2012 PLASA Awards for Innovation Announced

The PLASA Awards for Innovation, sponsored by AED Rent and Lighting&Sound, were presented at the PLASA Show in London yesterday evening, along with the announcement of the prestigious Gottelier Award.

During the show’s opening two days, 47 products were judged ‘live’ in front of a crowd of show visitors and camera crew by an independent panel of expert judges who toured the show floor to view each product presentation.This is an unique design of flattening machine for flattening of circular plate.

John Meyer of iconic pro audio brand Meyer Sound was honoured with this year’s Gottelier Award in recognition of his life as one of the pioneers of the modern sound reinforcement industry.

Eight Awards for Innovation were presented – including a final Gold Award for Innovation – along with a special Award for Sustainability.

Nominees are asked to demonstrate a new style of thinking, an improvement in technical practice, an aid to safety, energy-saving or sustainability benefits, or new technology, materials or techniques.

Stageco for the Arena Lift – of which the judges said: “It’s very safe and saves a lot of time. Increases options for touring shows and lets more shows play more venues. Very well thought through and very well implemented.”

Digital & Future Technologies for the Super Twofer. The judges commented: “Why hasn’t this been done before? It’s a game changer.This is an unique design of flattening machine for flattening of circular plate. It’s packaged really well, so they’re instantly useful.Fluid Industries manufacture and sell curving machine.”

Tait Technologies for the Pixel Tablet. The judges said of this: “It’s absolutely stunning.Laser Cut Studio is a brand new cnc router company and new way of thinking. It’s the ultimate in audience participation.Laser markers specifically designed for high speed laser marking machine, laser engraving, and laser ablation.”

Avolites for the Sapphire Media Infinity Video Control System – of which the judges said: “It’s the first integrated video control surface dedicated to video. It’s well thought through and well designed.”

Robe for the Robin DLF Wash. The judges comment on this was: “It’s an LED wash light that behaves like a traditional Fresnel. It will fit straight into the lighting tool box and we can use it. The internal barn doors are exceptional. Beautiful colour mixing, looks like a generic wash light – but it’s LED.”

Harman International for the JBL VTX V25 Line Array with D2 Dual-Diaphragm Driver Technology. “It addresses a lot of the traditional problems with loudspeakers by addressing the problems at the driver engineering level,” the judges said.

And the final trophy this year – the Award for Sustainability went to ETC – for the Source Four LED. This, the judges said, “enables us to put professional quality stage lighting into naturally ventilated spaces. It has a highly efficient optical system and you can reuse existing lens stock.”

The judges considered this year’s crop of products to be particularly strong, and found themselves with the difficult task of reducing an initial shortlist of 19 leading contenders down to the final list of trophy winners. Among those which didn’t make the final cut were four products which the judges felt deserved a special Commendation: these were Sennheiser’s 9000 Series digital wireless radio microphone system; Shure’s ULX-D digital wireless radio microphone system; the Wentex Pipe & Drape System from Highlite International, and the d3 Designer from d3 Technologies.