Anyone who reads JimOnLight.com going to go to LightFair this year?  LightFair is the LDI Convention of the Architectural and Commercial Lighting world, and just as with LDI, there are lots and lots and lots of classes, seminars, meetings, and exhibits to see.  I wish I could go, but I’ll be on a show site in Columbus, OH.

LightFair’s dates are May 5-7, 2009, with the Daylighting Institute and LightFair Institute on May 3 and 4.  Pre-registration opens on February 10, 2009.  More to come on this.

LightFair Registration Questions here, and LightFair 2009 pricing here.

I’m presenting a workshop for young lighting designers and master electricians in February at the Rocky Mountain Theatre Association Conference in February of this next coming year - so, in a few months.  My seminar is about the lighting professional’s life and work - the transition from educational life to that of the professional lighting industry is not an easy one.  I’m going to give the seminar participants some idea about what to expect in the “real” world when they get out of college.

if you’re going to RMTA, check out my seminar!  “Some Ideas About the “Real World” for Lighting Designers and Master Electricians” is happening during the festival, February 4-7, 2009. More info when i know exactly when my seminar will be.

Oh yeah, I have a lot more imagery of LDI 2008.  However, I’m posting this one below, but I cannot figure out for the life of me which company had the display!  If you were at LDI 2008 and know who this company is, please post in the comments so I can give them the recognition they deserved!  That screen and media server were awesome!

Clay Paky’s booth this year was fun - more for the fact that they had a bunch of really punchy fixtures that were very, very freaking bright.  So bright, in fact, that I heard someone say “dude, is that the Clay Paky booth?  Do they have VL3000’s up there?”

The Alpha Beam 1500 is AWESOME, Clay Paky.  Just so you know.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

MA Lighting had one of the more visually stunning booths this year, in my very humble opinion.  Big viz screen and ads, lots of people, and the new Grand MA 2.  What a desk - what a pre-viz built in, too!  I was looking at it with Mike Zinman of ZInmanCo, and the comment about how fanf&%$*tastic that console was came up a few times.

I took a bunch of pics of the MA Lighting booth - check them out:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Philips and Color Kinetics had a softly lit, multi-color booth this year.  Lots of great new products, and unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to chat with anyone there, as every time I went over, Philips reps were swamped.

Check out the booth:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to spend much time checking out Robe’s booth this year.  I went and got my badge scanned, and then I got whisked away by old friends.  Robe has been getting some good press with new product releases.  I’ve not ever had the chance to design with Robe fixtures, but I’d be open to a try.

In addition to the one pathetic image I took, there is a nice gallery on Robe’s website of LDI 2008.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Aqua Visual FX had a great booth at LDI this year.  For those of you who don’t know about Aqua Visual FX’s products, it’s basically a water billboard, with the images and text you want displayed shot down in sheets from a top point.  All the water is in a relatiovely closed circuit system, with the water being recycled once it reaches the bottom.  You’d think that all of that water hitting the ground would make a lot of noise, but because of the baffle-like filter at the receiving end of the water, it is very quiet.  I’ve seen a few of these in use at trade shows, but LDI’s display was my favorite.

I put together a really shaky animated GIF of the pics I took of the Aqua Visual FX booth, and I’ve posted some pics below.  Check it out, and check them out.  The gif is a little large - it should load itself and stop being shaky in a few seconds…

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Here’s an image I took of Strong’s booth at LDI.  Lots of spotlights, and you could see them from pretty much any vantagepoint in the convention hall.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Rosco always has stuff that people buy, this is a given.  I was most interested this year in seeing the DMX Iris.  I posted about this a while back, but I was able to get some pics of the DMX Iris unit up close this year.  I also snapped the dual rotator and the single rotator.  I love Rosco’s dual rotator.  I just love it.

Also, funny enough, under each of these is the Rosco Lite Pad.  Hah.  Excellent way to promote two products at once, Rosco!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.