With the show floor packed on Monday morning, PLASA Events also announced its acquisition of the A.C. Lighting North trade show, bringing the PLASA Events' team's expertise and drive to this fast-growing event for the north of the UK.
PLASA 07's radical new layout saw an easy-to-navigate, one-floor event occupy both Earls Court 1 and 2, combined with lower noise limits and a smoke-free atmosphere - plus exhibitors' determination to make the most of the new opportunities with brand new stand designs. The massive growth in innovative video and lighting displays emphasised the show's embrace of the integrated technologies that are driving large sectors of the industry.
It all contributed, said event director Nicola Rowland, to "a fantastically vibrant feel wherever you looked - everybody really pulled out all the stops. It showed what we meant in promising this would be a show by the industry for the industry."
There was some initial concern last year when the new layout was unveiled, but when people arrived at the event and found it much easier to navigate, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Unique visitor figures (not counting multiple visits) - which are as yet provisional and subject to ABC audit - are estimated at 12,252, just under those of 2006, yet visitors making the journey to London from overseas rose from 27% to 30%, and exhibitors reported a very high level of visitor quality.
Numerous exhibitors commented that PLASA 07 was a first class show and that both the refreshed look and layout provided the platform for their most successful PLASA ever.
Among the many other memorable events were the official launch of the PLASA National Rigging Certificate, the new, nationally recognised certificate of competency for specialist entertainment industry riggers. Live demonstrations of the scheme in action were followed by presentations of the first Certificates to successful candidates at the PLASA Awards for Innovation on the Monday night.
The latter (for which there was a dramatic last-minute surge in nominations, taking the total to over 60) also saw eight companies scoop the Awards - beyerdynamic (GB) Ltd (Headzone); Electronic Theatre Controls (Eos); Fuzion plc (Coemar Infinity Wash XL); Litec Srl (EXE-Lodestar 650C1 + Datalogge); Marquee Audio (Revolabs Solo Executive); Protonic Software Corp (easyjob 4.0); Unusual Rigging (The Revolution Winch) and Vertigo Rigging (Vertex).
The inaugural Tony Gottelier Award, presented by Tony's son Jonathon and voted for by the industry, went to Funktion One's Tony Andrews for his 30 years at the forefront of loudspeaker design innovation.
Nicola Rowland comments: "PLASA07 closed on a real high with such an exceptional level of re-bookings for next year, and the effort that everyone put in has created a superb platform for PLASA08."
(Lee Baldock)
