Prolight + Sound NAMM Russia Lights the Way for Exhibitors, Attendees at Sixth Annual Gathering

The sixth annual  Prolight + Sound NAMM Russia was held at Moscow’s Sokolniki Center (September 14 to 16) and ran concurrently with NAMM Musikmesse Russia. The two shows welcomed a 13% increase in professional visitors to the annual trade fairs. This year's The pavilions offered exhibitors and visitors alike the opportunity to engage with brands by specialty and a dedicated pavilion to the fourth annual Theater Forum, which featured technical tours and a line array demo for all to enjoy on the festival square.

Exhibitors at the trade fair included Clay Paky, Bose, ROBE lighting, KLOTZ AIS, König & Meyer, OSRAM, AV Stumpfl, Sennheiser Audio, HARMAN, Pioneer Professional Audio, Chainmaster and others, representing 89 companies from eight countries, including Austria, Germany, Italy, China, Poland, Russian Federation, Turkey and France. Together, the pavilions and programs welcomed over 7,000 visitors including lighting designers, sound engineers, integrators, importers and distributors, representatives of event agencies, theaters, concert halls, rental companies, and specialists from radio, recording and TV studios. 

Riku Kauppinen, director of international sales for MA Lighting shared, ”It’s our 3rd year we exhibit in Prolight + Sound NAMM. And each year has been better for us.”  First time exhibitor Fredric Kromberg, director of international sales for Klotz AIS GmbH, concurred: “We really like the exhibition [and] the quality of visitors we meet here. I’m very pleased to set up new contacts and learn more about the market of cable equipment; I’m impressed!”

This year, the Theater Forum returned on a grand scale, focusing on approaches in the reconstruction, re-equipment and building of cultural institutions. Led by the State Academic Maly Theatre and the Moscow Theatre chaired by Oleg Tabakov, the Maly Theater gladly opened its doors to welcome all the technical specialists from theaters to take part in excursions around its production halls. 

Visitors and exhibitors were also able to experience technical tours upon specialty. Led by Denis Zagumennov (Mixingschool.ru), sound engineers walked around the exposition where the representatives of companies made presentations of their products and showed the equipment in action. On the second day, a group of students from the Theatre Technical College joined the adult professionals for mentorship. Together, the group walked the booths of companies, where application, techniques and product information was shared to enhance the students’ knowledge.

Event agencies and rental companies also enjoyed technical tours, organized by MAX \ MAX Productions. The carefully curated tours offered specialists the opportunity to get hands-on with equipment and create a strategy for supporting an event. Lighting designers experienced a similar opportunity, diving behind the scenes to discover the design properties of the fair, as well as meeting with top brands. The tours were supported by David Misakyan – a famous Russian lighting designer.

In addition to the technical tours, a variety of educational opportunities were presented. The Theatre Forum held B2B meetings of technical directors of theaters with manufacturers and suppliers of equipment from 11 theaters in 10 Russian regions. One of the participants from the exhibitor’s side was Doka Centre. Vasiliy Litvin, Head of Lighting Department: “We are extremely satisfied with this new format. We learned new information from the theaters and had a great opportunity to present ourselves".

In prosound, Mixingschool.ru once again held a series of seminars for sound engineers, which was filled to capacity.

A line array demonstration was also presented in the festival square. The demonstration featured products from eight different brands including B&A, DAS Audio, JBL, Lorrenz, Outline, TDA, TurboSound, and Universal Acoustics, and was witnessed by the many professionals in attendance.

Technical partners of the fair included MF Group, Euroshow, First Line production and GTD Lighting who became the sponsor of the registration area.

The show was held in parallel with NAMM Musikmesse Russia, the international fair for musical instruments, sheet music, music production and music business connections. The exposition presented six different pavilions, dedicated to different product groups, included Guitar World, Drummers United, DJ & Electro World, Keyboards World, pavilion CHOIREXPO and Yamaha Weekend Hall. The fair was held in ECC “Sokolniki” from 14 to 17 of September.

Prolight + Sound NAMM Russia will return in 2018, from September 13 to 15 at Moscow’s Sokolniki Center. For more information, please visit www.prolight-namm.ru