DevLearn 2024 Las Vegas: Expo Recap

Aaron and I booked a short trip to the DevLearn 2024 Expo in Las Vegas. Our mission was to do a deep dive on learning tech and seed our product ideas roadmap for 2025. Here’s a recap of our 2-day trip, including some takeaways. 

Overview

We got the expo-only passes. I’m sure there were a number of interesting talks and workshops that we weren’t a part of. Our passes included the main expo hall (and a few “showcase” areas where there were several presentations) and DemoFest. We also got access to elb’s room, as well as Articuland (by Articulate). The expo was open on Wednesday and Thursday, with DemoFest capping things off on Thursday afternoon.

Expo Floor Observations

Arrival was drama free, but we did walk pretty much the entire first floor of the MGM. The MGM Conference Center is close to the self parking garage, but very far from almost everything else in MGM, including the main entrance. Good walking shoes were essential. We easily topped 10K steps each day. Around 11, there was no wait at all to pick up our passes. We started by splitting up and scoping for the floor before lunch so we could set a detailed plan while eating.

The expo was about the same size as I remember it being in previous years. 150 or so vendors split into several long aisles. Good navigation between rows. Notable absences included several of the biggest names in the industry (like Adobe, Skillsoft and Cornerstone). The expo lunch was a bit of a debacle as always. Huge crowds all needed to filter to the back of the hall.

Wednesday afternoon, Aaron focused on having technical conversations. I was looking more specifically for innovative products. The expo was packed with AI-generation tools and a lot of content tools and services in general. AI video generation tools were not generally differentiated from one another - most are wrappers around a common LLM like OpenAI. 

Between Wednesday and Thursday, both of us spoke with many translation vendors. It’s unclear to me how these vendors who do not use AI will be able to survive. It’s also unclear to me how AI-centric vendors will be able to assure their customers of consistent quality with little or no human review.

On Thursday, we mostly hung out together and visited a few vendors we had skipped over. We also took the time to revisit a few interesting conversations from the day before. Overall, we largely avoided long conversations with LMS and all-in-one solution vendors. There has not been a lot of innovation or new value created for tools like these  in a while. The day was capped with DemoFest (Articulate was the sponsor). As usual, there were huge crowds there. We surveyed several of the demos presented, with the vast majority being animated cartoon-style content (some created or enhanced by AI).

Notable Vendors

As far as innovative tech, one vendor stood alone. Iowa-based Revolution Lightboards was really amazing. Their lightboard solution is offered as a package, and it’s impressive. For classroom and video settings, the ILT has officially been transformed. This was perhaps the only demo that left me speechless in a good way.

Genius Learning had a very good talk track to tackle multiple LMS scenarios. This company seems to have more traction in the educational markets at this point. Even so, they’ve at least attempted to provide options for companies with complex user management needs or disparate, competing systems. This conversation underscored the importance of technical strategies for L+D teams.

A startup worth watching is Mindsmith, an AI-powered authoring tool. Even though this is both an authoring tool and wraps in AI, CEO Ethan was amazing to talk to. He has a vision for doing everything better, faster and cheaper than the big guys. The product demo was solid - intuitive tool that could actually help in some use cases.

Finally, it was nice to see our friends at Global eLearning. I’ve known Matt and his team for years, going to back to my digital agency days. In a rapidly changing market, they are working hard to innovate and continue to provide value for their clients.

Budget

We hoped this trip would be under $1,000 total for two people, all in. Deciding to fly broke the budget a little ($600 for roundtrip plane tickets for two from Phoenix versus $100 for gas, snacks and 10 total hours in the car). Add $200 for hotel (New York New York, double occupancy), $50 for rides, and $250 total for food and drinks and other misc. $49 each for Expo passes (we saved $150 each by not getting the t-shirt or “complementary” expo lunches). Total spent: $1,200.

Tip: Taking a taxi from the airport to the strip is about the same price as rideshare and seems a bit quicker. There’s posted fixed rates to resorts and they can accommodate parties of any size. 

Hotel / Luggage

NYNY was cheaper than MGM by about $100, but the walk was much farther than expected for a “neighboring property”. The NYNY room was fine, but the shower water pressure and temp range were elite. But you shared a room? …yes… when company owners travel together, demonstrating fiscal responsibility is a must!

Tip: When there’s not a line, don’t use self check-in. We ended up with a low-floor room, which worked out for us, but we probably could have done better with a live human. 

The weather was awesome! Sunny and chilly in the morning, but short sleeves in the afternoon. Each of us only brought backpacks, so there were plusses and minuses to that. Carrying a backpack around for two days was fine for me, but plan accordingly. There aren’t a lot of good options to store a larger bag as an attendee.

Food and Beverage

We didn’t really set a per diem or budget for food. The conference had coffee, tea and some water. There was also an ice cream break on Wednesday, along with happy hour (1 free drink each). Learning Pool was pouring Guinness with a badge scan (conference-sized pours).  Thursday featured a brownie break and a free drink at DemoFest. DemoFest also had cookies, cupcakes and a 20th Anniversary cake! Many booths also had candy and some snacks throughout the day.

Lunch Day 1 was at Nellie’s Southern Kitchen. Chicken and Waffles, along with Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwich were on point. Just a tad pricier than other options for lunch, but the service was quick and pleasant.

Dinner and Drinks - Day 1 - Greenburg’s Deli. Pastrami sandwiches were good, and after a big lunch this was perfect. After the sandwich, we headed over to Tom’s Watch Bar a few steps away to watch the end of the Suns-Heat game. Go Suns! The drinks were not remarkable, but they did adjust the tv’s nearest to us to our game, despite the Golden Knights also being on.

Breakfast Day 2 - If we had it to do over, we would have stopped at America and grabbed some quick food. We did not, nor did we stop at the not-crowded Starbucks in NYNY. We didn’t happen to walk past anything appealing in MGM, and those Starbucks were bonkers with people… So, no breakfast.

Lunch Day 2 - We went down to Pieology in the MGM. The 2 (!) employees working the lunch rush rocked it out. Pizzas were delicious, and reasonably quick given the crowd. We tended to get bottled soda or water to walk around with - that was helpful. 

Dinner Day 2 - …never really materialized as we headed to the airport to catch the flight home and the airport restaurants seemed to have ridiculous lines. I think Aaron settled on chips and a Twisted Tea.

In Closing

Until next time, DevLearn. This show was exciting and informative. The LearningGuild made the successful transition from the now-closed Mirage over to MGM and had a successful show. What about the slot machines, you ask? Aaron lost $9 total, mostly playing video poker. I doubled my $20 playing Wheel of Fortune in the airport on the way home after playing for about 90 seconds. +$11 overall.