Scala’s first America’s Partner Summit (APS) under new ownership took place October 25-27 during New York Digital Signage Week – albeit it was a two hour train ride away in Malvern, PA as Scala were keen to show off their new office space and introduce their elite partners to all of their staff.
We’re told by many who attended that this was seen as an inaugural event – invitation-only for Scala’s most elite partners and should not necessarily be confused with past North America Partner Conferences. Every previous Scala partner conference either in Europe or North America that we’ve attended has certainly always been a really good networking and learning experience.
Chris Riegel told us “Our goal in creating the Americas Partner Summit was to offer compelling presentations, ample networking events, and opportunities for one-on-one meetings with Scala and STRATACACHE leadership for our top tier Channel Partners. Scala partners are one of our greatest assets, and we wanted this event to show our appreciation to the Partner Channel and recognize their role in elevating the Scala brand.”
The America’s Partner Summit brought together more than 70 partners from 41 unique organizations and 11 different countries. More than 20 of the attending companies sent two or more representatives to the Summit. Twelve partner attendees made the journey from Latin America, and one partner travelled all the way from Australia to participate. The summit also included vendor sponsors from AMD, LG, Crimson AV and Now Micro, and more than two dozen members of the STRATACACHE family, including team members from PRN, enVu, Carmanah Signs, SuperLumin Networks, Optika Displays and STRATACACHE also attended.
The Summit kicked off with a networking reception in Scala’s Malvern, PA, headquarters on October 25, featuring local fare and cocktails, retail and corporate communications solutions in the Scala Experience Center, and even a digital Beer-o-meter (shown above), giving partners a look into the powerful next generation of Scala’s digital signage platform.
October 26th and 27th saw a programme filling both days, including speaking sessions from Scala executive and technical leadership, case studies featuring Scala Partners and team members, ask-the-expert sessions, Scala and STRATACACHE product and services sessions, and two separate stand-alone training tracks for technical team members.
We spoke to several Scala partners who attended – some even still made it to #NYDSW, flying into New York for the Barco Media Lab Session on the Monday, out for the APS and back in again for the final SEGD events on the Friday, and not one partner was anything less than seriously impressed with what they experienced in Malvern those few days.
Jane Metzger, CEO, Imperatives Inc. told us “The 2016 Scala America Partner Summit was the best Scala conference we have attended thus far. We appreciated hearing directly from Chris Riegel about where Scala is heading over the short and long term. It is clear that Scala is still innovating and providing us with continuing opportunities to increase our business.”
Telecine’s James Fine mentioned to us that he was “seriously impressed with Chris Riegel and the STRATACACHE team.”
Once again, the bar has seemingly been set pretty high for future Scala conferences. Let’s just hope that next year they can get any event a little closer to the Big Apple…
November 3rd, 2016 at 12:01 @542
Was it an America’s Partner Summit or an Americas Partner Summit or an America Partner Summit? You refer to it all three ways, but those are very different things ….