Greetings from the second day of PLASA. The weather here in London is much improved over the previous rain-soaked days, which is a mixed blessing when you find yourself stuck in Earl's Court for four days. Nevertheless, we forge ahead.
The following is a brief recap of day one's highlights for myself, Marian Sandberg, and Jeff Donnenwerth:
Having not heard anything about attendance; it was a bit slow where we are in Hall 2 of the facility, but that was the case last year early on as well, since it takes a day or so for most of the attendees to file back to our little corner of the show. Curious to see if it picks up today.
We started yesterday morning at the Digico press conference, where they showed off the new SD8, an entry level console which sports a fixed architecture and employs a smaller Super FPGA than the SD7 (and, incidentally, where David Webster is apparently brewing homemade sloe vodka to share with visitors, which thankfully, was not ready in time for the 10:30 am event).
We also met with David Srba and Lenka Satankova of Robe, who showed us the cool new members of the DigitalSpot fixture family, including the 7000 DT and 3000 DT, as well as the new RED fixtures. We also attended their party on Sunday night,, but more on that in a moment.
Zero 88 had a press conference to show off two new consoles geared to the theatre console, the Orb and the Jester TL.. G-Lec was showing it's new cut-to-fit LED product dubbed Chimera, while Clay Paky unveiled its new AGreetings from the second day of PLASA. The weather here in London is much improved over the previous rain-soaked days, which is a mixed blessing when you find yourself stuck in Earl's Court for four days. Nevertheless, we forge ahead.
At the end of the day, we had dinner with designer Willie Williams and PRG's Anne Johnston and Tom Cellner. Willie told us about his current project, a UK tour of comedian Steve Coogan, and hinted at plans for next year's U2 tour, though he wouldn't spill the beans about that, other than joking (or was he?) that it would be his “masterpiece.” (Today is Willie's birthday, so please embarrass him by passing on your good wishes.) Anne talked about the process of getting PRG's two new products, the Bad Boy and the V676 to market; we'll have more on those items after we get the demos.
We ended the night at the Robe party, held at the famed Café de Paris, The hightlight for me were the head and neck massages being offered by trained masseuses, just the thing after a long day on the show floor.
Today, wlll see press conferences from Martin and others; we'll bring you all the news as the week progresses.