As promised, some reflections on our day in partnership with RIBA AV, Intelligent AV 2017.
I looked on this outing as our first grand adventure. More people, bigger scope. We hadn’t tried something as big before, but thanks to Steve Barrett-White and Gabriel Thorp at RIBA, opportunity came knocking. We have mostly aimed at smaller events, as a lot of our members run small teams or work on their own, and as we all know last minute demands often mean changing your plans. So we’ve often run what I cal ‘pop up’ style happenings. With IAV 17 we had a slightly longer run in.
We learn’t a lot of things from your feedback (named badges, more Q&A, less time sitting in the theatre and more networking) it’s all tip of the iceberg stuff, but with your help we’d like to build on it. Considering the time demands we all had, it went from a concept to reality within five months. RIBA itself was happy with the outcome and they are open to us repeating the day next year. So, now we have time to plan properly and with Steve, Gabriel’s and your support I expect cool things for IAV 2018.
We had around 60-80 people through the day on average. Some came early on some arrived later. On checking figures a total of 130 attendees came through the door during the day.
Going forward, one of the things I think we should be aiming for is to tie in more people from the education sector so we can expose a younger demographic into all the areas that pro AV has to offer by way of career choices and roles. As was mentioned in our last session there will be a huge demand in the coming years for new blood to be filling roles in many areas; AV delivery, integration, Installation and the tricky issue of a new type of AV/IT hybrid technician. This was reinforced by our panel and audience members during the Q&A session.
We need to be ahead of the curve on this issue is what I took away from this discussion.
And, as I mentioned before, our experts with their wares on display found they had a more rewarding experience, they were allowed the time to have real discussions with us in a less pressurised arena. A thing they found refreshingly different to the ‘big dog’ fairs they usually attend. Relationships were built.
I think we at AVCF are starting carve our niche and people are beginning to take notice.
And that’s all due you good folk in our community.
One last time, a big thank you to everyone who took part in the panel Q&A at the end; Chris Lavelle from Infocomm, Graeme Massey from JacobsMassey, Marcus Saunders from UAL London College of Fashion, Alex Myers from The British Museum and last, but not least, Dan Crompton from TATE. An Influential and extremely knowledgable bunch.
Also, to all of our contributors from the supply side who showcased their wares and spoke to us.
White Light, Panasonic, Allen and Heath, Audio Technica, Artnovian, Sontronics, Shure, One Lan, Microsoft, 360 VR Photography, Wise, JacobsMassey, Martin Lighting, Apart, Black Magic Design and Quadra.
Any more feedback from you would be very helpful, just drop me a line,
Here’s to IAV 18.
And so..
I have taken a small break to both Las Vegas and LA for a couple of weeks, but while there I’m sure I will find things of interest, as AV touches all. I am promised a backstage tour of a new Vegas spectacular show ‘Circus 1903’, exciting. I’m always intrigued by the talents of technicians working in the theatre. This show also enlists the talents of the puppeteers behind Warhorse to recreate circus elephants, below is the original trailer and (real elephant) and below that a look at the elephants created for the live show.
Finally, below is a reminder of the superlative engineering that defines Rolls Royce and is getting me to the States. I hear they’re making their own line of switchers soon. They’ll be quite big apparently.
Chris
