…and so on and so forth. Yes, those are the lyrics to “Gold” – that truly awful Spandau Ballet hit single. That’s hit with a capital “S” by the way… 😉 They did so much better – “To cut a long story short” comes to mind but I digress before I’ve even started…
This is the official post-Plasa debrief from what was a very surprising show.
Things that weren’t surprising were:
- Fewer exhibitors – although this did not stop me from getting lost as usual and only happening upon the Polar stand again by chance on more than one occasion;
- Less in the way of product launches – most companies seem to keep these for Frankfurt these days;
- Apparently increased visitor numbers – I am speculating on this point but, given the number of scans my badge had every time I re-entered the main hall, (nipping out to let someone in or going to a demo room) , I alone could have been responsible for a percentage point or so;
However, things that were a surprise and all of them good included:
- As a result of some last-minute cancellations Polar Audio – our UK distributor – ended up with considerably greater stand area than we were originally expecting. This was very welcome, as the majority of the time I was fighting for somewhere to have meetings, even considering this! Which brings me on to…
- More visitors than I was anticipating. Whilst the various meetings I had scheduled were going to involve welcome conversations with our own distributors and an afternoon with press chats, the number of impromptu discussions I had with end users was very pleasing.
- Very tasty egg and cress sandwiches from an on-site food outlet – not exactly important but better than eating greasy junk with no change from a fiver!
As I mentioned in the bullet points so very efficiently (bullet points do that), we had a great stand again this year and Polar, along with the stand builders, did a lovely job, with the space being both open and clean as well as cosy and private – quite a juggling act to achieve.
The DS8000 proved very popular which, given its prominent position on the corner of the stand, was great news. Little things, such as showing how two units are able to look after each other (so you can pull the power on one and they both carry on working) make a big difference when in a show environment. You could tell people this stuff – but a 5 second demo of it is so much better! There was much discussion around the possibilities of using the AES digital option – connection straight into a couple of DP548s for a standalone digital matrix mixer with 16 outputs was one I hadn’t thought of…there is of course a caveat with that arrangement that each unit doesn’t get access to all 8 mic channels but, as it wasn’t our suggestion, who were we to argue? 😉
We weren’t making a big thing of the imminent 448 firmware upgrade which opens up the world of FIR filters, but I did demonstrate how this would work to several people. It will be made available across the 4 Series in time (not the 548 though as it uses too much processing, and NOT on older 4 Series due to a different DSP platform). Rather than discuss it all in this post, I will write a separate entry about it all and release some application notes as well.
Aside from talking to customers (and trying to convince Niall [Lewis] of the Production House Group in Belfast that his ten or so DS800s had served him well and at their age, deserved a well-earned retirement in someone’s church/theatre/pub and the time was right for DS8000s to replace them…) there was the ongoing Olympics still in full effect all across London.
Having been somewhat underwhelmed by the whole Olympic juggernaut in the earlier part of this year, something happened in my brain when the torch made its way to my locale, and I suddenly couldn’t get enough of it all. As I trust you are aware, we had an “non-Olympic” event here at XTA involving gold medals to celebrate the shipping of our 50,000th unit. Read all about it here.
Such was my excitement, I had signed up to the Olympic ticketing website some months back, and been fervently checking for the possibility of getting tickets just to get into the Olympic park. We’re not talking events here – I know I had royally missed the boat on that front, but with the entry to the park dropping to a fiver for the duration of the Paralympics, the possibility of soaking up a little bit of the atmosphere felt like it could still happen. So, after finalising all the load-in and making sure everything was working, flashing, and happy on the stand, Mr. Fleming and myself headed off towards Stratford last Saturday afternoon.
The sun was shining, the forecast was good and the journey on the tube was straightforward. Taking TFL’s advice to get off at West Ham and walk the 20 minutes or so to the gate, things got even better the minute we stepped off the train – Olympic signage in full effect.
As we approached via the long walkway the signs count down the minutes until you get to the park – and suddenly the Orbit Tower and the Olympic Stadium were visible. By this point I was, somewhat sadly, getting rather over-excited and began taking photographs such as the one above – a complete tourist rush! At the end of the walkway, which finishes at a high vantage point looking down into the park, there is a great view taking in the athletes’ village, the aquatics centre, and everything in between.
Unfortunately that’s were it ended. Despite the best assurances from a “games maker”, there were no tickets available on-line (and about thirty other people standing about at the gates on their smartphones could further qualify this) and there was no system in place to purchase tickets just for entry to the park at the gate itself. So that’s where we stopped. None the less, it was such a perfect day weather-wise and the view into the park was so good that we both felt it had been worth the trip! It would have been great to get in whilst the Olympics was still on, but the park isn’t going anywhere for a while so it can wait for another time.
