For any professional working in any given industry, trade shows are an essential part of developing their workplace skillset and keeping pace with their sector. But many trade show organisers place too much emphasis on the exhibitor and not the delegate.
In this Optician writer’s opinion, there is a tendency for organisers in the optical trade show sector to put the onus on the exhibitor to create a show experience and get delegates through the door – something that cannot be levelled at Vision Expo East organisers Reed Exhibitions and the Vision Council of America.
Content for visitors remains the top priority for the event and this year’s edition proved that demonstrably. Yes, there were headline grabbing speakers such as award-winning rapper and actor Common, and a comprehensive education stream, but around the peripheries, the was engaging content for visitors at all positions in practice that represented genuine take-home content.
Retail Store Tours were a new addition to the content programme for 2019. The tours provided attendees with an inside look at how eyewear retailers in New York drive traffic to their stores, leverage new technology, created store experiences and set themselves apart in areas where there is fierce competition from other retailers and eyewear industry disruptors.
‘New York City is a retail mecca and home to many of the globe’s most innovative eyewear retailers,’ said Mitch Barkley, the Vision Council’s vice president of trade shows and meetings. ‘We created this opportunity so our visitors can go behind the scenes and hear directly from store ambassadors as they share insights into what drives them to continue to innovate.’
Three different tours were created that showed off the different aspects of eyewear retail in varied settings: Madison Avenue, Soho and Oculus, a recently-opened retail space at the World Trade Centre.
Madison Avenue is possibly the most iconic destination in luxury retail and its tour took in both high end optical outlets like Dita and Robert Marc, and high fashion brand Marc Jacobs’ concept store and ‘white glove’ fashion experiences offered to the most discerning types of patient.
The city’s Soho district sees household names such as Apple and Nike mingle with cult streetwear names like Supreme and Off-White, along with everything in-between. The hotchpotch vibe of the area can make it hard to stand out from the crowd, so differentiation was very much the focus of the tour, along with best practices for designing product displays and crafting the right atmosphere for a practice. While a visit to a new Ray-Ban concept store might not sound like the best way to learn about standing out, the brand is at the top of its game when it comes to retailing innovation and was well worth a visit. Elsewhere, Silver Lining and Selima Optique showed how they fused classical American customer service and contemporary art.
The trip to Oculus was perhaps the most-rounded lens on modern retail. The bright and airy space is an architectural masterpiece and the development has been designed to catch time-conscious consumers. As such, merchandising and window display best practice must be exemplary. Oliver Peoples and Designer Eyes shared their insight, as did a selection of technology retailers and pop-up stores.
Actor, rapper and artist Common and stylist Lilliana Vasquez
Common people
Having always been sceptical about celebrity appearances at optical trade shows, news that actor, rapper and artist Common was going to be headlining the inaugural series of Eye2Eye talks at this year’s event was greeted with a great deal of excitement. If you are not a hip-hop aficionado, you may have seen Common appear in current Microsoft artificial intelligence adverts or alongside Denzel Washington in American Gangster.
Common was joined by media personality and stylist, Lilliana Vasquez, for the chat aimed to give delegates inspiration on both storytelling and creativity. The rapper said being genuine was at the heart of telling a good story, as truth and honesty were the foundations of passion – a characteristic that people, no matter what the industry, would always buy into. He also revealed that the timeless style of political activist Malcolm X was his personal eyewear inspiration and that his early frame experimentation included dalliances with women’s eyewear.
The session ended with an interactive Q&A with questions posed directly from Vision Expo. Common was asked about his most rewarding projects, the impact of social media on creativity and lessons learned throughout his career. Ashley Mills, CEO of the Vision Council thanked the audience for its participation: ‘By being here today and through your support of the Vision Expo events, you enable us to spread the word about the importance of eyewear and eye care through nationwide campaigns like Think About Your Eyes and National Sunglasses Day.’
Basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal at the Zyloware booth promoting his Shaq collection
Frame from the Shaq collection
Big names like Shaq and Common generate big numbers on social media, which has become a key metric for exhibition organisers in recent years – not just to attract people for registrations, but to broaden reach and reputation. The #VisionExpo hastag achieved over 31 million impressions, an increase of 15% on 2018.
Nearly 15,000 real life humans descended on Javits Center in Manhattan, which remains the best location on the planet for an exhibition venue. In recent years, Hudson Yards has seen a staggering amount of real estate development, with new housing, retail, green space and the Thomas Heatherwick designed Vessel art-installation. The area directly around the Javits is now a genuine destination, which can only help attract visitors to the venue.
Although the overall attendance figures were up by a slim 2.6%, there was a 5% increase in the number of optical buyers registered at the event. Perhaps most notably, organisers said one third of attendees represented new practices and optical locations, showing that the nature of the profession in the US is changing, but also remains healthy.
