Koba 2011 opens to steady start
Published: ASIA
KOREA: Large numbers of students and a steady flow of trade visitors greeted the first morning of Koba 2011 on Tuesday, with a noticeable difference in visitor numbers between the show’s crowded and 3D-heavy video hall and the less busy audio section.
Currently taking place at Seoul’s Coex exhibition centre, Koba is Korea’s largest broadcast-based show, though it is also popular with the broader audio fraternity. All of the country’s key audio distributors are present with substantial booths on the show floor, mostly gathered into Hall C, while a wealth of global brands are on display. However, day one of the exhibition saw more visitors flood into the video-heavy Hall D.
Nevertheless, many audio exhibitors still declared themselves pleased with the opening day’s performance, including Klotz, whose Kamal Mahtani was meeting customers on the sprawling booth of distributor Kevic.
‘To be honest the show seems a little quiet,’ he observed. ‘But what I like about it is that we are seeing students streaming down the aisles which is good I think because these are the guys who are going to be setting the standards in the near future.’
Mr Mahtani added his delight regarding the Kevic booth, which is home to brands including Electro-Voice, Clair Bros, myMix and more, with each system rigged with Kotz cabling. ‘It’s good to see a lot of enthusiasm here – it shows confidence in the market. I think things can only go up.’
Elsewhere, James Bradley of DiGiCO was at the show to support his local distributor, Soundus, and he was feeling positive about Koba. ‘Day one has been very good,’ he enthused. ‘Soundus have put us on a very good booth here, we’ve got all of the products and they are being very well displayed.’ Included in that display was the new SD11 small format mixer alongside the more established SD range models. The large Soundus booth (one of two at the show, with the other concentrating on K-Array) also included a special private area for console demonstrations.
‘We’ve got all the products here in the SD range so that people can come in and spend some time with the sales guys and get hands on,’ Mr Bradley continued. ‘Previously they often thought that DiGICo was very high end, but now they have a good introduction in the SD11 and SD9, and it brings people along to talk to us.’
Meanwhile, Riedel was located in the centre of the video hall and benefitting from the higher footfall. ‘It’s been pretty busy for day one,’ reported Joe Tan. ‘We’ve had a couple of potential new customers and some existing users. They’ve been looking at the Mediornet concept – this time we’ve bought in two Mediornet frames together with Rocknet and the new commentary unit. We’ve linked everything together and we’re promoting Riedel as a backbone solutions provider rather than an intercom provider. It’s a big difference and people like the concept of integrating everything into one solution. It’s the future.’
Asked about the difference in numbers between the two halls, Mr Tan added: ‘People come to the video hall because this is where the action usually happens. You can see a lot of big players here.’
Koba 2011 is continuing at the Coex centre in Seoul until Friday June 17th.