It’s almost absurd calling yesterday, October 20, the first official day of LDI. After all, for most exhibitors–and, with LDInstitute, the Backstage events, the Projection Master Classes, and various other sessions, an increasing number of attendees–LDI begins Monday or earlier. Still, Friday’s the yardstick by which we tend to measure how the show is going, since that’s the first day the show floor officially opens. And from everything I saw and everyone I spoke to, it’s safe to say that this year’s LDI is going to be the best show ever.

Yeah, yeah, I know. We say that every year. Best Show Ever! It’s so cliched, it should probably be in quotes. But as ESTA president Bill Groener noted at Thursday’s ESTA dinner, the buzz is palpable. The show floor footprint is the biggest ever, pre-registration in the days prior to the show was already up nearly 2,000 over last year’s total attendance, there are great new products being unveiled, and people are in a buying mood, across all markets.

All I can say is, thank you little baby Jesus. I gotta admit I was nervous coming into this show. We had a lot of new stuff we were doing this year–a print Show Daily, the Projection Master Classes (more on that in another posting), and a few new staff members attending LDI for the first time–and that’s on top of all the stuff we normally do: booth visits, blogging (natch), working closely with the LDI show staff, hosting our Friday cocktail reception, and of course hitting the evening party circuit. That’s a lot of balls in the air. But I gotta say that our staff here has stepped up big time. Marian Sandberg, Lisa Murphy, Diane Straughen, Earl Otsuka, Albert Margolis, Jeff Donnenwerth, Dean Muscio, Keith Gregory, Kirby Asplund, and Glenn Laudenslager–they’ve all contributed immeasurably to making all our various pieces fit seamlessly. Thanks to my homeys.

We’ll have lots more from contributors over the course of the next couple of days, so stay tuned…

It seems a productive LDI was had by all. Sunday hangovers and crankiness aside, impressions were positive all around, and our new little venture, the new Live Design magazine, website, blog, and enewswire, was received overwhelmingly well.

Word on the show floor from many exhibitors was that traffic seemed good but more importantly, visitors to booths were working on projects and ready to spec gear–“quality leads,” as Graham Likeness of Pathway Connectivity described during load out.

Our two distinct panels of judges for the product awards and booth awards remained unscathed by post-award comments, not that there weren‘t questions for the editorial staff, as there always are. It is, however, difficult to argue with some of the most preeminent designers and inventors in the business. That‘s why we appoint two independent panels for this sort of thing–to keep it fair and unbiased.

And for those who have inquired, the wine has remained intact on the bright yellow suit. Many thanks to David Johnson for his participation.

Another cool aspect of the LDI show is you can get “inside” info on upcoming events, movies, etc. I stopped by the Kino Flo booth and spoke a bit with Tom Jacob.

Since DP Mitchell Sargent wrote about his fondness for Kino Flo’s products in a “What I’m Using Now” column in Lighting Dimensions last spring and I did an article on Pierre Morel’s work on the Jet Li film Unleashed in the June LD, I thought I would take a closer look to see what the DPs were raving about. I asked Tom about Kino Flo’s involvement in a film I’ve been anticipating anxiously like most kids anticipate the next Harry Potter flick. I’m talking about, of course, Wolfgang Petersen’s remake of the 1972 disaster classic The Poseidon Adventure.

Simply called Poseidon, the new movie is an updated version on a modern cruise liner and stars Kurt Russell, Richard Dreyfus, Josh Lucas, and many more. Tom told me how disoriented he was when he went on the set at Warner Bros. to take pictures of the Kinos in action and wondered why the sets were such a mess…then he realized these were the sets after the disaster. The Kinos were installed in the floor–well, actually the ceiling but now it’s the floor–to give an uplighting effect. He also talked a bit about the fixtures that were waterproof and were used underwater because when a capsized ship starts to flood, it’s the ceiling and the fixtures that go under first. It’ll be interesting to hear more about this exciting movie from a lighting point of view so stay tuned.

Poseidon–sans Shelley Winters–opens in May 2006.

There was a rumor going around yesterday that Kid Rock was walking the show floor. I ignored it, since those kinds of rumors seem to crop up at every LDI. (Someone claimed Richard Crenna was walking the show once; who the hell would be able to spot Richard Crenna anywhere?)

