We’ve been working on Fiesta for Mac for a very long time. But it was worth it. It has been awarded 1st place 2019 Fenning Award for Technical Achievement.
ILDA conference is the most important laser show meeting. Every year the most important guys from the laser show industry meet and present their last year achievements. You can listen to interesting key-notes, meet fellow laserists, see the awards ceremony (also called laser show Oscars sometimes) and you can also join laser-jockey competition. And I did. All of it :).
I’ll write this blog in 1st person, because I was the only one, who attended from Showtacle. The conference took place in Orlando, hearth of Florida and well. I’ve presented the latest improvements and news about Fiesta for Mac at the advanced technology workshop (ATW) and also the news about our new upcoming laser show controllers (DAC).
Laser jockey competition
I’ll be honest, this is my most favorite part of the ILDA conference. The reason is, in my opinion, this is the single most objective competition of all the awards. The reason is simple – you can’t cheat. The rules are simple – they’ll play some music and you have to perform your laser show live on stage. No time-line, no synchronization, just pure artistic expression of the music using the laser light. And all the conference attendants can vote in the end, who was the best.
Of course, you can find some flaws in the voting system – every one gets different music, people are tired in the end of the event (some even leave before the end, thus less votes) and generally it’s more like e.g. ice-skating competition where it depends a lot on an opinion. Still – there are 30 or more judges instead just 3 for other ILDA awards.
And how was my show? You can check for yourself:
I really don’t like the music :). And it’s far from good music for laser show. But – I could get even a worse music (oh yes, there was lot of it for other competitors). And how I finished? Well, 3rd. I was really not expecting that given the poor music and I was the last attendant. And also most of the guys used Midi keyboards with Pangolin Beyond and some other heavy tools… What have I used? Well, my favorite – mouse and keyboard :).
This proves one thing I always tell clients – no matter what equipment you use, the important thing is, what you do with it.
ILDA IDN Grabber
The one thing which amazed me at the ILDA conference was the new ILDA IDN standard and especially the ILDA grabber by Dirk Apitz. They’ve used the small boxes, which converted the ILDA laser signal into digital stream distributed over Ethernet cables. And it was working flawlessly. Congratulations Dirk for your hard work – it’s really something! Not to mention, they were able to switch quickly to different constant thanks to some kind of ILDA mixer. Really nice job. I usually don’t advertise other’s people work in our blog, but this was really nice piece of technology.
Awards ceremony
Well as I told you already in the beginning, we’ve been awarded 1st place for technical achievement in laser shows for our new software Fiesta for Mac. It’s our second 1st place in all the company history, so it is important. Especially for me, it was kind of an satisfaction, since I’ve spent weeks designing the new Fiesta for Mac. Not to mention, I’ve also won the 3rd place for live laser show competition (laser jockey).
What’s next?
Does the award changes anything after you win? Well, not much. You go to work the next day and you again struggle with the projects, clients or your colleagues. But it feels nice to be awarded sometimes for your (hopefully hard) work. And even though the laser show industry is quite small comparing to other industries, being the best even once – it’s satisfying. And gives you some kind of a feedback, you’re on the right track. Well I hope we are 🙂 …
