PLASA is back at London's transformed Olympia venue, which has a new theatre and restaurant options. One of the coolest things on the show floor at this year's PLASA is an update to the claw grabber arcade game—only instead of cuddly toys, the participants use tokens to try to win a £1,000 rental voucher from White Light.
For the person lucky enough to win the Golden Hire ticket, if they are touring in Europe they might want to check that all the gear is Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) compliant. That's the advice of Wayne Howell of Singularity (UK) and Roland Hemming of RH Consulting, who led a seminar on the upcoming European Union legislation designed to harden technology against cyberterrorism. More from their session on how the new legislation will impact manufacturers in the industry later, but there is a general explanation here of the legislation which comes into force in December 2027.
Other sessions included using AI in a creative industry by JoJo Tillmann, founder and lighting designer, ZentrumNeueLichtkultur (ZNL). It was an interesting talk on ways to head off AI from directing design work, while still taking advantage of it as a tool. Just one example of this is the TSCHEMBOTi, an AI tool that translates natural language into cue commands for MagicQ/Chamsys consoles, which he created. There was also a walk down memory lane for the creators of the first moving lights, with Jim Bornhorst, Tom Litrell, and Brooks Taylor formerly of Vari-Lite, with lighting designer and writer Rob Halliday moderating the discussion. On the opposite side of the hall, the Classic Gear Live exhibit held some of the gear discussed, along with vintage audio and other lighting fixtures and control.
For party people at the show, the Robe booth supplied regular live performances with a sci-fi brass band, and for people who prefer to chill out, there was a session on mushrooms for health and wellness.
A highlight of day two of the expo came from British lighting control manufacturer, Avolites, which has been celebrating its 50th anniversary all year with an Ambassador Program and a competition to win a golden console-that's a 24-carat gold-plated D3-010 console, not a secondhand spray painted one. It was pretty impressive to look at at the booth, and the winner, Peyre Emmanuel of Spain, will be well pleased.
Josef Valchar, CEO of Robe lighting, chose the winning name, but the names were not random. Out of more than 850 participants in the competition, only 49 made it to the final stage by collecting Golden Tokens awarded for attending official Avo50 events, completing in-person or online Avolites Academy training, and posting on social media using the #Avo50 hashtag. Only true Avolites aficionados stood a chance, but then, when you are celebrating a birthday, you want your true friends around you!
