PLASA AWARDS FOR INNOVATION

Alan Jacobi 

Alan Jacobi has worked rigorously to raise the profile and professionalism of the rigging industry and long recognised the need for training and education.

He's been a driving force behind the NRC accreditation scheme since the very beginning in 2005, and Unusual Rigging is an Assessment Centre for the NRC.

Awarded the LVO in a special honours list drawn up by the Queen for his work on the production and co-ordination of the Golden Jubilee celebrations, AJ has worked solidly to make rigging an acknowledged and established profession.

Wayne Howell 

Wayne Howell founded Artistic Licence in 1988. He was a major contributor to the development of DMX512-A in the 1990s, and released his free, public domain Art-Net protocol a few years later. Art-Net is now in its fourth version and has been adopted by hundreds of manufacturers worldwide. 
Wayne has continued to expand and diversify the Artistic Licence brand, and is well known for his books, articles and seminars.

Artistic Licence enjoyed a cracking show at London Olympia, with a hugely popular set based around a Van de Graaff generator to demonstrate the electrical resilience of its splitters and gateways.

Anne Valentino

Anne Valentino has spent most of her working life contributing to the creation of lighting control consoles. Starting as a technical director at a Houston performing arts centre, she worked for lighting manufacturer Kliegl before moving on to Strand Lighting.

Here she began her work with lighting control products which would define the industry, from later versions of the Strand Light Palette, through ETC's Obsession and Expression consoles, to Vari-Lite's iconic Virtuoso and back again to ETC where she developed the Eos, Ion and Gio consoles.

David Cunningham

David Cunningham was an early pioneer of computer lighting systems who developed a number of landmark products for Strand during the 1970s and 80s, including the Multi-Q memory lighting system, the Micro-Q console, the Lightpalette and the CD80 dimming system.

He went on to develop the Source Four profile through his own company, Entertec, before entering into a hugely successful partnership with ETC, with whom he went on to develop many other successful products, including the Sensor dimmer.

Pasquale 'Paky' Quadri 

Coming from humble origins the young entrepreneur Pasquale Quadri grew up in an extremely creative environment. The son of a magician he was raised in a small provincial Italian town.

'Paky' established Clay Paky in 1976 and in just under 40 years his contribution to cutting-edge and superior quality lighting has been immense.

Jim Bornhorst 

The man who pioneered the moving light, Jim Bornhorst is widely considered the father of the modern show lighting fixture.

Setting out to improve the efficiency of PAR Can rigs by creating a "gel changer" he and his team instead created the first Vari-Lite - the prototype VL0 - complete with integrated dichroic colour mixing. With the support of Genesis, the first moving light rig was seen in Barcelona in 1981, and the rest, as they say, is history. 

John Meyer

John Meyer is one of the original pioneers of the modern sound reinforcement industry.

He began his career in 1967 by building a customised system for the Steve Miller Band, and from there he went on to develop loudspeaker systems for the likes of Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Grateful Dead. Since founding Meyer Sound Laboratories in 1979 with his wife Helen, Meyer has continued to research, experiment and develop sound technology ever since - building Meyer Sound into an iconic brand and a consistent world leader in the pro audio market.

Terry Clarke 

In 1975 Terry Clarke founded Klark-Teknik with his brother Phil. During his time at KT, Terry designed several products that became industry standards in the touring and installation sectors - including the DN70 delay line, the DN27 and the DN360 Graphic EQs, and the DN780 digital reverb - many of which are still in use worldwide.

In 1984 KT bought DDA and in 1985 bought Midas, going on to launch the popular XL2 and XL3 consoles before selling the company to Mark IV. In 1992 he founded XTA Electronics and launched amplifier manufacturer MC2 Audio in 1994, going on to design the well regarded MC, T and E Series amplifiers.

Fred Foster

Fred Foster started ETC in 1975 with the goal of installing the first memory lighting-control system in the New York Metropolitan Opera House. During his time he has developed a wide range of innovative products including Mega-Cue, the Concept console that led to the Expression / Express line of control desks, the Obsession Console and the Sensor Dimming System.

He contributed to the design of the Eos, Congo and Ion desks and led the commercialisation of what became the Source Four family of spotlights. He was also a member of the USITT panel that defined what became the DMX-512 protocol.

Alex Cooper

Alex Cooper's entry into pro audio came in 1979, when he realised that a life of rock and roll stardom did not await him. Having encountered Klark Teknik DN27 graphic equalisers while on the road with his band, and realising the company was based in his home town of Kidderminster, he approached them for a job.

Little did he know it, but this move would lead to his becoming one of the audio industry's leading designers of signal processing equipment and mixing consoles.

By the early eighties he had risen to become head of the test department, and in 1985 was tasked with figuring out how to test the newly-acquired Midas consoles. In his role as director of console development, Alex has been, and remains, a fundamental part of the legendary 'Midas Sound'. 

John Stadius

Stadius is a distinguished audio designer: in 1978, he joined Soundtracs PLC, designing disco consoles, mixers, power amplifiers and speakers. As technical director between he continued to design a wide range of analogue mixing consoles for live, broadcast and recording uses - from the company's first digitally-controlled analogue console in 1982, to its first fully digital console - the Virtua - in 1996. 

In 2002 the company was bought by DiGiCo, and Stadius created the D5 - the company's first truly live digital console - then the DS00 for post and broadcast, the D5T for theatres and the D1 for the live arena.

The latest development from Stadius and his team is the creation of 'Stealth Digital Processing'.

Tony Andrews

A highly regarded designer and manufacturer of high quality point source loudspeaker systems, with numerous patents to his name, Tony Andrews' landmark developments include the hugely successful Flashlight and Floodlight systems, and more recently the distinctive Funktion One Resolution Series.