The Return of Live Events: What’s Happening in Live Events Technology

At the AVIXA Xchange Live booth at InfoComm 2022, Ben Thomas tapped Rentex’s Vice President, Marketing & Strategic Accounts, Janne Mummert, to co-host a panel of audio-visual experts to talk about the return of live events and to find out what’s happening with live events technology. Joining Thomas and Mummert were Seth Teates, CTS-D, Regional Sales Manager at Analog Way, Chris Prosio, Regional Sales Manager at BARCO, Dan Meehan, Senior Key Account Manager at Panasonic Live Events/Rental & Staging, and Mike Bergeron, Senior Category Owner at Panasonic Live Events/Rental & Staging.

For Mummert and the panel at InfoComm, 2022 was like a family reunion where close business relationships could come together again after two plus years of virtual events and zoom meetings. And that is the essence of the magic of live events; they are opportunities for people to come together and meet in person, share learnings, see new things, and get excited about available technology.

Live events may be back, but that doesn’t mean things remain the same. A lot has changed, from consumer expectations to live events technology. “In the corporate space, we’re seeing a push towards 4K,” Prosio said. “We’re seeing a push towards hybrid and internet; everything going through a network. And that will be the next big trend pushing through this industry.”

One of the things Meehan couldn’t wait for people at the show to see was Panasonic’s KAIROS live production platform. “It’s so all-inclusive, it’s almost defined a new category of capability and functionality,” Meehan said. “Knowing what I know about the live events business, possibly the greatest thing about it is if pre-live show engineering didn’t plan for something, KAIROS has that covered.”

A new product family from Analog Way made its debut at InfoComm 2022. “It’s our Alta 4K series,” Teates said. “It sits between our MidraTM 4K series and our Aquilons. You’ve got thirteen or sixteen inputs with four or six outlets, plus your monitoring output.” Teates believes it will hit a sweet spot for live event customers due to the increase in hybrid event needs.