PLASA Show 2023: Classic Gear Live - Meet The Experts
- Details
But equipment is nothing without people, and Classic Gear Live will also offer an opportunity not just to see these remarkable products, but also to meet some of the people who made, sold or made use of them.
Many of these experts will be around across much of the show, always happy to talk. But to help those looking to plan their days, there are a number of scheduled ‘Meet The Expert’ times to guarantee you’ll find people on the stand:
SUN 3 SEPT:
11am: Sound designer Mike Walker talks about how sound designers influenced Cadac and Cadac became the standard tool for theatre sound designers for more than 30 years.
12pm: Jon Primrose of the Theatrecrafts / Strand Archive website, on preserving the past, one scanned document at a time!
1pm: Andrew Voller, lighting designer, programmer and for many years Vari-Lite’s Artisan training manager, talking about – and winding back time by demonstrating – the Artisan, VL2 and VL4.
2.30pm: John Wright, who built the very first prototype of the console, talking about Strand’s MMS, a remarkable modular memory lighting control that is a memory control without being a computer control!
MON 4 SEPT:
11.30am: Don Hindle, who was managing director of CCT Lighting as they shook up lighting with their versatile Silhouette and Minuette fixtures, talking about the innovations which took CCT from being a rental company supplying small theatres in south London to a manufacturer whose products could be (and in fact, still are!) found in theatres around the world.
12.15pm: Paul Johnson from the Historic Stage Lighting Collective, talking about their work preserving and documenting generations of lighting equipment – and attempting to re-discover such unique lighting arts as Fred Bentham’s Colour Music.
1pm: Alan Luxford, who joined Strand Electric as a trainee in 1967 and only retired last year, talking about the cutaway Patt 23 and Patt 264 fixtures, which he looked after when running their demo theatre, and the MMS console, the first of which he helped install in 1973.
2.30pm: John Wright, another chance to hear about his involvement in creating MMS and then making and supporting the generations of consoles that followed.
TUES 5 SEPT:
11.30am: John Wright, a repeat performance on the history of the MMS console for those not at the show on Sunday or Monday.
12pm: Dik Welland who as senior service engineer at Vari-Lite Europe during the 1980s prepared and repaired Artisan consoles before they went out on some of the biggest shows in the world, talking about Vari-Lite’s revolutionary products, which are still unique in many ways.
2.30pm: Don Hindle, - another chance to hear about the history of the Silhouette and CCT Lighting, for those not able to be there on Monday.
These will not be formal talks or presentations – but rather a chance to meet, to chat and to hear the stories of these remarkable products. Also on-hand throughout the show will be Chris Hewitt of CH Vintage Audio, happy to talk about the audio equipment on the stand which encompasses equipment used by Pink Floyd, Mike Oldfield, David Bowie and The Beatles and much more besides, and Rob Halliday who’s been writing LSi magazine’s Classic Gear column for more than 16 years now and has spoken about some of these classics at previous PLASA Shows.
And there are others, unconfirmed because of their schedules, who we are really hoping will be there. Drop by the stand to see who’s there. Classic Gear Live. Stand A28. Far-left corner of the hall.
To register for your free PLASA Show entry pass, click HERE.
