I Am Important
TFT has interviewed more than 300 Exhibition Organisers, from the start-ups to the biggest of them from the world. This exclusive Q and A, “I am Important” is exclusively meant for Exhibitors, Sponsors and Visitors of Trade Shows where we talk to the other side of stake holders about their products/ services and their experience at a Trade Show. TFT reporting team visited Palm Expo and spoke to few of very important participants. Four of such exclusive talks follow:
Lalit Chopra is widely recognized as a pioneer in the pro-audio industry in India. Hugely respected and very well-known for his understanding of the intricacies of top-end pro-audio design and technology – Mr. Chopra has been at the forefront of this highly specialized field. An engineer by education and driven by his passion for quality, Lalit Chopra has been at the forefront of high-end pro-audio industry. His pioneering work and contribution towards the awareness and growth of the pro-audio category in the country is legendary. He has been in the integration business for over two decades and has been involved in designing the audio system layouts for some of the most popular locales including a few of the most complex venues.
Lalit Chopra, Director on the board of Creative Sound Concepts (UK) – CSC Audio; Managing Director- Harness Overseas (P) Limited Professional speaks with TFT about PALM Expo and other related topics.
TFT : How has your experience been in this edition of PALM Expo?
LC : PALM has always been about making contacts, more so by meeting friends, acquaintances, colleagues from the industry and more importantly vendors. I have been around in this trade for more than 25 years and I keep on meeting people, my own dealers & distributors and that’s the whole idea. It’s about saying you’re here. So it’s a nice experience, every year you meet friends and people from this industry which is always nice.
TFT : Besides the networking part, how has the footfall been business-wise?
LC : Well, in my view, exhibitions never give you direct business. They are more about brand building and making contacts. We are not here in the market to sell products off-the-shelf, we are here to sell a concept and concepts are always sold over tables not exhibitions, so I feel that’s where we are right now. Business-wise, yes we’ve had a lot of footfall especially on the third (last) day. I have never seen so many people in PALM. This year has been unusually busy and I guess because it has become more of an international fair with lots of customers. It’s been a good experience.
TFT : Tell us something about CSC Audio.
LC : It’s a relatively new brand. We entered into the Indian Market about two and a half years back and ever since we have been into Insulation Market, we are also into Touring Market – predominantly that’s where our strength lies.
TFT : In this entire gamut of over a 1000 brands at PALM Expo, what do you think is the USP of CSC Audio?
LC : What we’ve really done is, we’ve kept the brand and the range very simple. That’s the first thing we did. We made sure that we didn’t confuse people by creating several models within models. Second, we’ve purely gone with Point Source right now, we do not believe in the Line Array System. Finally, we have one of the shallowest subwoofers in the trade and that’s what we are. People have been using subwoofers which are very wide so we are trying to make sure the integrator; the user and the architect are very friendly to them. That’s where the whole idea – the product comes from.
TFT : What is the ROI for an exhibitor in PALM?
LC : That’s a very, very difficult question to answer. We only know that we spend money, we don’t know what comes back (laughs).