This was underpinned by Gordon Cooper, director of power generation suppliers SES (Entertainment Services). "How else could you meet people from Iraq, Nigeria and Afghanistan all in one room?"
A large Nigeria-based production company placed orders on a number of stands, including AED100,000 with SES - part of "at least AED 250,000 worth of business we will write directly from the show", according to Cooper. "We have had a fantastic three days and this has been the best PALME ever for us."
SES was exhibiting on the stand of distributor RFW Trading, run by Rick and Fragille Wade. Rick, who is also general manager of Neumann & Muller Event Technology, backed this up. "I have picked up enough leads from rental companies here for the next six months - the show has become a lot more international," he confirmed.
Most of the local distributors were supported by senior representatives from their suppliers around the globe. The best example was that of Australian Ben Sweeney, international sales manager of mic company R°de, who had flown in for one day from Los Angeles en route to Istanbul to support their distributor Thomsun Trading. "It's my first time at the show and I couldn't be more positive. It's great to be able to communicate our message to Middle Eastern customers."
Two heavyweights in different market sectors, who attended to capitalise on massive sales to the region were Prysm and API respectively. At last year's PALME, Dubai TV purchased a Prysm display for and followed this up with a second large curved immersive Prysm LPD TD1 videowall to Dubai TV News, supplied by Baba Broadcast Services and being installed as the 2012 edition was taking place.
J&C Joel Middle East, a division of the IBS Group, has quickly established itself as one of the region's premier suppliers of flame-retardant fabrics since setting up in the region three years ago. Head of marketing Claire Taylforth said: "It has definitely been worth setting up - and trade shows like this make people aware. We've met a lot of new people, from Qatar, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey."
(Jim Evans)
