PLASA blipped its last blip on the trade show radar a few years when The BPM Show kicked in big time. Great — that’s a few days away in London scratched from my schedule. But PLASA Focus is a growing trade show held at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, and is aimed fairly and squarely at the pro sound and light guys. But I went anyway, if only for a break from responsive design and CSS3 hell.
It was exactly as I’d expected it to be — busy, headache inducing and populated by almost nobody I knew, something that I actually welcomed as the days of pottering at shows are long gone for me. The average age of attendees was much higher than I’m used to as well, with many a rigger and roadie rubbing shoulders (literally as the isles were incredibly tight) with student expecting laser shows and nosebleeding volume levels.
I was in and out, twice round in 45 minutes. This was probably a testament to how much I know about pro sound and light, as it was my desire to be outside and away from the highly claustrophobic environment. Even my good buddy Mike Trix off of Vestax UK didn’t hang around for a coffee. His loss, as I’d have told him all about WordPress widgets.
So I came home, returned to the aforementioned responsive design and kicked the new site into shape. The all-to-brief road trip aka fresh set of eyes on 2 day old problem yielded the expected results.