LAS VEGAS — ESTA announced the winners of its first annual Rock Our World Awards and the Frank Stewart Volunteer of the Year Award during ESTA’s Annual Dinner on Oct. 23. The association also announced the winners of its first annual Members’ Choice awards on Oct. 25. The ESTA Rock Our World awards recognize ESTA members for innovative products, product applications or projects. Over 30 potential award winners were nominated, and a panel of judges, including Rick Baxter, Ken Billington, Cory Fitzgerald, Elaine J. McCarthy, Rocky Paulson, and Bruce Rodgers and chaired by Mike Wood, trimmed that list down to nine finalists and three winners.
The Rock Our World winners include: The Carallon Limited for the Pharos LPC X, as used in the “Cloud” sculpture in Heathrow Terminal Five, Element Labs, Inc. for the Versa RAY Screen as used at the 15th Asian Games in Doha, Qatar and Pyrotek Special Effects Inc. for its Aqua Visual FX water screen.
ESTA presented its 2008 Frank Stewart Volunteer Award to the ESTA Membership Committee and to the Behind the Scenes Application for Assistance Review Committee.
ESTA president Bill Groener commended the Membership Committee for recruiting 88 new members within the past year. Bob Luther, Fred Mikeska, Dinna Myers, Eddie Raymond, David Taylor, Steven Way and Richard Wolpert received the award recognizing their outstanding volunteerism.
Eddie Raymond of IATSE Local 16 and a previous recipient for his work on ETCP presented the award to the Behind the Scenes Application for Assistance Review Committee. But due to the nature of their work, the identities of the volunteers on this committee needed to remain confidential.
ESTA’s first annual Members’ Choice Awards were presented to makers of entertainment technology products in three categories: Expendable, Widget and Equipment.
In the Expendable category, the winner was the BTH Lamp from Osram Sylvania. The Widget Category resulted in a tie between the Lex 3 Phase 3Fer from Lex Products and the Gel Swatch Library for iPhone from Wybron, Inc. The winning product in the Equipment category was the Firefly Energy Series 5 Channel LED Illuminated Cable Protector from Firefly, a division of Industry Advanced Technologies, Inc.
For more information, please visit www.esta.org.
