This year’s ISE is bringing several new activations to this year’s attendees, one of which is the Live Events Stage. Hosted by TPi Magazine Stew Hume along with Production Futures Hannah Eakins, the Stage will be situated in Hall 6 and looks to be a space for talks throughout the show that look to shine a light on the live events sectors. Having supported the Live Events Summit in 2024, MA Lighting is taking on the headline sponsorship for this year’s Live Events Stage. TPi spoke to Stephan Saremba, Managing Director for MA Lighting, about this year’s collaboration and what he was looking forward to from this year’s Tradeshow.
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Why do you think it is important to have the Live Events industry at ISE?
“The clue is in the name of the show – Integrated Systems! While in the past we have thought about integration more in the context of a fixed installation in a building, the complexity and connectivity between many technologies on stage are crucial to delivering a successful event.”
“Think about a concert of your favourite band or theatre play. Within a two-to-three-hour time frame, everything from lighting, video, audio, moving stage elements, laser, pyro and more must be in perfect sync. Then it is all taken down, loaded on trucks and transported to a new location, to be installed and integrated, ready to deliver another two to three hours of exciting moments for the audience. This is like system integration on steroids. The same is true for corporate events, your annual shareholders meeting or a big global product launch.”
“All the disciplines and technologies that come together to deliver these performances are at ISE; the experts designing, integrating and installing systems. The Live Events industry sits in the middle where all those skills together create something magic, cool and sexy.”
The Live Events sector within ISE grew rapidly in the last years, what contributed to this development in your opinion?
“Looking back a couple of years, many technologies that are highly relevant for the Live Events sector have been scattered around the show. ISE is very large, as a visitor you must know where to go, who you want to see and plan your time here carefully to get the most out of it. Last year for the first time, ISE gave us a home in Hall 1 and it worked. We saw a lot more visitors and you could dedicate time to spend with companies within the Live Events sector. The dynamic that came from this are quite stunning and there was clearly a bigger space needed for visitors to engage with Live Events Technology. This year we are in Hall 6 and the addition of the Live Events Stage really shows that ISE is taking this segment very seriously.”
Why did MA Lighting decide to support the Live Event Stage as a main sponsor?
“Integrating a number for different technologies into one fine-tuned system that delivers an amazing event, is a very complex thing to do. People within our industry have to invest a lot of their time in education, building up knowledge and experience – every day. Knowledge transfer, especially within the Live Events Industry, is a key component to stay relevant and become successful in your discipline. Sponsoring the Live Events Stage as a main sponsor was a no-brainer for us. Bringing it down to the show floor and allowing people to participate at any time, gives everyone the ability to learn from the experience that the speakers share. That is what it is all about in our people industry.”
What are you showing this year at ISE?
“MA Lighting is best known for their lighting consoles. The demands in the market have continuously evolved and today a lighting console has become a control platform for visual effects. At MA Lighting, we think in systems, all the components that are necessary allow a user to effectively manage the technology contributing to the visual design of an event.”
“Take the Eurovision Song Contest as an example. Within a few hours, there are 20+ acts on stage, each with their own design and message they want to inspire their audience with. All of this is live broadcast to over 200 million people. You have multiple programmers that work simultaneously to create this show. To make this happen you need a robust and reliable system. But even for a small show you will think about backup, which can be done without adding a lot of extra investment. At our booth this year we invite visitors to ‘Build your own System’. You can go along the path of all the use cases within a Live Event and learn how to put an MA Lighting system together to achieve the best outcome. We did it in a fun way and in the end you can see your designed system. Come and see us at stand S6400, here in Hall 6.”