Koba 2012 debuts dedicated audio hall
Published: ASIA
KOREA: Seoul’s Coex Exhibition Centre saw Koba 2012 open on May 29th with the addition of a new hall dedicated to professional audio products. The change in format represents a 25 per cent increase in size over last year’s exhibition as well as a break from Koba’s roots as a broadcast show.
While the two video-heavy broadcast halls remain strong, show organiser Korea E & Ex Inc has now delivered a city-central showcase for the live sound and recording industries.
The new hall is located near the entrance to Coex whilst the broadcast halls are on level two, a deliberate configuration intended to encourage traffic into the audio-heavy area. The strategy appears to have worked – though the opening hours of the exhibition saw relatively quiet aisles, visitor numbers soon rose to make for a busy afternoon in all of the three halls.
‘It’s been very positive so far,’ observed Ian Wright of HH Electronics, exhibiting on the Audio Works booth. ‘The number of dealers we expected is up on what our distributor anticipated. There’s a lot of activity down here – a good number of people.’
‘I think it has been a good show so far this year,’ enthused Powersoft’s Arthur Soh. ‘I’m pleased with the visitor numbers. In general it’s growing – the whole market is getting a very positive response.’
Luca Giorgi of Powersoft, visiting the exhibition for just one day before flying to Mumbai to attend Palm India, agreed, reasoning: ‘I think the show being split is a way to avoid having too many people passing by who aren’t interested in your products.’ He added that his brief trip was intended to highlight the work being done in Korea by Powersoft distributor Midi & Graphics Co Ltd. ‘I wanted to reassure them that the whole of Powersoft has great respect for the work they have done,’ he explained.
Elsewhere, Avix Tech was exhibiting the Behringer X-32 small-format digital console for the first time in Korea, and Tom Jung was delighted with the change in format for the exhibition, commenting: ‘I’m really happy that the show is divided between broadcasting and audio, I really like it.’ He added, however, that it was too early to ‘say if the visitor numbers would be affected'.
Finally, Soundus CEO Kwon Jung Sub declared the exhibition ‘very exciting. On the first day there were so many customers coming in, and we expect that we will see many more. This year’s Koba is very good’.
Koba 2012 is continuing until Friday June 1st.