Prolight + Sound

In the end of March I went to Frankfurt to attend to Prolight + Sound, which is one of the most renowned international fairs of event technologies and services.

I've been wanting to visit this annual fair already for couple of years, but somehow I never managed. -Well overdue to update my knowlegdebase on what's cookin' the the industry nowadays.

So better later than never. And this time it was actually pretty close to perfect, since I hooked up with a friend of mine who'd been there already for two days. In addition to having a chance to pass all the latest gossip, he was my brilliant private guite to the selection. No need to hover around the trivial =) Thank you so much, Pikku-Markku!

What is hip and hot and cool today?

I was pleasantly surprised that my knowledge is not so hopelessly out of date as I feared. Nothing really mind-blowing was on display, but it doesn't mean that things haven't progressed.

LED
Today's magic word is LED. The conventional halogen fixtures have completely disappeared from the market. And finally it seems that the LED technology has reached the point where an adequate luminance starts to be a standard. So there is finally something really coming out of those buckets and the beam has even and smooth color-mix without multicolored shadows. Good example of this would be JBLighting with their A8 and A12 moving heads.

One nice invention was presented by ShowLed. This is a fully customizable LED-net which you can for example rig on the backside of a normal truss. If you hang a projection foil on the fronside, the distance of 20-30 centimeters is enough to produce smooth picture with pleasant contours. No dots or other disfigurements of the color / brightness are visible. One possibility to control the images on the net is to use Arkaos or other videoDJ-program as source. Veeeeery nice.

I was looking for simple LED-Pars, but they also seem to have vanished from the smörgåsbord of more convincing manufacturers. That I found bit strange, but I guess one can include the movement option to the gadgets nowadays without major extra cost, so why not do so.

Widescreen video image showcased as "split screen" by ShowLed

Also LED "mirrorball" is available today. Artmos.

Recycling
One of the coolest ideas on the selection was displayed by ADB. Thay have designed this LED module that can be constructed to the body of any of their old luminaires like profile, PC or Fresnell. -It is sort of a ecological idea where you can prolong the lifespan of your old fixtures without having to replace them completely with new technology. Me like.

Another similar idea comes from a company called Seachanger. They produce gadgets that turn an old ETC S4 profile into a dichroic color changing light fixture. Company provides also different kinds of interchangeable bulb-modules in collaboration with another company. So you can really pimp up your old profiles. Aesthetics may suffer a little, since after the work-up the gadget looks more like an odd space weapon, but who cares; "Kattoon ei kukaan kato! (Nobody looks at the ceiling!)" 

Cuties
A bright pink light console Hydra Piccolo by LT-Light with full controls for moving heads. Need I say more???

Pretty in pink

To summarize:
I had a wonderful day in Frankfurt. The mere size of the fairground is mindboggling and I had really enough of beaming, blinking and spinning things in one day to last for a while. It was a godsent to have Pikku-Markku there with me, so I could easily skip all the crap and concentrate on the good stuff. And of that there was plenty too. I have somewhat set my sights on acquiring the MA on PC software with necessary nodes in order to go independant for my touring. -And managed to convince the rental company I'm working for that they should look into the offerings of JBLighting when planning future purchases =)

It was also great to meet so surprisingly many friends and colleagues from Finland during that one day!