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Author Topic: Showest 2004 Michael Elam Film Handler Posts: 84 From: Clarksville, IN, USA Registered: Mar 2001 posted 03-27-2004 08:03 PM                     Is it me?, or is it getting worst?  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 03-27-2004 11:39 PM                     The trade show floor was pretty uneventful except for MiT's booth. It was just like being there the year before. Same ol' stuff.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-28-2004 12:05 AM                     Its alot different for dealers that are meeting with customers to go over equipment needs for upcomming jobs. Its about the only place you can look and see the equipment, sometimes in action. We also have a division of our company that handles seating, installation, and all interior work and this is new seat year for alot of our customers, so we had a number of meetings lined up. I do enjoy the seating aspect of this buisness somewhat even if to a lesser degree than others do. It was funny that I was in fact questioned by another Film-Techer at the drink night as to why we would want to do front ends, interiors, and seating.... to them the money(income I guess) didn't matter.... of course the money doesn't matter really....with us its a matter of convenience for our customers and some request(some have actually demanded) us to do it, and the fact that they know from the many years of association with us that the job will be done correctly and on time. I've found that its also much easier to function properly when we are not relying on someone else to get other critical aspects of a job done correctly . This rarely happens unless you do it yourself. Mark @ CLACO  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 03-28-2004 12:17 AM                     Mark hit the nail on the head, in addition to potentially new equipment which, on any given year, is but a small percentage, ShoWest (and even ShowEast) is a place where the manufacturer, dealer and exhibitor can all be in the same room and business discussed. I have NEVER yet come away without doing some valuable business that couldn't practically be done elsewhere. If you are just going to the show to see the new stuff then you are apt to be disappointed on a year-to-year basis. Sure, every once in a while you'll see someone come out with a new processor or such but that alone doesn't justify the expense of traveling there to "touch" it. How many of you took the time to talk with Sam, Ken (at Dolby), Clint, the folks at Strong...etc...you can get a buch of information is a relatively short time and have some pleasent conversations (and perhaps meals). Overall, ShoWest I find to be quite worthwhile. Steve  |  IP: Logged Richard Fowler Film God Posts: 2392 From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA Registered: Jun 2001 posted 03-28-2004 02:40 AM                     The show was the second convention I attended this week in Las Vegas; the prior one was a sound contractor's show that closed the day prior to the opening to ShoWest. Attending these shows are in many respects much more tiring and exhausting that a typical week at work. Face to face meetings, judgement of new items in the marketplace, ripple effect of new products to other vendors, solicting opinions and different viewpoints from people in attendance make these functions worth the effort. Sure it is fun to "kick the tires" while window shopping, which may become boring; but if you have goals and issues, that is another story.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 03-28-2004 02:54 AM                     quote: ShoWest (and even ShowEast) is a place where the manufacturer, dealer and exhibitor can all be in the same room and business discussed Therein lies the problem. Every manufacturer has great sales pitches that tells the client why their cheaper, inferior and let's be honest here...quite possibly shit equipment is just PERFECT for the job. There simply is no one manufacturer that makes the best choice for every item for a specific job and even those manufacturers who have a pretty decent overall combo package always has that one incredibly bad component in the deal. As such, the best way to achieve the best bang for the buck is to mix and match equipment and in my opinion to do that requires that the manufacturer be left out of the discussions with the client. The whole thing becomes increasingly difficult when you have some manufacturer shoving that one item down your client's throat that you KNOW will cause problems, or worse yet when a manufacturer is strongly pushing their line of goods that you know will not truly stand behind their equipment. (Let's be honest, there are plenty of sleazy people in this industry.) At that point your job is to protect the best interests of your client by to giving them the most reliable equipment possible within their budget restrictions and to make sure they will be well taken care of years and years after the sale. I am always happy to provide a few different package combinations for clients at various prices and then let them decide which they can swing financially on their end, but the whole point of a client hiring you is for your expertise and you should know what works best for their situation. Having the end buyer hear all of the various manufacturer's sales pitches only confuses the client and I see all the time a really bad package ends up getting installed and in most cases they regret it later. Sure it's not a political approach to the situation, but I've never been political. Anyway, you may not agree, but that's my take on it. I would much rather walk away from a project in the planning stages (and have) than see the customer end up with a booth that will only bring about grief down the road that I was responsible for. That's not acceptable to me.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-28-2004 07:22 AM                        I'd love to see Brad's version of Showest. I imagine that it would be something like this: Company C: "Our platter and lamphouse are great, but our projectors aren't so hot, even though we keep redesigning them. You should buy Company S's projectors." Company S: "We make great projectors and decent lamphouses, but our platters are mediocre. You should buy those from Company C." Company T: "We don't sell projectors or platters, but check out our new DLP machine! It only costs five times the price of a top-of-the-line 35mm system and you'll probably need to upgrade it every five years. There is very little material to play on it, but doesn't it look cool?"  |  IP: Logged Michael Elam Film Handler Posts: 84 From: Clarksville, IN, USA Registered: Mar 2001 posted 03-28-2004 08:54 AM                     I have no complaints with the Trade Show Floor and the vendors, but I do with the disorganzation of the meals,late starts,etc, it can be better with a little more planning, the 20th Century lunch was very good, but who would arrange it the way they did?, someone is going to get trampled on, perhaps a small child they maybe shouldn't be there anyway.