The Lightpower Collection was a guest at Showlight 2017 in Florence in May. This very special industry event takes place every 4 years at different locations and has now celebrated its 10th birthday. 400 visitors from 25 countries used the four days for intensive discussions and visits to the exhibition stands and the top-class lectures by 27 renowned international designers and artists from the fields of theatre, opera, film and television, architecture and live events. Names such as Durham Marenghi, Mikki Kunttu and Jeff Ravitz attracted the audience. Organised by colleagues for colleagues, this forum has a particularly familiar character and helps to bring the industry even closer together. For example, the entire people industry was able to watch as Ambersphere’s Philip Norfolk arrived from London in style with a specially purchased older Alfa Romeo called “Florence” to give his lecture. He was accompanied on this road trip by Glyn O’Donoghue (MA Lighting), Ben Saltzman and George Masek (both A.C.T. Lighting).

The neoclassical Palazzo dei Congressi provided an extraordinary backdrop for the modern presentation of Neal Preston’s rock’n’roll photographs, whose atmosphere offered a quiet balance to the hustle and bustle of the fair around the auditorium. Lightpower’s Italian partner Clay Paky – host of this year’s Showlight – provided us with the exhibition space as the main sponsor in order to be able to offer the fair another highlight. 30 of Preston’s iconic photographs were on display there, along with some other testimonies to his work, such as magazine and CD covers or original cameras he worked with.

Lightpower took the opportunity to announce the support of another charity: “Backup – The Technical Entertainment Charity”. Just like “Behind the Scenes” in the USA, “Backup” takes care of members of the event industry in need in the UK. Both organizations were presented with a check for $10,000 from proceeds from the Lightpower Collection. This brings the total amount of donations to $95,000 since 2015.