Show Reports

Leaving some attendees dazed and confused, this year’s Frankfurt extravaganza had seen a rearrangement of its many halls. But did it make for an easier show? Richard Lawn reports

‘Designing new Solutions’ was the slogan dreamt up by the Frankfurt Pro Light & Sound marketing department. So, following several years of stability, just when you thought it was safe to find an exhibitor in the same location in the same hall – the show’s organisers decided to redesign the floor plan. This helped to refresh the show in many ways, but at the same time it created problems for those trying to keep their packed appointment schedules together when confronted with a cymbal producer instead of a line array manufacturer having not paused to check the booth location beforehand.

 

The creation of Hall 11 at the end of the 20-minute walk (or five-minute shuttle bus ride) was probably the main cause of this. Halls 11.0 and 11.1 had become the new area for lighting, staging and smoke machine manufacturers. An adjoining taxi rank, however, did little to swell numbers in this peripheral new setting and the new purpose built hall remained quiet in comparison to the masses surrounding the MI booths in Halls 3.0 and 4.0. In addition, the organisers had dedicated Hall 4 to MI, and so the many portable and live sound manufacturers who had called 4.1 their home for many years had to find new surroundings. Microphone manufacturers were grouped together in Hall 6.1 alongside PA speaker manufacturers, while the studio technology companies remained in Hall 5.1. There was logic to these groupings, but there were also some anomalies.

 

Significantly, many of the exhibitors from Hall 4.1 were relocated to Hall 8.0 to make up for the voids left by the lighting manufacturers who had ventured to Halls 11.0 and 11.1. In addition, many of last year’s Hall 8.0 intercom, high-end microphone/digital console and recording/broadcast exhibitors had shifted across to Hall 9.0, where the 70dB restriction was clearly going to assist business conversations. Business was being done, but it was quiet both in terms of decibels and visitors. Critics commented that these halls in particular had wider aisles than in previous years and there were fewer people, but the statistics prove otherwise with almost identical exhibitor and visitor figures. It would appear, therefore, that the show had diluted itself with the creation of Hall 11.0.

 

Of the 110,000 registered visitors who had converged on the Frankfurt Messe this year, 40,000 of them had come from 127 countries beyond the German borders. Despite the net fall of around 2,000 visitors compared to last year, Member of the Board of Management of Messe Frankfurt Detlef Braun felt the Messe’s expectations had been exceeded: ‘Musikmesse and Pro Light & Sound further consolidated their position as being the leading international trade fairs for their sectors,’ he commented. ‘Moreover, the number of exhibitors and visitors remained stable in comparison to last year, despite some dramatic drops in sales of up to 30 per cent in both sectors over the past 18 months.’ Overall, the impact of the difficult economic situation in the two sectors was limited to minor declines in the number of exhibitors and visitors compared to 2009. While 1,510 exhibitors formed Musikmesse, 829 made up the Pro Light & Sound element. The continuing trend of decreasing booth sizes in an attempt to reduce costs was the exception rather than the rule, particularly in Hall 8.0. Not only had the booths not clearly been reduced in size, the owners had generally invested more in dressing up their appeal to visitors.

Since the emergence of Integrated Systems Europe in 2004, Pro Light & Sound had avoided an exodus of exhibitors until now. The launch of the CAVIS show within Pro Light & Sound in 1999 was designed to solely cater for A/V specialists. Pro Light & Sound had been organically created from a bulging Musikmesse, and so the Messe committee believed that CAVIS could be grown out of Pro Light & Sound just a few years later.

While Pro Light & Sound represents a valid and much needed extension of Musikmesse, CAVIS as an extension of Pro Light & Sound had gone too far. Ultimately, the heart of the Frankfurt show is musical instruments. Once Cedia, NSCA and InfoComm had combined their resources to host a comprehensive list of exhibitors and visitors dedicated to the A/V sector, many exhibitors on limited resources became torn between two very appealing exhibitions.

Some manufacturers, such as beyerdynamic and Klotz ais, which cater for the MI sector as well as the fixed installation, recording, conferencing and live sound markets have juggled two booths in Halls 4.1 and 8.0 in previous years, but now prefer to promote their fixed install portfolios in Amsterdam at ISE and their products for MI and live sound in Halls 6.1 and 8.0 respectively at Frankfurt. Loudspeaker manufacturer HK Audio has also maintained a heavy presence in Frankfurt and this year was no exception – Hall 4.0, Hall 6.1 and Hall 8.0 in addition to a large meeting room below Hall 4.1. Having exhibited for the first time in their history at ISE this year, it will be interesting to see what the company’s trade show strategy will be in 2011. There was a time, not so long ago, when the likes of Christie, Crestron, Extron and Kramer used to exhibit at the show, but ISE is now their sole focus in Europe.

