EI LIVE! REVIEW

ALIVE AND KICKING!

Put the dates for next year in your diary now!

After a triumphant return to the Farnborough International Exhibition Centre, EI rounds up just some of the reactions to the UK’s only smart home and luxury AV trade show.

Phil Wildman, Technical Sales Consultant at Sy Electronics, offers, “Thanks to the EI Live! Show organisers, who once again smashed it out of the park with the 2022 event. This was a fantastic show, which we were glad to be part of. We were able to show off the many benefits and extra functions that SY products possess, via both spoken word explanation and by using our show stand media displays.

“This type of show offers the chance to speak face-to-face with our customers, both old and new. Everyone likes to meet up in person, and once again we met up with many new system integrators, as well being able to parlè with our old friends. Our Xcalibur product range drew particular attention due to its unique feature set, along with our new range of extenders and switchers with USB connectivity.”

The industry’s key distributors are always a big feature of the show and Pulse Cinemas took an innovative approach, offering business and life coaching on their stand, as well as insight into the company’s exclusive Dream Engine VR experience - designed to enable installers and customers to gain a clearer understanding of how systems work and what they will eventually look like.

Company MD, Mike Beatty, says, “We had a great show meeting many old friends and making new ones. Our main thrust at the show was to encourage installers to come and visit our recently revamped HQ, which offers world class demonstration facilities designed to inspire and drive sales. Our Open Day initiative has been a huge success, giving installers the opportunity to interact with our whole team and really understand how we can create next level home cinema and automation systems together. If you haven’t attended one already get in contact and choose your preferred date.”

Distributor Invision returned with a large presence at the event.

With Mark Taylor, Commercial Director, stating, “We were delighted to be back in Farnborough for this year’s EI Live! It was great to see so many integrators and industry colleagues while showing them what Invision has to offer. I would like to thank EI, our manufacturer partners, and of course the team for making the show a success.”

Peter Alloway, Head of UK Business Development, adds, “I love a show! Nothing beats the opportunity to talk to our customers face-to-face and for them to get hands on with the products. This year, we had some of the first HDBaseT 3.0 products on our stand available from Pulse-Eight and to be able to show these new products first-hand is exciting and what our industry is all about. We’d like to thank everyone who supported us; it was great to see so many familiar faces but also to meet some new colleagues too.”

The stands enjoyed good high-quality traffic

The AWE Village is now a well established and well loved part of the show. Stuart Tickle, Managing Director at AWE, comments, “It was good to be back at EI Live! with the AWE Village. Visitor quality was, as always, excellent and I was pleased to see my team chatting to people throughout. There was a positive vibe and it was great to see new exhibitors at the show this year.

To put into context how important we consider the show, the AWE Village consisted of dedicated areas of interest separated by brands, including distinct visual, audio and smart home control areas, plus dedicated viewing rooms for Sony and Epson projectors. We had a first showing of the LG Objet Easel TV as well as the Epson LS800 UST projector. It takes 15 of us and two full days to build the stand. The reason we go so large is because one of the biggest benefits to attend an exhibition is to actually see, hear or touch the latest versions of the kit you use, but also to discover the best of the things you don’t.

That cannot be done over a Teams call, website or YouTube video. As great as all those platforms are, and how easily accessible a vast amount of content is from your office or sofa, nothing beats being at a physical event to really understand what it is you may be specifying - let alone discovering the best of what you don’t. That is also why we have invested so much into our show apartment at AWE HQ.

We rate the show as very good and encourage any dealer with an interest in integration to visit in 2023.”

David Anderson, Managing Director of Avoke, was equally pleased with the show’s performance, saying, “Over on the Avoke stand we were delighted that so many installers took advantage of the training we offered on our network testers. Diagnostics is becoming more crucial to every install, and we were able to answer lots of questions and show our technical know-how and support. We have a promotion due to start on October 1 that we already have many pre-orders for.

“We were blown away by the response to our H-iFi offering. From streaming, to multiroom to stand-alone pre and power amplifier and speaker systems our Elipson and Tangent offerings were not only admired but were being specified on the stand for upcoming installs. With solutions from £100 to £6k we absolutely had something for everyone.”

Signal distribution is always of course a hot topic at the show. Aiden Jones, Technical Director at specialists in the field, Blustream, says, “It was great to see so many of our partners. Thank you for taking the time to drop by and see some of the new solutions that are coming soon! Big thanks to EI Live! and the team at Essential Install magazine!”

Thanks to Aico, the headline sponsor for this year’s EI Live!

Home cinema is of course a big theme at the show, this year short throw projectors certainly made their mark

The company T-shirt competition started as a bit of fun, but actually got pretty competitive!

UK innovators in smart sensors Faradite are regular supporters of the event. Company MD, Chris Turner, comments, “We had a fantastic time at EI Live! in Farnborough. It was great to catch up with so many people in the industry and see their exciting new products as well as meeting lots of people who are newer to the industry.

