Prolight+Sound Reports High Attendance, Exhibitor Satisfaction

At Prolight+Sound last week, more than 85,000 visitors made their way to Messe Frankfurt while around 25,000 music fans enjoyed Musikmesse Festival events at a variety of clubs and hotels in Frankfurt. The greater emphasis on the exchange of ideas and information between specialists from the music and event business resulted in a high proportion of trade visitors -- 76% -- 45% of whom were top managers. Over half of the trade visitors came from outside Germany, from 130 countries from Iceland to New Zealand.

"In five days, we have revealed the direction being taken by consumption and production in the music and entertainment business: towards greater dynamism, diversity and digitalisation. This was not only demonstrated by the large number of exhibitors and artists at the Exhibition Centre but also throughout the whole city. Together with partners from the industry, the creative business and the music scene, we will continue to take up the complex challenges facing the sectors and generate value added for them with our two trade fairs", said Detlef Braun, member of the executive board of Messe Frankfurt.

"The trend to connectivity is now really gaining ground and opening up completely new perspectives for us and our sector," said Gunnar Eberhardt, head of entertainment and architecture lighting at Osram GmbH. "We are very pleased with this year's Prolight+Sound. It is the world's most professional fair for the entertainment sector and has the broadest audience of visitors. With our products, we cover all parts of the entertainment-lighting segment: from show and theatre, via museums, to façade lighting. Here in Frankfurt, we meet the right people and customers for all areas of applications, and that from all over the world."

A particularly successful part of the complementary program of events proved to be the Immersive Technology Forum, where visitors could take part in lectures and live demonstrations revolving around technologies for virtual and augmented reality, immersive audio, holography, 3D mapping and other spectacular entertainment trends. "For us, the Immersive Technology Forum was an excellent opportunity to showcase our immersive sound system to the trade visitors at the fair," said Mary Beth Henson, head of communications at L-Acoustics. "Business at the fair was really very good. Highly successful was our new demonstration room, where we welcomed more customers in the first two days than in the whole of last year's fair."

For the first time, the new Hall 12 was integrated into Prolight+Sound. Sabine Siller, marketing manager of cast C. Adolph & RST Distribution GmbH, said "We like Hall 12 very much and it provided the perfect setting for our 'Cast & Friends' area. The proximity to our partners generated unrivalled synergies. This is also because Prolight + Sound is the fair with the most international brands on show."

LED technology has been a vital driving force for growth in the sector for many years -- and there seems to be no limit in sight on the positive development of this market segment. For example, suppliers of big screens and video walls benefited from the impetus of the sector at Prolight+Sound: "We are more than pleased with the result: our exhibition stand was very busy on all four days and we welcomed numerous international trade visitors. Particularly impressive was the high visitor standard. The advisory and sales discussions showed clearly that Prolight+Sound is the right place for us and the ideal business networking platform. We will certainly be back again in 2020", said Christoph Pfäffle of Unilumin Germany GmbH.

Preparations for the coming anniversary year are already being made, when Musikmesse will celebrate its 40th birthday and Prolight+Sound its 25th. Immediately after this year's fairs, the management of Messe Frankfurt will contact the sector's players and evaluate the results of the visitor and exhibitor polls in detail. Soon, Messe Frankfurt will announce details of the event concepts for 2020, which take the best possible account of the needs of manufacturers and professional market participants in the dynamic environment of today's market.