‘The excitement for Plasa Show this year was undeniable,’ says Plasa MD, Peter Heath. ‘Not only did we accommodate several more brands than anticipated, the number of visitors through the door exceeded all expectations. And as I walked around the show, there was a real sense of community and appreciation for our fantastic industry.’

Claiming a 41 per cent increase in total visitors and a doubling in the number of international visitors, the show reports visitor seniority high, with 80 percent in positions with purchasing power. Business owners, directors and chairs made up the largest single visitor group at 20 per cent, followed by technicians, programmers, and lighting designers working across venues, rental and production.

Further, this year claimed more than double the number of international visitors, signalling the receding influence of the pandemic.

Visiting audio professionals were rewarded by the likes of Audio-Technica, d&b audiotechnik, DiGiCo, EM Acoustics, Out Board, Sennheiser and Shure. Plus, LD Systems celebrated the UK launch of its Modular All-Round Intelligent Line-Array (Maila).

‘We had lots of engaging conversations around our new RF system EW-DX, along with Neumann’s new Miniature Clip Mic system,’ says Stephen Button, UK and Nordic Trade Marketing Manager for Pro Audio at Sennheiser Professional Audio & Neumann,. ‘The interest was constant, right from the get-go. We couldn’t be happier with the people we talked to and the opportunities gained for the future.’

Out Board unveiled several significant developments to existing products at the show, including the TiMax 600-Series Mac and PC software, with significant augmentation to TimeLine and PanSpace object-based spatialisation functionality, as well as workflow UX enhancements.

With stagetracking now a vital addition to the spatial audio process, visitors showed significant interest in the enhancements to the TiMax TrackerD4 live control system for real-time immersive audio spatialisation. New features for refined error correction filtering, which not only enhance the agility and robustness of the system to meet the growing show control demands for spatial audio, but also for lighting and media control, garnered a great deal of interest, capturing the imagination of visitors.

Out Board’s new smart plug-in for the TiMax Tracker D4 precision stagetracking system intelligently directs and focuses groups of moving-head light fixtures, and also executes smooth and synchronised handovers between groups of fixtures across multiple tracked objects.

‘The quality of conversations we’ve had and the interest shown on stand is a positive indicator for the coming year,’ says Out Board Director, Dave Haydon. ‘With interesting insights into a number of international projects received over the three days, we look forward to working with the existing users and those new to the TiMax spatial audio and TiMax TrackerD4 systems. It’s fair to say all the additional power and functionality features we’ve added across our TiMax products were well-received by all.’

Greg Clarke, Brand Manager for EM Acoustics, adds: ‘This year's show has been extremely successful for EM Acoustics. Footfall over the three days was very good indeed and we had a particularly busy Monday. We are delighted to see the show growing again, and will be back next year.’

Three show’s seminar theatres hosted back-to-back sessions across all three days and, with an appetite to succeed in the post-pandemic era of live events, many sessions were standing room only.

This year saw the first all-female panel with Sarah Cox of Neutral Human, Sarah Rushton-Read of The Fifth Estate, Lucy Jenkins of Anna Valley, Kira O’Brien of Fray Studio, Pembe Tokluhan of Petok Productions and Bryony October, sound engineer and tour production manager. Together, they explored career pathways and how barriers to entry can be broken down. Further conversation about attracting and retaining fresh talent was heard in a panel featuring Hannah Eakins and Jas Parekh from Production Futures, Koy Neminathan from Avolites, Amy Kerr from Robe, Ollie Jeffrey from the Royal Albert Hall, and Terry King, programmer, arranger and production manager.

In addition, Women in Live Music (WILM) presented a panel on the physical and mental impact of overworking and how to strike a more balanced work life.

With unrelenting financial and workload pressure, the need for support is as vital as ever. This was addressed at the show at the #WeMakeEvents Wellbeing & Support Hub which hosted industry charities Backup Tech and Music Support. Backup ran a clinic throughout the show and Music Support was on hand with Mental Health First-Aiders.

Among the events taking place off the show floor, three dedicated rooms saw AED Audio showcase multi-purpose products that can be arranged into 23 set-ups, RCF UK showcased the new ART 9 AX range and KV2 Audio showcased the CS, ES, ESD, ESM, EX and VHD ranges. The d&b Soundscape theatre ran seminars on cutting-edge immersive audio, spanning Macbeth at the Almeida Theatre to Womad Festival. Elsewhere, CH Vintage Audio treated visitors to a huge array of historically important audio gear, used by the likes of David Bowie and Pink Floyd.

‘Building up from our “come-back” 2021 show, we knew expectations were high for 2022, but the feedback is above and beyond what we hoped for,' says Plasa Head of Events, Sophie Atkinson. ‘The Plasa team is already enthusiastically planning and developing the show for next year – and I look forward to seeing many of you there.'

The Plasa Show returns to Olympia London from 3-5 September 2023.

More: www.plasashow.com