PeoplewatchEvent reports


PLASA 2017 has its eye on innovation


After many years of attending, filming and reporting on PLASA, 2017 was the first year that AV News went the extra mile and signed up as a media sponsor for the event – and guess what? We picked a good one.


The PLASA Show 2017 opened the doors of its Olympia venue with a celebratory mood in the air for its 40th show. With Robe once again Platinum sponsor, Chauvet Professional Gold Sponsor, Infinity Silver Sponsor and Hawthorn Technical Spon- sor, there were over 200 brands represented on the show floor, displaying the latest pro au- dio, lighting, effects, AV, stag- ing and rigging technology. An enhanced seminar programme saw more than 100 industry experts giving key-note talks, live demos, interactive work- shops and panel discussions, plus a new Fast Track Theatre featuring additional, bite-sized sessions.


“Prior to the show starting, there was a real sense of antic- ipation,” said PLASA managing director Peter Heath. “There’s already a relaxed and busi- ness-like feel to the exhibition and whether it’s your first PLA- SA or your 40th, there’s some- thing here for you.”


Product highlights


Despite its awkward timing in the product introduction cal- endar, the PLASA Show seems to be back on the trade show map as a launch pad for new products. Harman showed its new Vi1000 digital mixing con-


sole, alongside UK distributor Sound Technology Ltd, KV2 is launched its new VHD2.18J, a direct


radiating bass-reflex


loudspeaker containing two 18” high performance trans- ducers, and Adamson is show- ing its new IS-Series of loud- speakers.


New offerings in lighting include Robe’s MegaPointe multi-purpose moving light, City Theatrical’s new DMXcat controller, three new light- ing essentials from CLF - the Yara, Ares XS and LEDwash XL - and the Maverik MK2 Profile is on display on the Chauvet Professional stand. High End Systems launched its new So- laFrame 750 automated lumi- naire, Artistic Licence deliv- ered an electrifying experience with its new DMX-Protect, and Elation Professional introduced two new products - the Artiste Dali, a full-featured moving head with state-of-the-art LED / Laser Phosphor light engine and the new Dartz 360, a full colour-mixing LED beam/spot fixture with gobos and effects. ETC made its tradeshow de- but of the recently launched Ion Xe lighting desks and the soon-to-be released Color- Source Cyc fixture. Eaton ex- panded its award-winning Zero 88 FLX range with two pow- erful, all-new lighting control


consoles, the new FLX S24 and FLX S48 on show.


UK distributor Ambersphere also made the most of this year’s PLASA with the world debut of the Ghibli from Ayr- ton, celebrating its 15th anni- versary, two new fixtures from Clay Paky – the Axcor Profile 900 and the K-EYE HCR – plus the Oz and the Alice from Rob- ert Juliat.


Seminar highlights


Highlights of the Day One sem- inar programme - in the Audio & AV Theatre - included one of the UK’s premier installation companies for church audio-vi- sual projects, SFL Group, host- ed ‘Designing audio systems for churches; why is it so dif- ficult?’. Sound designers Ga- reth Fry and Pete Malkin talk- ed about their work to build a shifting world of sound on The Encounter, Simon McBurney’s solo performance at The Bar- bican, which traces National Geographic photographer Lo- ren McIntyre's journey into the depths of the Amazon rainfor- est.


For those with a bent towards Lighting, Staging and Rigging, Rockart Design’s Nicoline Refs- ing, celebrated for her person- al work on Eurovision, hosted Bringing the Rock n Roll expe-


IBC 2017: different realities


IBC2017 reports record visitor numbers in its 50th year. AV News attended to monitor developments in future technologies, from VR to robots, and we weren’t disappointed.


In its 50th anniversary, IBC2017 has confirmed a year-on-year


increase in visi-


tor numbers, marking a record attendance of 57,669 across the six day event. Visitors from across the expanding media ecosystem had the opportunity to learn about the opportunities offered by technologies - in- cluding social media TV, OTT, VR, AR, Cloud, IP, Bots and 5G - and to meet the most intelli- gent robots.


Visitors to the 15 exhibition halls witnessed many exciting new launches; Launch Pad grew year-on-year with a re- cord number of exhibitors; the Future Reality Theatre and Content Everywhere Hub free programmes were packed with diverse and new exciting con- tent, embracing the transfor- mation.


Conference delegates packed the Forum to hear from leading experts from Facebook, Google, CNN, HTC Viveport, Dolby, C4 and ITV to discuss and debate the hot topics challenging the industry with a focus on media convergence and global trans- formation. IBC created some excitement with the robots So-


phia and Professor Einstein, the expressive, intelligent and exceptionally humanlike ro- bots designed and created by Hanson Robotics Founder and Chief Executive, Dr David Han- son, Ph.D. Sophia responded to questions verbally and with complex facial expressions during the fascinating keynote session that covered both the technology and the ethics be- hind the advancement of robot- ics.


