Pro Light & Sound 2014 day one report
Published: ASIA
WORLD: Pro Light & Sound 2014 has opened its doors at the Frankfurt Messe, with a wealth of high profile product launches having already taken place. Though the aisles were unusually quiet on the exhibition’s first morning, hundreds of visitors crowded around the large Yamaha booth for the arrival of the new QL Series consoles, comprising the QL5 and QL1. Equally busy was Powersoft’s reveal of its new X Series amplifiers, while StageTec unveiled the Polaris Evolution console. Elsewhere, the Music Group debuted the Midas Pro X.
While there has already been plenty to see at PL&S, the number of visitors felt subdued as the show began. Nevertheless, exhibitors were keen to stress the event’s importance.
‘Frankfurt is always an important show, I think one of the best in the world,’ commented Loud Technologies CEO Mark Graham. ‘We come with lots of new products and a large and energised team. As we saw yesterday in our early distributor meetings, there’s a lot of energy here this year.’
Waring Hayes of XTA and MC2, based on the booth of new German distributor United Brands, agreed: ‘It’s a big one for us this year because of the new, larger booth,’ he explained. ‘So far it’s okay. Numbers may be down a little bit but it’s early days and I think it’s going to be a good show.’ Mr Hayes and his colleagues were also celebrating the 21st anniversary of MC2 with a special competition. ‘We’ve produced a very special limited edition E100 – there are only two in the world – and someone at the show will win it,’ he explained. ‘You can enter from our Facebook page or go straight to the website (www.mc2-audio.co.uk/weare21.html) and you’ve got until Thursday lunchtime to enter. We’ll announce the winner on Thursday evening.’
Elsewhere, Mig Cardamone and Ryan Burr of Sennheiser Middle East were helping to man the large Sennheiser stand, having decided to visit PL&S rather than Cabsat, which is currently taking place in Dubai. ‘We have already seen quite a few people from the Middle East,’ said Mr Cardamone. ‘It’s a great show for us to see existing partners as well as meet new people.’ Mr Burr added: ‘We know that we’ll see a larger percentage of our customer base at this show as opposed to Cabsat’.
Exhibitors were also optimistic for the remaining days. ‘It’s a very good show and not only for the live sound market – I think it has expanded and is also good for broadcast,’ commented David Chan of Stagetec Asia. ‘I haven’t seen many Asian visitors yet but it is just the beginning and I believe that there will be more tomorrow.’
Indeed, Mick Anderson of Coda Audio – launching the TiRAY line array – attributed the slow start in attendance to the high cost of visiting Frankfurt itself, most notably the hotels. ‘Trade shows are wonderful things and still very much needed, but attendees need to find a way to adjust their expenditure in line with what’s going on in the world,’ he reasoned. ‘The world is still a difficult place financially so if you fly in on the morning of day one then you save yourself a night’s hotel and the cost of food and drink that goes with it. We understand that and it’s why this morning has been quieter. We have guests coming from as far afield as Indonesia and China and they all arrived this morning.’