Event organisers have revealed that 85% of exhibition space for this year’s event is fully booked, writes David Davies. Ateis, Baldwin Boxall, Bosch, Bose, Christie, Chroma-Q, EAW, Electro-Voice, Intertek, Korg, Lighthouse Technologies, Line 6, Mackie, Martin Audio, M Studio, Penton, Turbosound, Stageco, Sundrax, Taiden, Tomcat, Wasp and Zero 88 are among the 40-plus exhibitors who were not present at last year’s show.
Audio is set to be particularly well represented, with PLASA’s Ruth Rossington expecting more than one-third of exhibitors to come from that sector. In addition to the aforementioned companies, audio exhibitors will include Adamson, Allen & Heath, AXYS, DiGiCo, Harman, JoeCo, KV2, Midas, Nexo, Ohm UK, Polar Audio, Roland, Sennheiser, Shure, Trantec and Yamaha, while Bose will return after several years’ absence.
“The upsurge in audio is essentially a combination of factors,” Rossington told IE sister e-newsletter, PSN-e. “We’ve been actively engaging with a wide range of audio companies to ensure we fully meet their needs and are part-way through a campaign to increase the key industry buyers and specifiers attending the show. We’ve also put a focus on some of the main audio issues out there at the moment – the new EN54 Directive being a prime example – and of course there’s a renewed confidence in the market, so we’re seeing the return of audio companies who unfortunately weren’t able to participate last year as well as a significant number of new audio companies coming through, combined with a return by some who have been absent from the showfloor for a significant number of years.”
PLASA has also announced a number of new features for this year’s event. The Innovation Gallery will showcase a new format on 12 September, wherein entrants will publicly demonstrate their products to the Awards judges as part of an Interactive Gallery feature, which will be given a prime position at the entrance to Earls Court 2. All the presentations will be recorded and the winning ones will be replayed in the Gallery and uploaded to the show website immediately after the show. Visitors will be able to get early access to the Gallery from 9.30am each morning – 30 minutes before the show officially opens – where free refreshments will be available in a new-style café area.
In addition, the ISCE and Springboard Pavilions will be expanded, while Industry Skills & Qualifications Wednesday (15 September) will provide an opportunity for the industry to meet students from leading arts production courses.
The four-day Education & Learning Programme will include a two-day programme of seminars hosted by InfoComm International, an expanded Technologies For Worship Pavilion, a special focus on EN54, and a sequence of sessions presented under the moniker of ‘Sustainability Tuesday’. Funktion One and Martin Professional are among the brands set to host demo rooms, while Alan Jacobi (Unusual Rigging), Roger Barrett (Star Events Group) and many others will address the first-ever PLASA International Rigging Conference, to take place on 13-14 September in the adjoining Earls Court Conference Centre. And, as covered elsewhere on this edition of the newsletter, IE and PSNE will also be launching their new AV networking conference.
Online registration for PLASA 2010 is available now at the link below.
Image Credit: Chris Toulmin
