SCTE reported attendance of 8,600 for its 2015 Cable-Tec Expo, down more than 5 percent from the 9,100 attendees that showed up for the event in Denver last year.
However, attendance was up 5 percent from 2010, the last time the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers held its big event in New Orleans.
The organization said paid registrations were up 21 percent with the show floor featuring nearly 400 exhibitors, a slight uptick over the 2014 Expo. There were 66 companies exhibiting at Cable-Tec Expo for the first time.
John Schanz, executive VP and chief network officer of Comcast, was named chairman of SCTE's next Cable-Tec Expo,, which is slated for Sept. 26-29, 2016, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.
Last week's event was kicked off by a panel presentation featuring Cox President Patrick Esser, Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) CTO Tony Werner, Liberty Global CTO Balan Nair and CableLabs President and CEO Phil McKinney.
"The active involvement of Pat Esser, the guidance of Balan Nair and the support of CableLabs, NCTA and our MSO and vendor partners helped to shape a program that brought tremendous value to all of our attendees," said Mark Dzuban, president and CEO of SCTE, in a statement. "We look forward to getting to work immediately with John Schanz and his team as we build on our success next year in Philadelphia."
Speaking to FierceCable before the event, Dzuban said SCTE has carved a cooperative niche with CableLabs and the National Cable Telecommunications Association (NCTA). The NCTA handles regulatory policy while CableLabs deals with science, specifications and technical development; certification, deployment, training and operational results would fall into the SCTE's bucket.
"Look, the industry may be consolidating, but we've created partnerships with the MSOs to be even more of a valuable asset to drive training and results," Dzuban said. The organization's confidence, he added, stems from an emerging clarity of purpose.
For more:
- read this SCTE statement
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