Show director Nicola Rowland commented: "The universally positive feedback and the strong visitor figures would be satisfying under any circumstances, but in the current economic climate it's a strong result for our exhibitors and for the show itself - it underlines just how important PLASA remains in the international events calendar.
"Numbers alone were only part of the story," added Rowland. "We've had a lot of enthusiastic comments about the overall atmosphere, the vibe that was evident around the show floor and the very high quality of visitors, which led to a serious amount of business being conducted."
The exhibition had momentum on its side from the beginning thanks to a strong exhibitor base, a range of new features and special events, and the addition of two major new conferences running alongside for the first time - the sell-out PLASA International Rigging Conference and the AVNetworks 2010 Conference presented by Pro Sound News and Installation Europe.
Ashley Lewis, UK sales manager at Clay Paky, observed: "We've exhibited here for at least 25 years and it's still the best show, it's the one people recognise. Fantastic." Clay Paky was also a recipient of one of the PLASA Awards for Innovation for their new beamlight, the Sharpy.
Brett Downing, sales and marketing manager at TOA Europe, said: "The PLASA Show has significantly improved as a trade show in terms of offering solutions for the fixed installation businesses. I'm really pleased with it and to be exhibiting here alongside Trantec."
His counterpart at Trantec, Mark Parkhouse, noted: "There's been an increase in visitors and the quality of leads we obtained is excellent."
Allen & Heath's David Kirk said: "We haven't stopped; it's been very, very busy for us and there's been huge interest in the products, particularly the I-Live digital mixing system."
Nick Wheeler of Christie said: "The PLASA Show is the biggest AV show in the UK and it's a unique opportunity to see all of our UK partners. We also get a lot of people coming from around Europe and from as far away as Russia and South Africa."
Larry Beck, PR coordinator at Martin Professional, went further, saying: "It's a no-brainer: it's the international exhibition of the industry. Our first ever exhibition was here many years ago and it's still one of the most important exhibitions. It's very international and we bring together 100 distributors from around the world for a distributor conference. PLASA is a very well-respected organisation in the industry and sets the standard in the industry across a lot of levels, so this is really the show to be at."
Alex Cooper, director of console development at Midas / Klark Teknik commented: "It's obviously the place you have to exhibit, and there's a great buzz this year. It was very, very busy yesterday and it's been very, very busy today."
David Webster, marketing director at DiGiCo, said: "It's like a family: everybody comes together and it's big but not overwhelming and that's what makes everybody want to come to it."
Karl Christmas, deputy general manager at Yamaha, said: "From Yamaha's point of view, for professional touring sound, the Show is one of the key shows for Europe. We see visitors from all over Europe, the far East and other far-flung places, so when we've got important things to say the PLASA Show is one of the places we always look to launch products at."
Tony Andrews, founder of Funktion
