PLASA holds firm

News

Andy Wood Sep 13 2007, 3:19pm

Buoyant audio industry looks forward to 2008

The PLASA 07 show, which closed last night at London's Earls Court, once again proved to be a positive indicator for the professional audio industry.

Featuring a new look, one-level, show-floor design taking in both Earls Court 1 and 2, the exhibition celebrated its 30th year in style, with over 12,000 visitors viewing the cream of the crop in audio technology.

As always, the PLASA Awards for technology took centre stage, with beyerdynamic (Headzone 5.1 headphones), and Marquee Audio (Revolabs Solo Executive wireless mic system) picking up the audio related gongs.

The Awards for Innovation were followed by a further special award - the Gottelier Award - introduced this year in memory of the leading designer Tony Gottelier, who died in 2006. Following an open industry nomination process, the Award was presented to British loudspeaker designer Tony Andrews, founder of Turbosound and co-founder of Funktion One.

"It's fitting that in the year when we inaugurate a special award in honour of one of the industry's best-known innovators, there's an abundance of fresh ideas to keep the industry on the cutting edge of technology," stated PLASA head Matthew Griffiths.

Led by Awards for Innovation judging chairman James Eade, this year's judging team comprised Andy Hayles (theatre consultant, Charcoalblue), Andy Voller (lighting designer & programmer), Mike Le Fevre (television lighting director), Roland Hemming (audio consultant), Bryan Grant (Britannia Row), Richard Northwood (audio consultant & installer, COMS UK), Blue Leach (live video director), John Hooker (XL Video), Charlie Kail (staging consultant) and Ron Bonner (PLASA technical resources manager).

Meanwhile, down on the show-floor itself, visitors were treated to a plethora of product launches which included the Roland M-400 V-Mixer digital console, Yamaha TXn amplifiers, the Sabine Mic Rider, the lab.gruppen PLM loudspeaker management system which has been produced in association with Dolby Labs, and the DiGiCo SD7 console concept.

Full details of all these products and the rest of the pro audio highlights from PLASA will appear both on-line and in print with the next issue of audio PRO International, along with a series of cutting-edge technical features explaining the technology behind the new products.