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Trade Show Tips

Nimlok Displays' design for Aclara

Trade Show Tips

Are you a good exhibitionist? Let’s try a little word association game. What thought comes immediately to mind when you see the words “trade show”? “Yippee!” or “Jeez, not again?” “A controlled strategic tool” or “royal pain in the hindquarters?” “Party time!” or “Expensive headache?”

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Freestyle Productions provided this video wall made from Daktronics 12mm LED panels for the 12-day Minneapolis State Fair.

Working the Fair Circuit

Throughout my career, I doubt I’ve ever met anyone who never worked a show at a fairgrounds. In fact, I know some acts who make the majority of their annual revenue playing sets at these venues. The same applies for vendors. Last summer alone, I played four different Midwest state fairs and used different light rigs from TMS, the lighting vendor out of Omaha, all within two weeks time. Every gig is different, and the only thing I expect from these venues these days is…the unexpected.

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LED vs Projection for Corporate Events, from blog posting by Upstage Video

Company Blog Poses Question for Corporate Event Video: LED or Projection?

POTTSTOWN, PA — Although the decision on “LED vs. Projection” for corporate events has always been influenced by what video gear is available, and at what cost, a proliferation of lower-cost, higher-resolution LED video options may be shifting the debate somewhat. While acknowledging that his company “mainly focuses on LED displays,” and that he “may be biased towards LED,” Upstage Video owner Doug Murray invited two other rental and staging industry professionals, Scott Williams from Quince Imaging and Brian Brooks from MB Video Productions, for their potentially contrasting views.

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Le Maitre to Debut New Smoke and Flame Machines at LDI 2015

Le Maitre will be unveiling two new Special Effects technologies at this year’s LDI, Booth 455. Le Maitre’s G300-SMART is a professional smoke machine, designed with the future in mind. This new machine features IoT capability via Wi-Fi, wireless set up and diagnostics, and an easy to read backlit LCD display. Also on view at LDI 2015 will be the X2 WAVE FLAMER,  a fluid based flame machine.

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AV Stumpfl's Wings Engine Raw is a triple-stream 4K uncompressed media server that uses a custom engineered RAID 10 system. It willbe featured at LDI along with other products.

AV Stumpfl Ready for LDI 2015

AV Stumpfl will bring the largest ever line up of innovation to LDI 2015. Making its Americas debut at LDI 2015, will be the Wings Engine Raw, a triple-stream 4K uncompressed media server that uses a custom engineered RAID 10 system (pictured here).

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Revo 4 IR, COB Cannon Wash Pearl and WiFLY Chameleon

ADJ Making Plans for LDI 2015

ADJ will continue to celebrate 30 Years of Pure Lighting Excitement as it returns to LDI with a series of game-changing products, all of which display the company’s recent developments in the professional production and nightclub/mobile entertainment sectors. They include the Revo 4 IR, COB Cannon Wash Pearl and WiFLY Chameleon (pictured here, L-R).

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ConnectCAD plug-in software for Vectorworks can help users in a variety of ways. Here it’s constructing video wiring layouts for a show.

Using connectCAD 2015

AV Integrator Cramer Inc., Others Getting Boost from New Plug-in Software

Vectorworks is arguably the most popular CAD program utilized in the live event industry. Through the years several companies have come up with clever plug ins that made the program work more efficiently in one particular field or another.

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The 'venue' often starts out as a lawn, or even a cow pasture.

The Art and Zen of Tent Lighting

Outside tent gigs. A love-hate relationship for many designers and technicians. We’ve all been there — watching the radar and weather reports, hoping for clear skies. Finding a safe and efficient path for the trucks to come on the property. How much plywood will we need to be able to drive the trucks onto the grass? Can we get the generator close enough to the tent so that we do not have to run a thousand feet of feeder cable? These are just some of the fun challenges that a production company has to face when planning an outside tent gig.

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