Matt Emberson, Marketing Manager at Faradite, adds, “EI Live! 2022 was fantastic. We were so pleased to see the hall full of visitors and exhibitors alike. For us, it was a great opportunity to show some of our more recently released products like our extremely discreet Motion Sensor 360 - Pinhole. As this device is a rear mounted, almost invisible motion sensor, it was brilliant to physically show our customers how the sensor is installed and what the device looks like when installed. Most guests to the stand were in awe of just how discreet the device is when in the wall.

“We also used this opportunity to preview some very exciting products that are due for release in the coming months. Safe to say the feedback was overwhelmingly positive which has made us even more excited to release the products over the coming months. Considering the last few years, seeing our industry get together in person is something we will not be taking for granted. Roll on EI Live! 2023!”

Some of the industry’s biggest companies supported the Snap One offering, show presence and training at the event. Mark Reynolds, Senior Director EMEA, Snap One, says, “Snap One enjoyed an amazing show at EI Live! it was a great opportunity to showcase our latest innovations including OvrC, Triad PDX, WattBox and new features for Control4 OS3. Our training courses, which ran across both days, were well supported and we had plenty of high-quality conversations with integrators. We are very pleased and look forward to another great EI Live event in 2023.”

The popular Aquavision truck stand was once again in attendance wowing the crowds with its installation focused TVs. Company Founder and MD, Alistair Ben, says, “Great show and as much as I try, I can’t think of anything that I would ask you to do different/better! It all just happened perfectly and even the security staff and H&S people so amazingly helpful which makes everything so much easier and less hassle al round. That is a huge compliment to the team. Put me down for the same stand next year please and looking forward to details of the Europe show!” (see this month’s news section).

The show is always happy to welcome associations from various parts of the industry that support the event and their members. CAI were delighted to attend EI Live! once again. Peter Sealey, CAI’s Chairman/Senior Executive and Kevin Dawson Assessment and Technical Executive were both in attendance to help and discuss everything membership and training related. Kevin comments, “A wellattended show where it was important CAI had a good presence. We are very happy to continue as active market partners to Essential Install and EI Live! and very much look forward to the next exhibition.”

Product launches are of course a huge feature of the show and amongst those offering new concepts was Connected Distribution.

Mike Bonnette, Product Director, explains, “Alongside the static display of our core brands, including Russound, Parasound, Yamaha and Earthquake Sound, our stand this year took on a different theme, with an active demonstration to show visitors the benefits of installing immersive, object based audio systems for their customers. Demonstrating audio in an open show environment is never perfect, but the reaction to the new Aurea range of cinema speakers was nothing short of fantastic. The Aurea offering, using speakers from a commercial cinema supplier, of a ‘Cinema In The Home’, as opposed to a home cinema, certainly resonated with the people who came to our stand and made our appearance at the show one we were very pleased with.”

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Samuel Arunta, Director at Versed Automation, proving that EI Live! was the place to be seen

Combing the power of several top performing brands, the DbM stand was a popular choice. “We thoroughly enjoyed our time at EI Live!” comments Katy Bradshaw, Director of Marketing for DbM. “The show gave us the opportunity to meet with a selection of new and familiar faces and discuss the range of products that we can provide to support them on their smart home installs. Visitors were excited to hear about our two new distribution deals with Amina and Sonos and how these fit into our existing brand offering that includes Barco, Cats, Display Technologies, LG, Meridian Audio, nexgentec, SMS Leddy, Trinnov and Waterfall Audio.

“We were also delighted to attend the Smart Building Awards at the end of day one of the show and celebrated as a team as two of our key brands, Meridian and LG, walked away with a total of four awards, including Best Standalone Speaker, Best In-Wall or In-Ceiling Speaker, Best Manufacturer, and Best TV Display Conventional.” See this month’s news section for all the results from the SBAs!

Another distributor enjoying the show was Indigo Distribution. Emma McQueen, Marketing Coordinator says, “As always, we had a fantastic time at EI Live! The show was a great success in terms of meeting new people, building relationships with our current customers and showcasing our brands that we partner with.

“This year we took along some of our new brands, which included; QMotion Shading, BasIP Intercom Solutions and Integra AVRs. EI Live! was a great opportunity to show people in person what these new products have to offer. As well as this, we took along our speaker brand Klipsch, and gave some product demonstrations of the Behind-The-Screen Cinema System. We also brought our control brands ELAN and RTI, as well as Rako Lighting, Bond Bridge and Pulse Eight.”

Emma adds, “At the Smart Building Awards, it was announced that we won the Best Training initiative for our Sales Training Course. It was great to be recognised for this and made our time at EI Live! even better! Overall, a great two days at EI Live! 2022.”