This was reinforced by exhibitors at the show. ‘Vision Expo East was a tremendous success for Safilo this year. It was the perfect stage for us to debut our all-new state-of-the-art booth with a lot of excitement and shows how Safilo is committed to North America in a big way, with significant investment,’ said Steve Wright, CCO and president of Safilo North America.
Digital developments
If you remember Google Glass, you will remember it was not very good. As a eyewear product, it failed to consider many of the basic requirements of a spectacle frame and, as a project, it failed to consult with the eyewear industry until it was too late.
Connected smart glasses have disappeared from people’s consciousness since, but at Vision Expo there was a launch that piqued Optician’s interest. The Focals model name meant Optician initially expected an electronically adjustable progressive lens, but the visit to the North booth revealed an entirely different proposition – a sensible approach to smart glasses.
North’s Focals model presents a new sensible approach to smart glasses
North was founded in 2012 by three graduates: Matthew Bailey, Aaron Grant and Stephen Lake – the company’s current CEO. It initially worked on smart medical devices, but it 2018, it premiered its first iteration of Focals smart glasses – the result of five years’ worth of R&D. There were three goals: make a pair of smart glasses that look like regular glasses; create an experience on them that was useful and intuitive, not overwhelming or distracting; build a different kind of company to make the above possible.
While it is not Optician’s place to comment on the third aspect, the brief trial and demonstration at the show demonstrated North is well on the way with making subtle and functional connected eyewear.
The form factor is much like a normal ophthalmic frame, with the heavy-set temples and lugs the major giveaway that the glasses are something different. A colour laser on the inside of the temple that projects text and graphics is noticeable, but not obtrusive. The rest of the bulk hides componentry.
The user experience has been purposely designed not to be too clever – it mimics a smartwatch in the way it delivers simplified notifications. Holographic film inside the Focals’ specially-developed lenses reflects the light from the laser projector back into the wearer’s eye. Although the Rx lenses in the demo unit were nowhere near the power required by Optician, the display was still crisp and clear. More importantly, it felt useful and unobtrusive. The system is operated by a controller that takes the form of a ring worn by the wearer. For Optician, this was when Focals began to make sense. The absence of voice instructions or gesture controls was liberating. Instead, a toggle on the ring allows for scrolling through functions and confirming commands.
Integrating the medical device aspect with technology has been well thought out and it was hard to tell that others were wearing smart eyewear. The lenses are produced in-house, which could be a future stumbling block for expansion in the optical trade sector, but the overall concept is well thought out and it is a massive step forwards in terms of aesthetics. It is the most well-rounded smart eyewear yet.
Faith and Fiction
Common’s references to truth and honesty during the Eye2Eye talk got Optician thinking about some of the eyewear brands at the event where passion for product was central to core beliefs. With Eyes of Faith, it found a brand where belief was at the central core of the product.
Although recent research undertaken by the Pew Research Center for Religion and Public Life has found Americans have become somewhat less religious in recent years, the overall importance of religion across the US remains strong and those that do identify with religious tradition are now as engaged as ever before.
When the company was formed just over a decade ago, there was a distinct lack of faith-based eyewear, says co-founder and optician, Amy Schneider. But she says it took a ‘god-inspired’ dream from her husband, Jim, to realise it. When her husband explained the idea of an eyewear company that honoured God, Schneider called him crazy, but he was correct. ‘It was our calling,’ says Schneider.
Eyes of Faith give Christians an ocular option
Frames in the collection feature religious scripture on the inside of temples and the name of each frame is inspired by those words. Schneider’s 20 years as an optician mean the designs are all very wearable and reflect many of the trends in the eyewear market.
Although this Optician writer does not follow any religion, it was impossible not to be captivated by Schneider’s obvious passion for her beliefs and how they were conveyed in the brand. She explained that the company runs and Wear and Share initiative, where proceeds from each frame sold help Christian mission work around the world. ‘People love to know that their frame has helped others,’ says Schneider.
Helping others was also at the heart of the reimagined Fiction brand from L.A. Eyeworks. Believing that the written word is a positive pathway to self-expression and identity, the brand donates a portion of the proceeds from the sale of every frame to support the work of 826LA, a non-profit organisation that nurtures the writing skills of students and assists teachers in encouraging their students to write.
Fiction has existed in the L.A. Eyeworks product universe in the past, but a conscious decision was made to phase it out with the intention of a dedicated brand with its own distinct identity aimed at a younger patient demographic.
The aesthetic of the brand is more reserved than that of L.A. Eyeworks, especially the colour palette, but the ingenuity of designers Gai Gherdi and Barbara McReynolds is still very much evident throughout the 20-strong optical range and eight sunglass styles. The copyright C logo can be found hidden on temple butts and the length of acetate temple sleeves varies depending on model and reveal colour-matched temple core wires. It is a collection where the L.A. Eyeworks DNA is clear to see, but it is an entirely different work of fiction.
Vision Expo East takes place from March 26-29, 2020.