LVCC wifi - we're not just overpriced, we're slow, too. Looks like a whole lot of info trying to get crammed through a limited number of those tubes that the internet is made up of.

Anyway - halfway through day one is looking like a good show. Foot traffic is pretty high, and it's always good to see old friends that you only get a chance to see at trade shows.

So I was confused by the SSRC initial press stuff, but Aaron cleared me up. They aren't making a lift, nor do they have a plan to make a lift, but what they're making is a pantograph cable management solution, which I think is pretty cool. It can handle up to 36 circuits, depending on length of travel, and that can provide a lot of solutions for small motorized rigging projects where cable management is a huge issue. It's always a challenge to deal with the multicable, and this looks a lot more elegant than some of the cable reels or pick points that we've been using up until now.

More photos on the way, but they may have to wait until this evening. Flickr Uploader is valiantly attempting to send the pictures up the stream, but I'm not holding my breath.

So far the most amusing thing on the show floor has been the Doug Fleenor Cult of Personality. Doug (Dr. DMX) Fleenor has set up 21 life-size cardboard cutouts of himself around various booths and random places around the convention center. If you can find 5 Dougs, you win a T-shirt. It took me about 20 minutes, but I wasn't really looking that hard.

Spent a little time in the Strand booth, and there's some interesting things coming out of Genlyte's acquisition, including a new raceway product that merges some Strand technology with some Intelligent Raceway Technology, IGBT dimmers available in the new A21 architectural dimmer rack (which is really slick), and some portions of the Marquee GUI being put into the new Palette software. I'll have clearer updates on all that stuff once I give it another fly-by, but they've got some nice things going on there.

Stagecraft Industries is showing the biggest Emergency Lighting Transfer Switch I've ever seen. Somewhere in the neighborhood of six feet tall by 4 feet wide, the unit has 36 circuits of transfer capacity, which is a TON. They also just shipped 15 of those units to the new addition to the Venetian Hotel & Casino here in Vegas, which had to make for a happy day.

Steve Hoffman is here showing product from his new venture, GoboMan. Steve has a line of gobos, color and a small pattern projector that lists for under $100 and looks like a great little unit for retail applications. It's 75 watts and comes with 5 patterns. Not a bad toy to come out of the gate with.

And on a sad note, I'm sitting at lunch and notice that the guy next to me is wearing an Applied Electronics shirt, so I ask about Jim, the owner, who I knew from many moons ago. Well, Jim passed away back in March, and I hadn't heard about it until now. Jim was good people, and he'll be missed. I remember when their old place was on Monroe Rd. behind the Purple Picket furniture store on Charlotte, and I used to drive the truck over from the rental shop I was working in to pick up our rushed trussing order because we'd booked more stage roofs that we could actually build, and had to get Jim to rush a pile of truss through production for us. They always took care of us, no matter how short the notice, and always at a fair price. Adios, buddy.

I'll be back with more this evening, but now I'm off to my shift of booth duty.