I love when people raise the bar, and a lot of that was done this year. It has become quite evident that discharge bulbs are quickly going the way of fossil fuels. Only the old folks will still think there’s money to be made in these things. Heck, one look at the LED Engin series of light sources that Osram has shows us how committed manufacturers have become.
I’m keeping one eyebrow raised at full as I watch where the Elation Artiste DaVinci is going. I think it’s to the top. Their light source technology just may be the most innovative of any moving light out there in 2017, as they somehow combine Laser Phosphor technology with LED to make a white light source engine with a high CRI. While this fixture is a mid-range model, we should watch this technology leader closely. Mind you, everyone manufacturing projectors has recently switched over to laser phosphor technology. The other thing that Elation is excelling at is optics. One look at the light output from their new Dartz (an LED Beam fixture), and you can see they are really on to something.
If we were to pick one product that I think is touching on ground breaking technology, we’d pick a company called disguise. “Who’s that?” you say. That’s the new name adopted by the former d3 Technologies. They displayed some revolutionary real-time projection mapping technology that rendered images perfectly on a model car, moving around in space on a robotic arm, all synced up with a video wall playing content behind it. This new stuff is all beta now, but it sure appeared flawless in execution to everyone who saw this show. (For our chat with disguise’s Ash Nehru, turn to page 69.
It’s hard to get excited about lighting consoles, as the market seems to be dwindling. People have been asking for a new Vista for some time. Martin consoles were not represented much at their booth. I’m just thankful for the LightShark from Work Pro. Their range of lighting consoles offers eight universes of DMX that can be controlled through a wireless, web based control User Interface from any smart device. And ChamSys was on hand with their new Stadium console that offers some neat tricks for fanning beams.
Lasers Galore
Three hundred lasers in use at one time. Holy beamage! While it was certainly overkill by ER Productions, there’s no denying them a Guinness World Record for the largest laser show ever. At their room, I viewed their whole line of Kinektic parallel laser beam strips that can easily ride in a truss. Pretty nifty stuff.
The Robe booth was done very theatrically, as is their forté. A choreographed mirror ball man performed under the new Robe MegaPointes as well as other new fixtures for a great demo. It’s close to impossible to get in their booth with the masses that watched every show, but it was worth the wait as the cold beer was well received by afternoon.
GLP is always on their game, with an incredible booth that showed off their latest technology. The JDC1 strobe was introduced to the masses as well as a large fan with three zones of LED built into it. Noted kudos to neighbor Cosmic Truss for assembling a giant snowman and other winter themed articles from truss.
One of the busiest booths I saw was the VER one. People packed their area to check out all the previz work that had been done for the iHeartRadio show recently. They also showed off their own automation department, moving trusses overhead.
Then of course there’s the Blizzard/ModTruss booth, which once again nabbed the best both award for their amazing structure. Year after year these guys knock it out of the park. They had a giant video game of 3D Q*bert set up with their IRiS R3 video panels mounted in Mod truss. The G-Mix 200 was a big hit as well.
The idea of folks reclining in gaming chairs and looking upwards into the light show that Cory FitzGerald and Jason Baeri did for Ayrton/Morpheus was pretty doggone cool and original. And who would have thought that Ayrton would come out with their own line of normal hard-edge and wash light yoke fixtures? Yet they did.
I’ve been a fan lately of fixtures that have multiple light sources that are different. So naturally I got a kick out of playing with the new Pyxis fixture that Chauvet put out — 150 channels of bliss. Their line of Ovation conventional fixtures is really sweet as well.
The ADJ booth was a fun place to stop in. Loved all the par 64 LEDs as well as the whole line of Vizi products. Strength in numbers was the prevalent theme, and I loved the look.
ETC ColorSource Cyc. Such a compact footprint, so stealth looking, so colorful. I look forward to getting my hands on one of these to play with and test out personally.
Next year’s LDI will take place in October, instead of November — with the show floor open from Oct. 19-21, 2018. But rest up everyone, because it’s back in Vegas again next year.
For the full PLSN LDI 2017 Show Report, go to http://plsn.com/wp/current-issue/79-features/24508
For Nook’s video introduction to the Dec. 2017 issue, go to www.plsn.me/201712ednote
