PLASA London: Day One

	PLASA London 2013

Here's a highly selected look at some of the events on the trade show floor at this year's PLASA Show in London:

The first day of the PLASA Show in its new venue, ExCeL London, proved to be a revelation. Inspired by the new venue, virtually every exhibitor came up with a newly designed booth, resulting in a show that has a sleek and remarkably fresh look. Foot traffic was on the high side, a positive sign as Sunday is traditionally not best attended day at the show.

A visit to the CAST Software booth revealed some details the upcoming R32 for the WYSIWYG previsualization software system. Some highlights will be new material systems, including reflection, which will add new realism to the software's imagery. Also to come will be a host of new CAD features, including cloning, array, and dynamic linear scale tools. Look for the release at the end of year. Coming out sooner is Vivien 2014, the latest edition of the software program aimed at events designers.

A drop-in at the Lex Products booth revealed the details of the company's joint venture agreement with Ten 47, the supplier of high-quality connectors and assembly solutions, based in Kirkaldy, Scotland (known to many LSA readers as the former manufacturing home of Strand Lighting). Ten 47 will manufacture Lex Products gear, beginning with EverGrip LSC19 cable extensions and other cable assemblies. A spokesman for Lex notes that the response to the plan, which was announced at the ABTT Show in June, has been extremely positive.

By 11am, the show was in full theatrical mode as a pair of Brazilian samba dancers invaded the Le Mark booth. The ladies strutted their stuff on one of the company's new theatrical flooring products, showing how they hold up even under punishing conditions.

Altman Lighting is launching its Phoenix LED ellipsoidal unit, which is available in a number of degree sizes and in 250W RGBA, RGBW, 3,200K and 5,500K versions. The unit is aimed at theatres, television studios, and the special events markets, among others.

A quick chat with lighting designer Andy Voller, who is on the City Theatrical stand, talking about his software Moving Light Assistant, revealed that his next big project will be Heartbeat of Home, a new production from the people who brought you Riverdance. It hits North America in January. More about City Theatrical's offerings will come tomorrow.

Chauvet Europe is showing plenty of new products, including the Q-Was 419Z, an LED moving head; the Strike 324 and Strike 882 LED strobes (the latter with 882 LEDs!); the Legend 412Z, with its speedy pan and tilt moves, and upgrades to the COLORdash line of LED units. Also upgraded is the Ovation line of theatre products, which now offers warmer tones (to 2,800K) and more consistency. The Ovation C-640FL is a cyc light incorporating a virtual color wheel set to Rosco colors. The company's EPIX line of video panels is making its European debut.

Interestingly, PRG, best-known for supplying mega-events, has two products aimed at the entry level market. V276 On Mac is the entry-level version of the Vx76 lighting console range. It uses the same software as the rest of the range, but, paired with any user-supplied Apple Mac computer, it acts as a control surface that takes full advantage of the network processing power of the Vx76 range. It is also extremely portable. Mbox Studio is a portable media server with much of the functionality of the original Mbox; bundled with it is Mbox Director, a graphical user interface that eliminates the need for a lighting desk to operate any media servers.

MA Lighting is showing the new VPU (Video Processing Unit) Light, billed as a smart and compact video control offering nearly the same performance as the MA VPU and VPU basic. Only 2HU high, it is said to feature sophisticated hardware combined with MA software; a built-in screen displays all essential information about the status of the product.

Shure Distribution UK held a press conference at which it announced an internal reorganization, following a decision by Shure EMEA to align its distribution practices uniformly across Europe. The creation of three groups to directly serve retail, pro audio, and systems Integration mirrors the structure already applied to product portfolio and customer segmentation. The retail division, headed by former SDUK field sales manager Anthony Short, supports all aspects of music industry and consumer electronics retail. The pro audio division manages SDUK's rental, touring, and broadcast-oriented customers and is headed by Tuomo Tolonen, who worked previously as applications and product planning manager. Duncan Savage -- one of three new faces to join SDUK in the reorganization -- has been appointed to lead the systems group, which has been created to serve integrators and contractors working on large-scale installation projects. Also announced was the launch of the Shure Academy European Audio Network, a new educational and industry networking initiative aimed at all levels of the audio industry, from specialist integrators and contractors to retail sales teams and end users. It will incorporate the existing training programs run by Shure and integrate new workshops and seminars, delivered via a variety of media, including e-learning, webinars, and hands-on instruction. In the UK, this brief will extend across the entire Shure Distribution portfolio and include training and certification for brands such as DIS, QSC, Radial, and MyMix.

Rosco once again made a generous donation to the industry charity Light ReliefRick Fisher, lighting designer and co-founder of Light Relief. Mark Engel, Rosco's CEO, said, "When we introduced Rosco's Supergel 313 Light Relief Yellow in 2004, you [Rick Fisher] were quoted as saying "I wanted the Light Relief Yellow to be a warm, late afternoon, sunny color...," which seems to me the perfect sentiment for this color and this charity -- a comforting ray of light when it's needed most. Thank you to every designer who uses Supergel 313 on stage for helping us help our community offstage. We donate the proceeds from this color here every year, and it is a satisfying moment for me. It truly is my pleasure to present $3,026 to Light Relief today, raising our support to over $31,000 to date."

The champagne flowed as usual at Avolites, as the company announced its latest round of products. Aside from Titan V7 and Ai V7, this year's launches will include a range of wings to extend the capabilities of all of the Titan consoles: the Sapphire Touch Wing, Sapphire Media Wing, and Titan Mobile Wing. New from Avolites Media are the Ai S2, S4, and S6 media server systems offering two, four, and six display port / DVI outputs. They feature the latest third generation PCIexpress motherboards, new series AMD graphics cards, and PCIexpress SSD drives. In addition, the Salvation Engine can be easily configured to provide up to 64 layers of PIPs with a single server.

Activities continued well into the evening hours, with Robe hosting an Austin Powers-themed party at Café de Paris in the West End. Also the Knight of Illumination Awards, sponsored by Clay Paky, Osram, Chroma Q, Hawthorn, MA Lighting, Robert Juliat, and XL Video, were held. This year's winners also took in video designers. In the television categories, the winners were Gurdip Mahal and Ross Williams, for The Voice Final; Colin Case, for Howard Goodall's History of Music; Ashley Rose, BSC, for the drama Dancing on the Edge; Nick Collier, for Bollywood Carmen Live; and Gurdip Mahal and Ross Williams, in the graphic display category, for The Voice.

In the concert touring and events category, winners were Baz Halpin, for Pink; Bruno Poet, for Sigur Ros; Patrick Woodroffe, for the London Olympics Ceremonies, and for video electronic content, Damien Hale and Sarah Hopper, for Sigur Ros.

In the theatre category, winners were Fabiana Picooioloi, for the dance pie ITMOim at Sadler's Wells; Jean Kalman, for Death in Venice at English National Opera; Charles Balfour, for The River, Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court Theare; Paule Constable, for Barnum, at Chichester Festival Theatre Tent; and Lysander Ashton, for Feast, at the Young Vic.

The winner of the Enrico Caironi Award for Lifetime Achievement was Ian Dow, whose extensive television credits extend back to the original Dr. Who series, and who has been instrumental in steering the Showlight series of lighting seminars.--David Barbour