Greetings from the 2014 LDI Conference in Las Vegas. This is the 27th annual conference on staging, lighting and visual technologies and effects. It’s also the conference where they pour so much smoke and fog into the convention center (to see the lighting effects more dramatically) that they have to pay extra to disable the smoke detectors and have fire-watch guards on duty.
One of the interesting things about visual technology is that it defies categories – and always has. A device built for theater can be used in television and corporate video, a production light works well in collaboration settings, etc. By staying on top of the technology in one niche you can get a heads-up on alternate and future uses. So my highlights below are by no means a detailed report of what was shown at the conference, but rather a taste of the devices and hidden gems that can effectively cross-over.
One type of device that cuts across all categories is video cameras. It was great to catch up with Ed Ellet and the team at Vaddio. Ed used to run the endpoint business at Polycom (in the early 2000 – when there was none better.) After a few stops along the way he took over as President and CEO of Vaddio earlier this year. I didn’t get a chance to congratulate him in person at InfoComm in June, but at this smaller show I had the time to chat with him and his sales manager Tim Henry. They were here at LDI showing off their outstanding Shot Family of cameras.
