EXPO 141
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China is certainly a large enough country, both geographically and economically, to be able to accommodate a number of trade shows for the entertainment technol- ogy market, both for its domestic market and to also enable the large number of buyers that use Chinese manufactured product a regular visit to be updated on developments. There were three main players, all in different locations - Palm Beijing by far and above the most established and successful - with a good mix of domestic manufacturers and of Chinese distribution companies who handle western manufactured equipment. Prolight + Sound Shanghai, an offshoot of its Frankfurt cousin, is a good event, much smaller than Palm, but still attracts a significant amount of Chinese manufacturers, though majors on the MI sector. And then there was Guangzhou Sound & Light, this year’s event was celebrating its 10th year and is starting to make a mark on the travelling circuit of the international buyers, as it was in the Guangdong Province home of most of the light, sound and video manufacturers. However, last year there was a disagreement between the organisers and the manufacturers association SCEE (Industry Association of China Entertainment Equipment) which led to its members splitting and establishing their own show - GET, Guangzhou Entertainment Technology. Last year The GET Show ran a couple of weeks after Guangzhou S&L, but this year the events overlapped and it is inevitable you have to compare them and obviously ponder the idea - wouldn’t it be better for the visitor if they were one show? The two shows were both in the area of the Pazhou Exhibition complex, Guang- zhou S&L actually in the exhibition halls itself and taking up nine halls, five for pro audio, two for lighting and two for musical instruments. The GET Show was in another exhibition space called the Poly World Trade Centre. Visitor and exhibi- tor statistics for the Guangzhou S&L exhibition come in with 43,257 attendees, a claimed 20% increase on the previous year, seeing 1085 exhibitors, which split into 757 pro audio and lighting and 328 MI exhibitors respectively. The show itself was very busy, but reminded me of the Beijing show of 15 years ago, noise levels were just excruciating and if the organisers are to take the event to the next level they really need to get to grips with this issue, it’s just unacceptable these days. Another gripe was the preponderance of hawkers selling a bizarre mix of goods, who if you left your stand for more than five minutes would be set up on it with a table selling their wares. I had to kick them off numerous times and it’s really not what I want to be doing during an exhibition. Where the S&L show majors is in attracting the audio distributors and manufacturers, a notable success for them this year was Behringer who exhibited for the first time, but all the major Chinese
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brands had large stands, whilst most international brands such as Sennheiser were represented by the regional distributor. Visitor and exhibitor statistics for the GET Show weren’t available at time of press, but as it is only in its second year it is fair to say the show was smaller in both. However, the difference in exhibitors was marked as GET had what I would call the more internationally established and professional manufacturers, though this was mainly made up lighting manufacturers. Audio at the show was definitely in the minority. The show certainly looked more professional with big good looking stands. I believe the rate for exhibition space is lower than at S&L, and obviously companies took advantage of this to increase the size of their stands. Most of the major lighting manufacturers were here including PR Lighting, Golden Sea, Silver Star, Acme, Omarte and Fineart. Interestingly, The GET Show was offering free hotel accommodation if visiting the event, certainly an incentive to go. Compared to last year the two shows running in conjunction certainly helped each other, with visitors to S&L taking advantage of the short stroll over to GET. Though it was apparent not everyone was yet aware of the event. Both shows had visitors from around China and just the surrounding area and there was also a good inter- national attendance with visitors from all over the world. Once again the attraction of the show being in Guangzhou is the ability to visit manufacturers’ facilities. There are many examples of exhibitions having a breakaway faction and setting up their own exhibition, this usually results in there being two weak exhibitions that actually don’t satisfy the visitor requirements. I don’t think this will be the case with both Guangzhou S&L or The GET if they continue to run at the same time, but as in 2011 - when there was two weeks between them - it had a direct affect on both of them. It confuses the visitor as to which to go to and ultimately probably leads them to go to neither. Obviously in an ideal world they’d either come back together or continue to run alongside each other, and if they really wanted to make them both a must visit exhibition they could try and run alongside the LED show that runs around the same time, though the size of that may leave the Pazhou exhibition complex without enough space to handle all the exhibitions. Finally, a dilemma that has been puzzling me recently during Chinese exhibitions - when do you think that the number of remote control helicopters in China will sur- pass the population? I’m sure it’s not far off.
The GET Show will return on 3-6 March 2013. The date for Guangzhou Sound & Light 2013 is to be confirmed. For more information go to:
www.getshow.com.cn /
www.soundlight.cn
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