I can only assume that this is a record attendance year for LDI. I happened to be standing on the show floor when the doors opened on day one and haven’t seen a crowd barrel through doors like that since The Who tickets went on sale. It was quite impressive.?

There are definitely some notable products being shown this year. Coemar’s showing their new Infinity Wash XL fixture. It’s nice to see that we haven’t run out of pieces of glass to stick in front of a light beam. They’ve used a prism system in the optical train that allows for splitting the beam into three with rotation. The effect is similar to an array of ACLs, and it’s pretty cool. It’s also got a new type of color mixing system that produces some truly rich hues and a red that’s closer to what most LDs desire.

The chaps at Green Hippo are showing Hippotizer V3, which is a drastic upgrade to an already great product. Talk about listening to a market! These guys are all about implementation. They’ve listened to what their users wanted and made it a reality. V3 has full network capability that allows for remote control of any number of machines on a network. One of the most notable features is the introduction of onboard video encoding. You no longer have to toil over video codecs. You can basically give the thing any content that you want and Hippo will re-encode it to the format that works best.

Element Labs has their new Versa® Tube HD, Cirrus, and Stealth products on display. Stealth gained some serious notoriety on Madonna’s latest tour and is an absolutely beautiful, low-resolution video display. Cirrus is along the same lines but the LEDs are on a wider pitch and mounted to a translucent web of vinyl-like curtain. The curtain allows for viewing objects behind it as well as taking light beautifully.

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…

I had an absolutely wonderful time! I am a costume and set design student, and these classes were a great opportunity for me to learn about the needs and capabilities of lighting designers on whom I rely to amplify the effect of clothes and spaces I create. This experience fostered an understanding between the different design disciplines and reaffirmed my faith in the theatre as a truly collaborative arena. My only wish is that Live Design would consider supporting similar Master classes with a focus on set and costume design!

Anya Klepikov

MFA candidate in Theatre Design

Yale School of Drama

Here’s Gary Fails from City Theatrical on his experience at the BLMC:

City Theatrical has participated in every BLMC since the beginning. In my opinion, this was one of the best ever, largely due to the venue. The NYU area, adjacent to Washington Square Park, is lovely and convenient. BLMC is something that everyone, no matter what area of lighting they participate in, whether designer, electrician, TD, touring, regional theatre, etc., etc., should attend, at least once. Why? Well, from personal experience, I always am inspired by the speakers. They are professionals, and they sometimes seem to take the coolness of what they do for granted, but they are pros at the top of the lighting food chain and even other pros will find it interesting to hear them. Jules Fisher is an interesting person besides being a well known designer, and his interest in art, optics, magic, and loads of other areas make his presentation one that I try to watch every year.

Besides the classes, New York is a great place to visit in May. The weather was superb for the BLMC, and I always envy the attendees who get to make full use of the city while we lowly manufacturers are hustling back and forth from work to the classes and showcases. BTW, the manufacturers‘ showcases (CTI showed all of its WDS gear and LED power supplies) were vastly improved this year since they served food during the showcases. Good strategy!

Overall, I would say the biggest benefit of attending is the chance to meet and shake hands with some of our most interesting designers. The chance to meet and speak with Jules, Peggy Eisenhauer, Brian MacDevitt, Clifton Taylor, Bev Emmons, Chris Akerlind, Howell Binkley, and Philip Rosenberg, as well as meeting many of the top manufacturers in the industry and playing with the new gear in the span of three days is pretty unique.

BLMC is really one of our industry‘s best events.

On Tuesday evening, May 23, the BLMC group of 175 people attended a performance of The Light In The Piazza, the Tony Award-winning musical at Lincoln Center Theatre. It was the perfect show for the BLMC, with LD Chris Akerlind’s Tony Award-winning lighting displaying a subtle yet beautiful design scheme, with a very careful use of moving lights. Since the action is set in the 1950s in Italy, it would be inappropriate to see the automated fixtures move, so of course you don’t. Akerlind used them for their power and color temperature, although when the hot Italian sun does flood the piazza with light, the sources are incandescent (large Fresnels) as the LD felt they were closer in color temperature to bright sunlight. The lighting moves from night scenes with performers moving in and out of the shadows on the piazza to a hotel room, and daylight scenes that range from the interior of a church to an apartment and a men’s clothing store. The lighting is elegant: delicate at times and certainly never overblown. After the performance, Akerlind (with his production electrician as well as his programmer) was on hand to answer questions. Then the crowd was allowed on stage to see how the rig was hung and ask additional questions to the lighting team as well as some stagehands who were generous enough to stay and chat with everyone. At 11:30pm I called it a night and left a handful of BLMC attendees on stage (thanks to everyone at Lincoln Center Theatre for making the post-show discussion possible!). This is the kind of experience that makes the BLMC such a great experience. The icing on the cake was the next day when Akerlind made his debut appearance as a faculty member for the BLMC, offering an in-depth analysis of his lighting for The Light In The Piazza, and participating in a panel about lighting and projection, moderated by Wendall K. Harrington. Akerlind proved to be a wonderful speaker (he has experience from his years as a professor at CalArts) and I hope he‘ll be back next year, along with Jules Fisher and the entire BLMC faculty who really topped themselves this year!