For more than 20 years, the PLASA Show has called London’s Earls Court home. Sadly, 2012 is the last year the show will take place in the legendary hall — PLASA 2013 moves to London’s ExCel Oct. 6-9. With more than a 125-year heritage filled with history, stories and shows, Earls Court is closing and being demolished to be replaced with 8,000 new apartments, retail stores, and, possibly, a new meeting center.
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That may have created some bittersweet overtones for PLASA 2012, with attendees recalling not just the trade expo but appearances by Pink Floyd, Iron Maiden and Queen. Even so, 2012 PLASA Show proved to be a festive time, and one that featured plenty of new products and technologies.
Seen and Heard
AC Lighting’s sprawling stand featured innovations from a number of manufacturers, including Jands Vista’s new Stage CL console, designed for simple LED fixture control. Across the aisle, Chroma-Q featured the new Studio Force D Phosphor LED and Studio Force D 12 XT fixtures; the latter, a daylight-balance LED flood light, provides more than 15,000 lumens of output.
A number of American companies made the long haul across the pond. Altman was showing off their new Spectra Cube LED fixture. Lycian Stage Lighting had on display a number of their latest Xenon followspots. Prism Projection introduced their latest version of an LED profile fixture, the RevEAL Profile Junior. Philips launched their new Showline range of products, a series of LED strip lights with re-engineered LED engines. Clear-Com showed off their latest in production communication systems, the Tempest 2400, along with new headset designs.
LEDs, and More
At every single trade show in the past four to five years, the talk has always been about LEDs. PLASA 2012 was no exception, with Chromlech introducing a new low-res LED panel, the Elidy, similar to their tungsten fixture. Smoke Factory UK launched their new Kandolite range of LED products.
There were non-LED innovations as well, including the new VectorWing control surface from Compulite and a new version of Green Hippo’s media server that makes 3D mapping easier than ever.
Cutting the DMX cable is becoming more commonplace — and reliable — these days. Lumen Radio demonstrated wireless products in conjunction with their CRMX Unity platform and SuperNova software. Wireless Solution showed the W-DMX G4S software and the new BlackBox MK2. Zero88 demonstrated their line of wireless DMX products, the ZeroWire series.
PLASA 2012 also included advances in rigging and truss systems. Daktronics’ Vortek demoed Classic hoist and Pro Series controller with its three-part cueing capability, and Milos, which now also owns Litec and Tomcat, previewed three versions of its new Mobiltechlift range, due out in January 2013.
Along with the photos and info printed here, you can read and see additional photos and videos about the new products at PLASA on our social networking site, ProLightingSpace.com.