AR, MR and VR


But it was the fast-emerging technologies of AR, MR and VR that really attracted us – and, in particular, technologies that support shared alternative re- ality experiences. VR pioneers Igloo Vision explain the current dilemma facing head set-based VR experiences: “Right


now, virtual technology reality


(VR) is being championed by an unlikely alliance of start- ups,


giants and


media companies. Goldman Sachs estimates that, by 2025, the global market could be worth as much as $182 billion. With so much attention being


lavished on VR, companies ev- erywhere are looking at how to put the technology to work in their own businesses – perhaps to reach out to consumers, or engage with employees, or im- prove processes.!


“But, in doing so, many are coming across an intractable issue:


namely, the inherent limitations of VR headsets. If you have tried a high-end head- set, like the Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive, you will know that they deliver a great sensory ex- perience. But, it does tend to be a solitary experience. For all too many of us, it can also be an uncomfortable experience. And, together, these challenges prevent many companies from getting the maximum benefit from their VR content.”


Collaborative VR


Igloo Vision argues that what’s needed is a form of collabo- rative VR. For example: many companies want to use VR to bring their ideas and concepts to life.


opment, gauge their response, identify


their concerns, discuss solutions. and But, to do


so, they will generally need to make and read eye contact, and watch out for body lan- guage – which is not really pos- sible in a headset.


Or take, as another example, Corporate events. By their na- ture, corporate events need to be shared experiences.


Ir-


respective of whether it is an experiential marketing event, an employee engagement event or a hospitality event, the whole idea is for people to come to- gether and interact – and head- sets just get in the way.


Delivering shared-VR


For example, an engi- neering company may want to take nearby residents on a virtual tour of a planned devel-


So what’s the alternative? Igloo Vision is looking at the poten- tial of 360° immersive projec- tion environments – which are becoming available in several different shapes and sizes, and at many different price-points. For events, large-scale projec- tion domes can accommodate hundreds of people. For small- er groups and training scenari- os, smaller domes or cylinders will generally fit the bill.


For collaborative teamwork, meetings and content creation, a projection room will be more than sufficient. In truth, it is seldom a stark choice between headsets and immersive envi- ronments. More and more of- ten, they are used in parallel, with companies aiming to get the best results from each me- dium. For example, even the highest-spec immersive envi- ronment could never match the ‘immersivity’ of a full-on Oculus-type experience. But the flip side is that a headset is not conducive to collaboration, consultation and shared expe- riences. There are definite synergies between the two. It helps that, with a common game engine like Unity, content created for VR systems like the Oculus can be ported directly into some


More information


For more information, you can find Igloo Vison’s white paper “Looking beyond VR headsets with shared VR” here: https:// www.dropbox.com/s/6tyj4qr022h759s/Igloo%20shared%20 VR%20white%20paper%20.pdf?dl=0


immersive projection systems. And tracking systems for sin- gle-user VR applications (to move through a 3D model and change the point-of-view), can generally be adapted for use in projection environments. So, the bottom line is this: when it is OK to use VR is to engage people singly and indi- vidually, there is no better way to do it than with the new gen- eration of VR headsets. But, if you are looking for a shared or collective response, then you need to look beyond the lim- itations of headsets, and make use of other delivery mecha- nisms – like immersive projec- tion environments.


The PLASA Show 2017 opened the doors of its Olympia venue with a celebratory mood in the air for its 40th show.


rience to live events, where she explored how high-end brands want to adopt more dramat- ic and immersive story telling techniques into


their events,


In Playing with the Edge of the Light: Bringing puppetry to life at Little Angel Theatre Da- vid Duffy, head of production at Polka Theatre, discussed the challenges and rewards of lighting puppetry,


Video impressions


The consensus among partici- pants was that this was a good PLASA. If you couldn’t attend, videographer Oliver Atkinson captured his impressions of the shoe for AV News, which you can see at: https://www. youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_ id=ZwQjMtUM5g4


Other participants reflected:


“We’ve been exhibiting at PLA- SA for around 10 years and have built our stand as an audio village. We feature a selection of the manufacturers we work closely with and they all bring their latest technology to the show,” says SSE managing di- rector John Penn. “By sharing a big space and resources, we can display a good cross sec- tion of products. We show both competing and complementary technologies, allowing our cus- tomers to see the differences between them and no one feels they’re getting the hard sell. It works very well.”


“As well as product, we offer knowledge,” adds Autograph’s Duncan Bell. “People want to come to us because we have the people who know how to


make things work and who can fix them when they go wrong, which makes our driver a philo- sophical solution.” Finally, PLASA managing di- rector Peter Heath concluded: “We’re continuing to cover ev- ery aspect of the industry on the show floor and in our sem- inar programme, where we’ve covered a lot of the industry hot topics. The initiatives we’ve put in place, such as the Au- dio demo room and the Product training theatre, are proving to be successful and the feedback from exhibitors and visitors has been very positive.”


AV News October 2017 P21


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