Install @ PALME will be staging the inaugural Middle East Lighting Design Awards (MELDA), which represents a unique opportunity for the region to recognise and celebrate the achievements of the world's leading lighting designers. Winners of MELDA (which includes the Middle East Lighting Designer of the Year), will be presented at an extravagant Gala dinner held at the Al Murooj Rotana Hotel in Dubai on May 21.
MELDA is endorsed by the world renowned lighting designer Jonathan Speirs of Speirs and Major Associates, who will also present 'Made of Light - the Art of Light and Architecture' in Install Middle East's Architectural Lighting and Interior Illumination zone.
A seminar programme running throughout the duration of Install Middle East, will incorporate a day of Lighting Masterclasses, given by some of the world's most renowned lighting experts.
Group exhibitions director Darren Brechin says that it has been the expansion of the installation sector - now divided into three halls - which has largely contributed to PALME Middle East's extraordinary growth in the five years since its inauguration. "Install is now responsible for 50% of the show," he confirms.
Charting PALME's development he states, "The original show was fragmented, with just a few largely local distributors exhibiting. But we quickly consolidated this with the result that many major manufacturers, sensing the show's international appeal, are now taking, and in many cases doubling their stand space."
Today the show represents a 50/50 split between Entertainment (sound and light, events and MI) and Commercial Projects (integrated audio-visual). The residential market, says Brechin, is also growing exponentially, due to the high degree of disposable income in the UAE.
Both Brechin and PALME Middle East exhibition manager, Jonathan Gadalla, believe that the show's year-on-year 25% growth in stand space will be matched by a broadening visitor base. "There's now more incentive for people to travel," believes Gadalla. "While we have consolidated the local market, we now expect to see increased traffic from the GCC and Saudi as well as Iran, Qatar and Kuwait. We are also getting a lot of interest from the North African countries, such as Lebanon and Libya, and even as far afield as Afghanistan. And as far as export markets go, we are now able to collect a lot of data about the surrounding territories."
Directly under Gadalla's supervision, Event 360 will provide an opportunity for marketing and production companies seeking to stage events in the Middle East as local hotels and conference centres show off their facilities for staging events in the Dubai Venue pavilion.
The decision by IIR Entertainment & Installation Technology Group to homogenise the company's exhibitions in Asia, India and the Middle East under the common branding of PALME Exhibitions, has brought a well-received streamlining to proceedings, believes Brechin. "Our market often didn't realise that the same people were running these different shows, and once the organisation got bigger it was vital that we centralised the operation. From a sales point of view it means we can package things a lot more quickly; it also means that exhibitors - wherever they are - only have to pick up the phone and speak to one person."
(Chris Henry)