Another stand that was busy throughout the show was Karma AV. Founder and MD, Ian Severs, recounts, “Yet again the UK’s only CI trade show proved to be an energetic source of business contacts and a great stage for our range of CI and home theatre products.

The Technical Theatre played to packed houses throughout the show

“For instance, we chose EI Live! for the European show launch of Perlisten Audio’s THX Certified Dominus In-Walls, the world’s first, which attracted a huge amount of interest, along with our established JBL Synthesis range and Primare’s beautiful new SPA25 9-channel AV amp. There was also a great deal of recognition for Ascendo Immersive Audio’s high-end theatre systems and room-cancelling EQ technology as well as SVS’ proven subwoofer systems and System Audio’s WiSA enabled speakers. No question, we’ll be back next year!”

SPECIAL ASSISTANCE

Platforms that deliver support in project planning and execution are a huge topic at the moment and installer friend Specifi enjoyed the opportunity to spread word about its comprehensive package.

Steph Watson, Marketing Manager, says, “Thank you for having us EI Live! we had two very successful days. This was our second ever show, last year was all about getting our name out and showing installers who we were. However, this year, we got much more out of the show as more and more people recognised us and knew what Specifi was. This meant that we could spend more time building relationships with customers and hearing what new features they would like to see on the platform to make it even better.

“At the show, we were able to give live demonstrations of our AV Business Management Tool. Being able to have that face-to-face interaction is very important, and EI Live! was the perfect place to have this. We were able to show some of our new features which included; our Customer Portal, Customisable Sales Quotes and QuickBooks integration. As well as our CRM functionality, Time Management features and more. Overall our time at EI Live! was a great success.”

Another product launch at the show came from Display Technologies (DT) addressing more cinema design challenges with the introduction of VMM-FS. DT’s VMM-FS (Freestanding Vertical Mirror Mount) is made for vertically mount a projector where its advantageous having the unit sat on a horizontal structure such as a shelf or cupboard; ideal in situations where space is limited, and in installations where structural vibration can be an issue, this precludes its use.

DT has addressed this issue by introducing the VMM-FS, a freestanding version of the VMMv2 that de-couples from the wall and minimises vibration transfer. The VMM-FS can be positioned onto a horizontal surface or secured to an isolated base unit that avoids vibration created by bass energy and wooden floors etc. installation is simple and it only takes up slightly more space than a conventional VMMv2.

Managing Director of DT, Neil Davidson, comments: “This solution is designed to address one of the most important pieces of feedback we have received from our global customer base. Various constructions schemes in different countries made wall mounting the VMMv2 challenging. By decoupling the mount from the structure this opens the solution into many more projects for our partners.”

INSTALLER REACTION

The number of installers coming through the door was a clear endorsement of the show with numbers up on last year. Many familiar faces - but also many new visitors - underline the strength of the show moving forward. Once again, many exhibitors expressed their pleasure at the high quality of the visitor profile, a key deliverable that show organisers are keen to underline and keep delivering on.

The reaction of Louise Tarling, Founder of Louise Tarlin, was typical, “That’s a wrap. What a show! We honestly thought that we would get it done in one day and be away, but that just didn’t happen. We had so many suppliers and distributors to see, that we filled up the full two days of the show and still didn’t get to see everyone - sorry Jose from Origin Acoustics and Mike at Pulse, every time we went past your stands you were already chatting!

“These shows are great for keeping up to date with new developments in our industry, and we always come away enthused and super excited with ideas for new projects. It’s also great to be able to feedback directly to manufacturers about potential issues or suggestions for improvements on their products that they wouldn’t normally get to hear. But the best thing about the show - is all of the different people that we get to meet. Looking forward to EI Live! 2023!”

And just to prove the reach of the show goes beyond the UK, Morgan Irwin, flew in from Cape Town Home Cinema and says, “It was incredible to be able to visit EI Live! In a last minute, unexpected opportunity, Christiaan Beukes invited me to join him at the UK’s premier home technology trade show. It was great to see so many brands and products on display at the show. I am especially grateful that I was able to meet in person for the first time so many people. Great to meet Kris Gamble, David Coutts, Barry Pim, Nick Fichte, as well as having a great catchup with Chris Pinder!

Also great to get my first look at ASCENDO Immersive Audio GmbH and Perlisten Audio speakers. Of course, it wouldn’t be a trade-show visit without having a quick look around the Trinnov Audio display. Thank you to everyone for the great chats while at the show. It was really amazing to be able to see everyone!”

So, after a rip-roaring success of show, can you afford not to be at next years? The dates are already set there are easy to remember, the same dates as this year, so put 13-14 September in your diary right now, lock them out and make sure you attend, see you in 2023!

EI Live! gets a great big thumbs up from Phil Hardaway, EMEA Sales Manager, Nice UK available from stock

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