Boy was I wrong. At the Peabody last night, just as the bar was closing down, in comes the man himself, with an entourage of young leggy women (would you expect it to be any other way?) He plopped himself down at the piano and proceeded to serenade the drunken throng for a good hour. Nobody wanted to leave! Jesse Friend from Lee Filters helped things along by rolling down a cooler full of beer, which kept the thirsty conventioneers sated. I finally crawled away at 3am and have no idea how much longer the spontaneous show lasted. Probably one of the wildest things I’ve ever experienced in 12 years of LDI.

LED LED LED, everywhere you look it’s the season of LED. It’s in fixtures, it’s in tubes, it’s in Par Cans, it’s on mesh, it’s in movers, it hangs from strings, it’s under the water. My favorite new product is the Image Mesh from Komaden. Looks lightweight, you can see through it and you can put it underwater. How neat is that?

Daktronics is here making a showing of the same product that we are using for the upcoming Broadway musical Ring of Fire. They had an early picture from the first production of it we did in Buffalo. I need to send them a new picture if they are going to show it around the country!

AVStumpfl has their Wings Platinum software on display. This is something that I‘ve been looking forward to seeing in action. Being an avid user of WATCHOUT, this is a product that really gives Dataton a run for its money. A lot of very nice features that I’ll be sure to talk to the boys from Sweden about.

It was so great to be on a panel discussion with James Thurber. His PANI creations are truly inspiring. The collaboration with glass painting artist Dora Berkes was fantastic. Sure made me want to go dust off my 2k PANI and make some film. Add to that heartbreak that PRG didn’t bring their PIGIs this year. They’ve gone all digital with the MBOX Extreme. I will check it out later today now that I have some more time.

It’s so impressive to see the support industries around lighting; the automated truss system is amazing, and the technologies for lifts are so varied. I especially love the Spiralift from Gala systems. It appeals to my sense of aesthetic slickness.

Of course there are projectors all over the place, but they are projecting on fog, on water, into the corners….Olympus had a neat product that used a camera system to automatically correct keystone and distortion using multiple projectors into a corner. The fog screen and water screens were rather underwhelming.

I would love for the O2 people to show up at LDI with their particulate projection system. It isn’t holography, but it’s neat to see an image just there in the air.

Of course, this is still very much a lighting show. ETC had their hot new console, CONGO on display. It’s not my forte, but it seems like it could be a good alternative to the GrandMA as console to program Media Servers on. I’ll have to ask Hilary Knox.

ETC also cleaned up their lensing for clearer pattern projection, it made my soul feel good to see them address that. They also had a barrel for 95 degree source four. SO COOL. It’s a brave new world for a dance boom, corporate breakout room, or low grid theater. They also had a 14deg which I assume would be more manageable than the large 10deg units I‘ve seen on shows.

Another lighting product I thought was great was the Seachanger by Ocean Optics. Here’s a dichroic color filter lens system that plugs into what seems essentially to be a Source Four body. No gel changes ever, no fans so it’s silent. And in their demo room they actually had an optical scanner. Take your gel swatch, stick in front of the scanner and the software would match the color from the filter. How cool is that! Apparently they can’t match ALL the colors, but it seemed close to me. There is of course a loss of intensity, but if you put on one of the new ETC “high output” lenses you might have one heck of a conventional.

I checked out the folks running the Animation Master software, I can’t tell if it’s a good tool for media creators or an expensive toy. At $199 for a show copy I was tempted to pick it up, until the vendor explained that it was buggy on the Macintosh. Maybe next year…..

Visited the lads at Green Hippo, I do like Nigel and James very much, I enjoyed their product on Lennon and I’m looking forward to seeing whatever new features they have added over the summer.

Another product that I have to check out is Pandora‘s Box, a new media server from Coolux media systems. I haven‘t spent any time with that either, but the buzz about it at the Rose Brand party on Friday night was good.

All kinds of cool USB to DMX to whatever widgets, I think I will need one of those at some point.

What else? Hey, I won an AWARD! I don’t think I‘ve won anything since the eighth grade! What an amazing recognition from the good folks at LDI. It’s such a wonderful community and being solely a projection designer I sometimes feel a bit like the black sheep. So amazing to be recognized with such incredible designers like Richard Pilbrow and Buford Jones. I was truly shaken.

–Mike Clark