Hot spot for audio professionals: top brands and new programme highlights at Prolight + Sound and Musikmesse 2019
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With a revised hall layout, Messe Frankfurt has responded to an important demand of exhibitors and visitors by locating the entire ‘Audio, Sound + Recording’ product segment in Hall 8.0, the biggest groundlevel exhibition hall at Frankfurt Fair and Exhibition Centre. Previously, companies from this segment were to be found in different halls. Now, key players, including Adam Hall, Adamson Europe, Allen & Heath, Amptown System Company, Audio-Technica, Bespeco Professional, Coda Audio, Craaft Audio, d&b audiotechnik, dBTechnologies, DiGiCo, ES- Lawo, Link, Powersoft, Proel, Riedel, Sommer Cable, Valentini and Yamaha Music Europe, are concentrated together under the same roof.
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Additionally, many companies are presenting their latest products on the outdoor exhibition area where ‘Live Sound Arenas’ enable visitors to listen to PA and line-array systems under realistic conditions. Among the brands represented are Audiofocus, Aura Audio, Axiom, dbTechnologies, Eastern Acoustic Works, Fohhn Audio, Funktion One, Harmonic Design, KV2 Audio, Loud Professional, RCF, SE Audiotechnik and Unker Sound. This segment is rounded off by special areas on DJing in Hall 4. Also part of the two trade fairs is a wide-ranging complementary programme of events with more than ever before for professionals in the audio sector.
In the Sound & Recording Lounge in Hall 8.0, visitors can interact with internationally successful producers and engineers, take part in practiceoriented workshops and presentations and expand their networks. Additionally, several exhibitors are showing interesting new products and there is a café for discussions about issues of interest to recording specialists.
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Another première is the collaboration with the organisers of the Music
Tech Fest. The programme includes an ‘Innovation Masterclass’ with
award-winning composer Reeps One and the ‘MTF Labs’ where innovation leaders in the field of music production pass on their knowledge. Rounding off the programme is a 24-hour ‘Trackathon’ at which up-and-coming young people produce and perform songs. The ‘Trackathon’ is hosted by composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Martine-Nicole Rojina.
A world première for visitors to Prolight + Sound and Musikmesse is the Vintage Concert Audio Show with milestones of concert PA systems from four decades. Over 200 exhibits on a special area in Forum.0 will show what PA systems from the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties looked and sounded like. Many of the vintage systems will be shown in action: on all days of the event, there will be a decade-linked audio panel discussion at which sound-engineers from that period explain the equipment used at that time and answer visitors’ questions. They include ex-Prince studio engineer Hans-Martin Buff, Jon Caffery (Joy Division, Sex Pistols, Die Toten Hosen) and Michael Baur (Rammstein).