 

The evolution of ISE, and for that matter Pro Light & Sound, is healthy for everyone as there was a danger that Pro Light & Sound was trying to become a jack-of-all-trades and in doing so was becoming a master of none. Exhibitors can now attend two very different shows and rather than take the entire showroom and inventory to Frankfurt to put out on display, can wisely showcase their installed sound products in Amsterdam and their portable and live sound equipment in Frankfurt. This also takes the pressure off the R&D engineers and sales team who can now work to two deadlines rather than one. The visitors reflect these sector breakdowns, although Frankfurt still retains the business vibe, whereas ISE has brought education to the fore in its development. But then again – everyone is learning to adapt to this change.

 

Ultimately, Frankfurt is and possibly always will be the ultimate manufacturer-distributor trade show. It is the single point in the calendar where product launches and announcements made by manufacturers are attended by distributors, who in turn bless them with orders and much needed feedback. All roads lead to Frankfurt – R&D cycles, marketing campaigns, future sales projections – and manufacturers devote enormous amounts of man-years at the show which is open for just 35 hours of business. So every minute counts. Launch and exhibit the new products to the world and then take the orders from the distributors and resellers attending the show. Anything else is a bonus, but the amount of time and money absorbed by this show into a packed and frantic four days for exhibitors has become all-consuming. Awards were handed to successful distributors in recognition of good sales by some manufacturers. Behind the scenes distribution changes would be made apparent to those who failed to make their targets, but for every divorce there is a marriage. In the case of EAW, it was its remarriage to Trius as German distributor. Cue the wedding bells? I recall the original divorce over 10 years ago – who said ‘never say never again’?

Just as Hall 11 may have proved to be a hall too far, then the continued emergence of the Portable and Concert Sound Stages in close proximity to Hall 8.0 may be a stage too many. This year eight speaker producers decided to have their systems played in rotating 20-minute slots on the Concert Sound Stage. Among them, Italian producer Montarbo demonstrated its PalcoPlus line array. Sixteen RA16 cabinets were used in conjunction with four RA18 new arrayable bass cabinets and 12 RAB1815 subwoofers, powered by seven PLM6800 and four PLM3000 amplifiers. Despite the very warm weather, attendances for most of the four days of the show were a little disappointing. ‘We were demonstrating a PA system with a total power of 56kW, but unfortunately we had to comply with the Messe’s strict sound level limits and only use a quarter of this available power,’ explained Montarbo MD, Maria Montanari. At the Portable Sound Arena Montarbo alternated demos between a Minipalco system consisting of two RA16 speakers stacked on RAB1815 subwoofers and two Full 1018 cabinets. Renkus-Heinz demonstrated the IC Live digitally beam steerable system on the same Concert Stage Arena together with other systems provided by One Systems, Outline Audio and others.

 

The spotlights are most definitely on the booths, where the business is done and months of preparations finally bear fruit – and there were some impressive booth designs this year. Meyer Sound is one that is definitely worth mentioning. To properly demonstrate the Constellation system the company devised for the Cirque du Soleil and other leading theatres around the world, it had set up 80 calibration microphones and MM4 speakers on an overhead truss, together with 5km of speaker cable. The presence of company founders John and Helen Meyer, who outlined their vision of the future, together with John Pellowe’s Constellation seminars ensured the booth was packed into the aisles. It seemed a pity, therefore, that at 5pm on the Saturday the contractors moved in and started to dismantle an exhibit that could easily have passed as a permanent installation. Meyer Sound also launched the Mina line array system and the CAL steerable column array – new products that may have been passed by in the heat of the moment.

 

Meyer Sound had previously been located under the lower ceiling of Hall 4.1, which was plagued by higher SPLs and heat. They clearly blossomed in their new environment under the skylights of Hall 8.0 as had the Bosch Communications’ brands of Electro-Voice and Dynacord,which exhibited their many product ranges (with the exception of EDV microphones who were located in Hall 6.1) under a curved canopy with an eye catching full length LED. Likewise, RCF seem to have climbed to another level on its stylish and commanding booth in Hall 8.0. Fifteen years ago the same company was premiering the ART series on a rather small booth in Hall 4.1, and here they were in 2010 unveiling ART Series 4. My daughter is similarly 15 years of age, and like the loudspeakers, attracts the same ‘Haven’t you grown?’ comments. Hall 6.1, however, seemed a throwback to days gone by and really didn’t do justice to brands such as Shure and Sennheiser as they continue to balance mass appeal with service for their business partners.

 

As much as Pro Light & Sound has become the centre of our cottage industry universe, it suffers from economies of scale. It has simply become too big and exhibitors are weighed down with a burden of expectation that is passed onto distributors and dealers alike. This show report is one that I truly dread writing each year for the simple reason that we omit more companies than we include, and manufacturers are keen to let me know it! However, it is impossible to include every product launch and every manufacturer of relevance in this feature. I could easily dedicate two weeks to Frankfurt and a whole magazine of dedicated editorial and it still wouldn’t be enough. Please consult the new products pages over the next three issues as to what we found was new in the many halls at Frankfurt. While we’re reporting on these, the R&D engineers and marketing personnel will no doubt be fretting about the 2011 dates. If I have missed anybody in this report – I apologise.

http://pls.messefrankfurt.com

Published in PAA May-June 2010