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-28-2004 09:27 AM                     "As such, the best way to achieve the best bang for the buck is to mix and match equipment and in my opinion to do that requires that the manufacturer be left out of the discussions with the client." Brad, I couldn't agree more but also disagree with you on part of that statement . After you've been in this long enough the vendors will learn exactly how you operate. And they know that I operate exactly as you said in the first part of your statement.... to mix and match the best equipment into a design that'll work in to their budget constraints. In fact I was written up in an article about 10 years ago in Film Journal about my designing the equipment packages that went into the Elgin Fox Theatre by doing it "Mix And Match" whilst everyone else back then was simply installing either Strong or Christie packages and to poor results. Mixing and matching definately allows one to give your client alot of bang for the buck. A dealer that is not capable of selecting the optimum equipment has no place in this industry! What I disagree on with you is that it is sometmies very wise for the manufacturer, dealer, and client to meet face to face and initally discuss pricing of things like projectors, seating, ticketing equipment, order lead time and other pertinent things that will relate to a specific upcomming job. I've also found that many vendors are also eager to know the end user. Seating in particuluar is best done ar Showest where clients can see sit and find out how good or bad a product is that they are interested in purchasing. I'll offer the chineese seats which are infltrating the US market as a prime example of this...Several clients that were GOING to purchase them looked them over and found out that they are absolute crap are now purchasing Greystone seating. It was quite easy to show our customers certain aspects of the asian seating and how poorly made they are, while all you had to do was look at the frame build on the Greystone... its simply amazing! Michael, I've been doing Showest for about 20 years now and quit doing the meals and other waste of time events after the second visit. Many of our customers also feel its a waste. How many awards do you need to see Jack Valenti get anyway? He gets some stupid award or something every year ....its beyond stupid! I think that many here would wish that they'd spike his orange juice with something so we'd never have see him again A trip to the new local Fryes store in Vegas is far more meaningful(and also a learning experience) than any of the meal type things that Showest puts on... There are also technical type meetings galore put on by the vendors and SMPTE... you can also learn something. A good example of things to attend was the DTS XD-10 seminar in which they announced that they will soon be doing audio tracks that have no data compression! I guess no one from Film-Tech other than myself attended that one..... as someone would have mentioned that amazing recording/playback feat, and several other things the XD-10 is easily capable of. Mark  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 03-28-2004 09:55 AM                     Brad, The dealer should be escorting the customer...sure Brand A has the best equipment...after their schpeel...you can in a matter of minutes take your customer to brand B's booth and make you point why they have a better product on one facet of the booth. I can honestly say, I've never had a customer tell me they were going to buy a "package" based on a Show sales pitch. Steve  |  IP: Logged Richard Fowler Film God Posts: 2392 From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA Registered: Jun 2001 posted 03-28-2004 10:41 AM                     We stopped doing the banquet portion of the convention which we did for a couple of years and lessen our risk of food poisoning ...it is better to take a client and vendor to breakfast or lunch to iron out details on products, requirements and pricing of which I did several. Most of the convention "functions" are terminal in their execution. I was at the DTS seminar with a client and we left at the second half to do a lunch date with a vendor. The "uncompressed" audio scheme that DTS is planning to roll out was a factor in the client deciding to use the XD-10 in some future projects. Mark if you heard a cell phone in the back playing "Ode to Joy" that was me  |  IP: Logged Manny Knowles "What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???" Posts: 4247 From: Bloomington, IN, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 03-28-2004 10:41 AM                     quote: A good example of things to attend was the DTS XD-10 seminar in which they announced that they will soon be doing audio tracks that have no data compression! I guess no one from Film-Tech other than myself attended that one..... as someone would have mentioned that amazing recording/playback feat, and several other things the XD-10 is easily capable of. No need to go all the way to ShoWest to learn about this. The press release was posted here on Film-Tech on 3/22. The thread is called "DTS To Use Lossless Encoding."  |  IP: Logged Richard Fowler Film God Posts: 2392 From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA Registered: Jun 2001 posted 03-28-2004 10:53 AM                     The DTS lossless sound was demostrated in the JBL demo room set up with the DBC ( Digital B Chain ) system, which was an event in it self. They played clips from Pirates of the Caribbean and Chicago which where encoded lossless from the studio masters...in a proper venue this will be mind blowing.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-28-2004 11:04 AM                     Sorry Manny, I don't catch every tidbit thats posted here....impossible. Its also far more interesting and informative to hear this sort of thing presented by someone technical from what ever company is announcing whatever thay will. Richard, I did hear the phone go off in the seminar....sounded more like "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" than it did "Ode to Joy" . Personally I think the Showorst people need to get their act together pretty quickly. How long can people endure those stupid breakfast lunch and dinner award laugh outs. If they keep it up people will stop comming complately, expecially people from other countries that have to pay high prices just to get there. Some of our customers that go to all that have finally admitted that its getting just way to useless and boring to consider attending them any longer. Should we all look at the next 5 years as the decline of Showorst? First off, I think its high time they left Ballys and found larger and more comfortable accomodations for the show as a whole. They wore out the Ballys setup years ago and the place is getting quite worn out anyway. The outside circus tent that was given us to use those few years was a farce at best. They also need to do something else, something new, to keep people comming back and new ones comming in. Showorst partons also shouldn't have to go elsewhere to get decent food either. The food situation at Ballys is pretty low key as compared to other large casinos in Vegas. Mark  |  IP: Logged Manny Knowles "What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???" Posts: 4247 From: Bloomington, IN, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 03-28-2004 11:36 AM                     Mark: How can you now call it a "tidbit" when you were making such a big deal over the announcement just a short time ago. Richard: I have no doubt that lossless encoding would be a good thing but are you actually saying that you could discern a difference? Was this an A/B test or were you comparing what you heard to a distant memory of having heard these soundtracks reproduced on another playback system in another theatre? Wow! That would require something more than golden ears. The "proper venue" is really the key. Optical analog can sound pretty amazing in a "proper venue."  |  IP: Logged

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