|
You may (or may not) have noticed that the recent AES Show, which took place in Los Angeles in October, threw one hell of a big bone to the live sound community, in the form of its first-ever Live Sound Expo, a mini-event within the larger one. I say “may or may not” because — prior to this year’s edition — the show tended to elicit a big “meh” from many live-sound pros. That’s in light of the fact that the organization itself says that, historically, as much as a quarter — or more — of the shows’ attendees identify themselves as working in live sound. |
Under new leadership for the last four years, the AES has been trying to regain relevance. Hence the broadened conference program, which offered up a heightened live-sound agenda to digest. This ranged from historic (which is something the AES excels at) — in this case, the history of the line array — to useful Boot Camp-101 tutorials for networking/IT and RE systems, to more advanced presentations about acoustics, touring-system optimization, installed audio, mixing techniques and signal processing. Compared to previous AES shows, the 2014 expo was an avalanche of live audio.
It’s welcome, and timely. Institutionally, the AES may have come late to the realization that concert touring, not recording, has become the main revenue source for the music business. And cognizant of the changes afoot, AES has done something about it. But the newly enlivened AES Show joins what has become a wide palette of trade events that put sound reinforcement near their cores. These include PLASA, which with its inclusion of lighting and rigging, and its integration with standards body ESTA, make it a more comprehensive event for live sound.
Big Shows, Big Scale
And live sound has grown somewhat as a percentage of the PLASA events, reflecting the diversification of live audio itself, which simultaneously has expanded to cover ever-larger venues and ever-smaller ones (is there a hipster boutique-hotel lobby now without a matchbox stage?). Then there’s the InfoComm Show, which has seriously muscled up in recent years, particularly in the installed-sound sector (the bread and butter of the AVL business) but also on the touring side, as well, thanks to a scaled-up show, bouncing between Orlando’s and Las Vegas’ oversized convention centers that offer the kind of space a 20 Hz sine wave requires to be fully appreciated.
InfoComm’s scale permits the kind of large demo rooms that let box and amplifier makers turn it up at least to 7 or 8 — if not to 11. The organization is widely acknowledged to have the most extensive training program in the AVL integration business, and has expanded its audio offerings in recent years. In fact, InfoComm has been assertive in courting the sound reinforcement side, recognizing its ongoing convergence with installed sound, and that both are in the process of integrating with IT, via networking and DSP. And integrators (more than few of whom are road veterans), like to remind themselves that they get to sleep in their own beds at night.
And while InfoComm has been assertive in attracting live-sound entities to its events, the Winter NAMM Show has become downright aggressive. It doesn’t have the same level of allure for the tour-sound professional, but its pro audio presence has steadily grown in recent years, and it has been attracting more live-audio products and people. It’s been especially suited for the proliferation of compact and mid-sized sound systems, positioning them in a picture that also includes small studio-type recording products and musical instruments, basically creating an entire ecosystem for NAMM’s true constituency: the DIY musician who makes basement records on his laptop to give away at the club concerts he travels to with his own line array and lighting rig, all of which fit into his Hyundai hamster SUV.
Winter NAMM has become a regular stop on the tradeshow circuit for many of the big names in live sound, and a few of the newer ones, too — back in 2012, the decidedly MI amp maker Line 6 chose to debut its first-ever P.A. system and mixer at the show. And Winter NAMM’s success in this regard is being matched by Frankfurt Musikmesse, its equally sprawling European counterpart that, in 2013, hosted the launch of Solid State Logic’s L500 live console — a very non-M.I. entry.
Please Sir, I Want Some More…
Yet these traditional shows aren’t enough for a live sound business that’s constantly growing. Individual system manufacturers now routinely do their own road shows, setting up by day in the same venues that their touring rigs visit by night to let local engineers and rental owners get some hands-on time with their gear. And those same rental companies will sometimes do their own mini-expos across the brands they’re the dealers for.
In short, sound reinforcement pros have an enormous number of informational and expositional events to choose between. In a business that’s still largely based around hardware and things that get loaded onto trucks instead of hard drives, being able to look at and play with new tools is something that’s hard to live without. None of the shows are perfect — by nature they have to cover a lot of disparate territory to fully address their own diverse constituencies. But the fact is that sound reinforcement is now being addressed in a larger number of expo venues than ever before. And let’s not let it go to our heads that these shows and organizations are also finally including acoustics in the curricula. It’s a good time to be in live sound.
