barcelona is also a lovely experience.
• Projection mapping (self explanatory) but I mean true projection mapping on a 3-D surface, taking that object’s surface into consideration with the projection design. I went to see the projection show at Casa Batlló last night, and I don’t totally know that the “mapping” part was as top of mind as it should have been when it came to the artist’s design. (It was still cool though.)
• Cava (non-technology but also self explanatory)
• Interestingly shaped displays. A few years ago, seeing a display with a hole in the middle or a company’s logo made out of MicroTiles or a display in a circle was unheard of. Now that tech is everywhere on the ISE show floor. I can’t wait to see more.

Things I Don’t Like:

• The word “hybrid.” Can we call it something else yet?
• The print-it-yourself paper show badges. I preferred last year when you could scan in with the app on your phone and receive your paper badge upon entering the ISE show. I think this year that is still an option, but only at one entrance. Otherwise, you must print your badge and bring it along with you. The paper badge holders are also not my favorite. It all feels like wasted paper, which, in my opinion, goes against what ISE stands for with its encouragement of industry-wide sustainable practices. Next year, I would encourage for us all to have only badges on our phones! Still scannable, but no wasted paper.

Next year, I will likely have more thoughts on specific technology, but in case anyone is curious about what I think about setup, this is it. Thanks for reading, and happy ISE! Reminder: You can follow all of our ISE 2024 coverage here.