For Release: May 19, 2009
May 2009 – Munich, Germany: A strong Technical Conference Program, with crowded Paper and Workshop sessions and a smaller exhibition floor than in recent years, summed up the AES Convention in Munich. “The exhibition was an important part of the Convention”, Roger Furness, AES Executive Director said and many exhibitors expressed satisfaction with the visitors that had attended, although there were fewer than usual, reflecting the uncertain economic times.
“We were positively surprised by the many valuable discussions
with our customers. Sennheiser had the entire crew of the
professional section on the booth.”
Wolfgang Guse, Sales Director Professional Systems of the
Sennheiser Sales division Germany. Sennheiser was
the largest exhibitor on the floor.
“Initially, we had anticipated a drop in visitors, since even the recent large international events had faced this problem. But we were pleased to see that even in these difficult times so many pro audio experts used the Convention for information exchange and personal networking,” remarked Martin Wöhr, Chairman of the Convention. He then expressed his personal gratitude to all who contributed to this success: “My sincere thanks to all the many volunteers, who planned the entire convention program and made it happen – and of course to the exhibitors and sponsors who have chosen to use the convention as the platform for launching their latest products. And last but not least to the visitors to the exhibition and the full program attendees!”
In total, more than 3700 visitors came to see the convention with over 800 participants benefiting from the comprehensive Convention program. As usual the largest number of visitors from a single country came from the host, Germany, but there were many people coming from around the world, including significant numbers from the USA, Japan, Europe and Latin America.
The statistics demonstrate the major role the AES is playing internationally in bringing audio people together: More than 250 audio industry experts from around 20 countries and almost every continent were involved in planning and delivering the 180 papers and posters, the 22 workshops, 10 tutorials, 12 technical tours, and not forgetting the two-day Live Sound seminar.
“Optocore acted against the economic trend by increasing the stand size at short
notice. We wanted to give a clear signal and booked two booths facing
each other. For us this AES Show was a real success!”
Marc Brunke, Managing Director of Optocore which
was exhibiting for the first time at a European AES show.
The latter was also one of the highlights of the technical program. In the acoustically challenging glass and stone atrium, a carefully selected team of experts from the sponsors d&b, Neumann & Mueller, Sennheiser and Yamaha demonstrated how one can obtain a good FOH mix despite the challenging conditions.
Likewise the success of the many tutorials and workshops must be emphasized. These were so well attended that many delegates had to stand at the back of the room. The excellent workshop about High Profile 5.1 Mixing was a great example of this where several renowned experts undertook the post-production of the same recording illustrating widely varying styles. Another magnetic attraction was the workshop on loudness, the very hot topic in broadcast, with several international standards bodies working on the issues.
The AES is still the only pro-audio institution world-wide, serving not only as an unsurpassed platform for information exchange, both with full technical programs and the regular specialized exhibitions, but also dedicating itself to internationally important topics, such as standardization or, for example, with the current question of radio microphone frequencies.
And internationally, the AES is bringing people together as can be seen in a few days when, at the end of May, the Latin America Convention will open in Brazil. In July, the bi-yearly regional Convention in Tokyo follows. In October, traditionally, New York will throw open the doors to the 127th AES Convention.
Roger Furness: “We learned important lessons in these difficult days here in Europe: We need to use convention centres that allow us to put all the Technical sessions close to each other and close to the Exhibits, so that there is a better flow of traffic between all parts of the convention. We need to be in a city with a strong local industry and attractive to visitors. And we need to promote the event more and earlier. The AES will react immediately and start the planning for next year with a strengthened concept.” So, keep the date free for next year’s AES Europe Convention! It will be held from May 20 to May 23, 2010 in the enlarged ExCel Convention Centre in London, UK.
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126. AES Convention
The Conference sessions were held from Thursday 07 to Sunday 10 of May 2009, the Exhibition was held from Friday 08 to Sunday 10, and the Live Sound seminar was held on Saturday 09 and Sunday 10.
Future AES Conventions:
Latin American Conference
Audio for HDTV and Beyond
Sao Paulo, Brazil
May 26-28, 2009
AES Tokyo Convention
Feature the Future with Sound
Tokyo, Japan
July 23-25, 2009
127th AES Convention
Make the Right Connections
New York, NY, USA
October 9-12, 2009
128th AES Convention
London, UK
ExCel
Conference: May 20-23, 2010
Exhibition: May 21-23, 2010
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More press information about the AES Pro Audio Expo & Convention in Munich are available on the
AES press web site:
http://www.aes-press.org
Press Contact:
European AES Press Relations
Stefani Renner
Phone: +49 221 940 43 72
Email: [email protected]
