022 INTERVIEW


we grew strong with the European side of the world. Thank goodness for having that family background.” The inference then was that the Bank of Dad had funded the venture. But not a bit of it. In fact Con wasn’t bankrolled for a cent, but instead his father introduced him to the family bank manager. “He asked ‘how much do you want?’ And I said ‘10,000 dollars for a container.’” Using the proceeds from the sale of Audio World to set up the importation company ULA, he set off on the journey which would change his life - arriving in Nashville in the Autumn of 1989 to attend the LDI Show. From there he headed to SIB in Rimini and felt he had discovered his Shangri-La, his days of booking out DJs for a living consigned to the past. “Those were the best days - especially Rimini, which was like a family,” he states, speaking for many of us. Biviano may have been young but he had the swagger and confidence, and although Australia was hardly seen as a mainstream territory the global community welcomed him into their midst. As a result, ULA were soon representing major ‘disco’ companies such as Citronic. Over the years, ULA has carried out many pioneering nightclub productions, as well as providing full production for Australia’s burgeoning festival season. The onset of the new millennium had seen the new-look ULA move into its new purpose-built 12,000 sq ft headquarters on The Gold Coast, where they had first relocated in 1992. This strategic move to Australia’s leading tourist resort made perfect business sense, as it had given them access to theme parks and film sets such as Sea World and Movie World. This in turn brought the need for stronger customer support through training seminars, workshops and training rooms, with support from their satellite bases in Melbourne and Sydney. But while Australasia has had less exposure to the economic meltdown than most countries, Con could nevertheless sense that investment was drying up. The club scene in particular evaporated almost overnight. It was time for a step change. ULA had been an early adopter of LED lights - having worked closely with Steve


“We’ve seen a massive growth in interest in architectural lighting and LED lighting across all areas, from the home to the workplace - it has transformed the lighting industry over the last five years.”


Watts at Abstract / AVR - but they needed their own production. It was through one of their distributed lines, Italian company, Sagitter, that Con Biviano first met Robe Director Josef Valchar. Sagitter were one of several brands manufactured by the Czech company, but forced by market changes, Robe launched the company under its own brand at the 2002 SIB Show in Rimini. ULA started working with Robe almost from the get-go and Con Biviano thought they would make the perfect partner for the new venture he had in mind, initiating discussions about a dedicated LED company at the 2004 PLASA Show in London (the talks concluded on the porch of Josef Valchar’s house the same month). “We went to dinner with him and his partner [Ladislav Petrek] and they said OK.” Con was aware that different rules of engagement would apply to the specifier / consultant market. “I knew that with architectural lighting I would be entering a world where accuracy and precision needed to be 100% because we would be getting into wall washing on a major scale. In the club market you can get away with a lot more. “Anolis had to be very ‘clean’ and it was important to have Robe on board. They were doing high volume manufacturing and we were confident we could put in hundreds of fittings, knowing the colour temperature would be even. Similarly, we were also aware how important colour matching is. It can be difficult to match LED fixtures from different batches - but we make sure that every time we bring out additional pieces it forms a functional match with the previous one.” By February 2005 they were ready to put theory into practice and unveil ‘Anolis’ (the Latin word for a colour-changing chameleon, and - with a piece of phonetic genius - pronounced like ‘analyst’). They carried out a successful launch at the ARC Show in London, with former AVR stalwart John Saunders heading up the operation in the UK. Globally, this was the future-proofing he had so badly sought, as LED technology is unlikely to be superseded anytime soon. “We’ve seen a massive growth in interest in architectural lighting and LED lighting across all areas, from the


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