Our industry is moving along at a reasonable pace. There is new Equipment, software etc that is coming out at regular intervals. The trick is finding the time to actually suss it out. We need to always keep up with he attest developments. So how do you go about this?

some of these sources for information is trade magazines whether in print or online. That at least gives you an Idea of what it is. Getting your hands on it is a much better way of getting to grip with new technology. This is not always possible, especially in the smaller remote cities. Here suppliers can not fill up floor space with gear that may or may not sell. floor space is not cheap. A supplier may be able to get demo unit in, but they are looking for a sale not a tyre kicker. They will be pushing for a sale to cover the cost to get the unit shipped.

This is where trade shows come in handy. At least you get a chance to be hands on, and get an idea of what it can do. The only disadvantage is you are not always going to see what you want. It is up to the exhibitor to decide what they want to display. A neat idea would be if suppliers could run a simple online poll to gauge what they should display. Now in Australia we have a touring roadshow that actually goes around all of the major capital cities. This way people don’t need to travel interstate to visit a trade show, it comes to you. Certainly for the smaller venues and companies this saves them a few air fares.

The trade show in question is the ENTECH Roadshow run by JuliusMedia. These guys have worked out the best to get new gar in front of people is to take it to them. They are now making inroads in to the American market.

Another thing that is vital for those of us that are trying to keep up is training in the use of the newer gear, especially lighting and audio consoles. There could be the time that suddenly you are sitting in front of a strange console trying to get a show up and running. Now we all have been in this situation. You tube can be useful, but you cannot ask questions that are relevant to your situation. So how do you learn the new stuff? You could hire the equipment in question and sit at your kitchen table trying it out and getting familiar with the layout and Menues. Or if there is a software version you could try it out on your computer to get an idea of how it functions. Still nothing beats hands on training, just finding someone to train you is often a problem.

So the name of the game is to try and keep up by any means possible.