At the entrance to New Dock Hall, Martin Professional is displaying its new VDO Sceptron indoor/outdoor LED strips, which come with a choice of diffusers, the 6mm Fenix panel video and Rush 650 and 850 smoke products. Also on show are the Quantum Wash and Quantum Profile, launched last year, as well as the Aura XB, which has 50 per cent more output than the standard Aura, plus extended colour mode.
"Out of all the shows we exhibit at, this is where you can spend proper time talking to people, so we've brought representative selection of our new and current ranges," says the company's UK sales director Michael Walker.
"PLASA Focus allows us to get in touch with our customers from the north of England and Scotland, but it's so good we've even had customers coming up from Bristol."
In the Royal Armouries Hall, newly appointed Turbosound UK distributor Electrovision is showing the new Turbosound IQ for the first time. Nick Bellis of Music Group explains, "This the first showing for IQ in UK for this small, compact, lightweight system that is fully networkable with our Midas and Beringer ranges of desks."
Ampetronic debuts its new Help Point integration product. "This is a bare circuit board, which can be used inside another housing, or as a sign panel which houses the board with an induction loop round the outside - ideal for retrofit onto a door entry panel, so you can add loop capability without having to get inside the box itself," explains James Bottrill, Technical Sales engineer for Ampetronic. "We're also previewing the forthcoming launch of our LoopWorks App, a customer interaction suite that makes life easier for our customers from specification and design thought to test and measurement of system. It's a really neat toy and replaces current standalone meters."
Other highlights include Outboard's new chain hoist control system that can handle eight to 64 channels of motor control, Funktion One's Evo 6E loudspeaker and SB 210A self powered bass with three channel amp, and RCF's TTL6 line source active speaker system and TT22-A MkII for the theatre market.
"This is the first opportunity to show our new systems in the UK," says RCF's Phil Price. "A lot of our customers come to PLASA Focus, even from the south, and it's a great meet and greet event."
"We see a lot of people we don't normally get to see in Leeds," concurs Outboard's Robin Whitaker. "For example, AC Entertainment Technology is one of our largest customers and their rigging department is based in Leeds, so this is the ideal place to show them our new system."
Funktion One's Bill Woods adds, "We're exhibiting here for the first time. I've seen people that I haven't seen for many years who we're not currently selling to. The format works very well and Leeds is a city that people want to come to."
"The show is packed, welcoming more than 1,000 people through the door this morning," says Christopher Toulmin, director of events division at PLASA. "Both exhibitors and visitors have reported that they're very happy and we're looking forward to an equally successful second day."
(Jim Evans)
