What’s Happening
KnowledgeFest Goes Nationwide By bringing the premiere industry event to Orlando this coming May, KnowledgeFest has truly become nationwide, expanding its mission of education and empowerment to service the southeast. WORDS BY ROSA SOPHIA
Having found a formula that best fulfills its mission—to educate, inform and empower—KnowledgeFest will be coming to Orlando, Florida, May 15 to 17, 2020 and is expected to draw at least over a thousand attendees. The show will likely attract a good crowd in part due to its location. Chris Cook, President of Mobile Electronics Association, expects a good turnout. “I think people will come to escape the cold and kick off the first vacation of the year,” Cook said. “We’ve never launched an event that had this much interest from retailers and manufacturers, from the industry overall. I’ve had so many inquiries about it, and I think it’s because of the location.” Those attending should be open to learning new things, according to Jayson
14 Mobile Electronics January 2020
Cook of Columbus Car Audio & Accessories. “If you go into it thinking you already know everything, then you won’t get anything out of it. But if you are openminded, and apply the things you learn, it can be a real game changer,” he said, adding that networking and building relationships are good reasons to attend. Since the Dallas event began in 2010, KnowledgeFest has continued to grow exponentially and has become the premier industry event, according to Chris Cook. However, KnowledgeFest itself is far older. Each KnowledgeFest event offers over 60 manufacturer trainings, over 27 educational workshops and plenty of networking opportunities for mobile electronics professionals. Adding a new location will help transform KnowledgeFest into a nationwide event. “We are going to be bringing what has been so successful in other cities
to Orlando and to the southeast,” Cook added.
KnowledgeFest Heads to the Sunshine State Aron Demers, vice president of VOXX Electronics Corporation, said he hopes to meet with dealers who no longer attend CES, and haven’t been able to make it to other KnowledgeFest events. “We feel that from Florida all the way up to Maine, we’ll have good representation of dealers wanting to get out and come down to the show,” he said, adding that VOXX will offer mobile video training and security and remote start certification and training sessions, as they do at other KnowledgeFest events. Bryatt Fischer of JL Audio said the Orlando show has been a hope for some time. “There have been other events in Florida in years past that were successful,
