ProAudio Asia_about KOBA2009

Seemingly at the centre of the storm of recent political events in South Korea, the Koba broadcast show offered an eye of calm for its broadcast industry and beyond

In the wake of the amazing scenes that dominated Korea’s television airwaves following the suicide of former president Roh Moo-hyun and news of North Korea’s latest nuclear weapons tests, Seoul’s Koba show maintained a surprising normalcy. While hundreds of thousands gathered at key points around the country to express their grief at the loss of one its best loved leaders, Korea’s broadcast industry put on a professional face to welcome its international contemporaries. Add in South Korea’s poor fortunes in the face of the present economic downturn and the north’s subsequent abandonment of the 1953 cease-fire, and an interesting show was guaranteed.

It was the 19th time that the show had convened but the first under such exceptional circumstances. Nevertheless, more than 600 exhibitors were waiting to greet visitors as the show opened its doors on the first day. It was a slow start, but traffic picked up steadily through the day, making for a busy floor at the close. And this was the pattern for all four days – the last being a Friday, rather than the Saturday finish of last year. Regardless, the influx of students that shaped the final day in 2008 was largely repeated this year.

The show was strong enough to maintain most of the floor space of 2008, including the use of adjoining halls for audio/multimedia and broadcast/video – even if they were a little less densely packed. It also got good mileage out of new technologies such as IPTV, DMB and HDTV through its established New Technology Pavilion (the third time this has appeared) and added Dynamic Blaster, a PA demo room providing visitors with the opportunity to hear large-scale PA systems from Renkus-Heinz, Outline and Norton in the appropriate setting of a theatre room.

As it shared some of its dates with Beijing’s Palm Expo and was quickly followed by Mumbai’s Palm India, a number of visitors had arranged to move between the shows in order to maximise the value of their travelling. Among these was Renkus-Heinz’s Karl Brunvoll, who was reporting business to be ‘holding up well’.

For Outline and Hebsiba Multimedia, Koba marked the anniversary of a successful relationship. Building on the early promise of the distribution agreement made just prior to last year’s show, Outline’s Giorgio Biffi was also reporting good sales in spite of difficult trading conditions. ‘Koba is an important opportunity to reinforce relationships,’ he said. ‘Although it is difficult to measure the success of our presence directly, we have a very good profile here.’ His next stop was China before moving on to Japan where a major sale of Butterfly systems was being made to two rental companies.

For its part, Loud Technologies was emerging from a major shake-up that had caused widespread speculation on its future. With the company’s leadership having passed from Jamie Engen to Rodney Olson as chairman and CEO late last year, international sales director Davwinder Sheena was quick to respond: ‘We are coming back stronger after our recent transition,’ he said. ‘We saw the financial crisis coming quicker than a lot of other companies and were able to prepare. The only thing we didn’t anticipate was the Chinese Government’s moves regarding manufacture, but that only hit our mixer range. We have a good driver in the driver’s seat and now we are integrating support into our Asia operation.’

With EAW JFL210 full-range boxes and JFL subs prominently placed on the Chungbo Sound stand, other Loud news involved the local distributor taking 600 JFL small line array boxes in order to build the profile of the system in the South Korea market. ‘The price and size are right for this market,’ commented Mr Sheena, ‘but it’s still a better reception than we had expected.’

Like many of the show’s Western visitors, Adrian Curtis had given much thought to Asia’s place in the current world economy. Supporting Soundcraft’s presence among many of the Harman lines at Sovico, he was cautiously optimistic: ‘The exchange rate has hurt Korea very badly,’ he said, ‘but we are seeing business returning. It’s not back to where it was before the crisis, but it is steady and improving slowly. This is certainly a healthier turnout than NAB.’

‘Even though the economy is in trouble and business is down, it was an easy decision to support the show,’ agreed Ian Staddon, from the other side of the hall where Studer had taken its regular spot at Dong Yang Digital. ‘The presence of Korean visitors at NAB [in the US] was very much reduced and so this is the first opportunity they have had to see the recent things we’ve released, such as v4.2 of the Vista console software.’

Best Leading Solutions’ Jack Kim was also looking to Koba to make up for NAB’s shortcomings: ‘I was very disappointed in NAB – there was a very small audio section,’ he confirmed. ‘I was concerned that Koba would suffer as a result of the death of Roh Moo-hyun as all government events were cancelled this week.’ His fears appeared ungrounded, as regular demonstrations of DPA Microphones’ 4099 instrument mics ensured a blocked aisle.

‘We are focusing on the 4017 shotgun and 5100 portable surround mic system for broadcast, as well as the 4099,’ explained DPA Asia-Pacific area manager Ken Kimura. ‘We will have a dedicated windshield for the 5100 out very soon, which has been engineered by Rycote.

First-time visitor Anthony Harrison was also pleased with what the show had to offer: ‘It’s a lot bigger than I had expected, both in floor space and visitors,’ he said from Calrec’s spot on the Avix Tech booth. ‘I’ve seen a good number of key people.’

‘The Asian economy was like a bus that had come to a dead stop,’ offered Euphonix’s Jeff Levinson, who was demonstrating the company’s fully-loaded S5-Fusion console with Melbourne based Asia-Pacific rep Dave McClure. ‘Now it’s steadily starting to move again.’ The S5 package that was being debuted at Koba will be the regular demo set-up for coming Asian shows and will handle everything from machine control to multiple I/O systems.

Alongside a display of Audio-Technica mics and Tascam recorders on the Keuk Dong Sound stand, an unusual tetrahedral loudspeaker from Japanese manufacturer Solid Acoustics also turned heads.

Yamaha maintained its high profile from last year, although with a slightly smaller stand. As well as highlighting a wide range of its products, there were frequent seminars on new equipment and audio recording, along with a ‘monitor speaker day’.

Mipro systems dominated the GnS Electronics booth, with radio microphones and loudspeakers sitting alongside Fashion installation speakers and ceiling speakers. What stand space remained had been given over to GnS’ own brand amplifiers, graphic equalisers and PA systems.

On the surface, Koba is to South Korea’s broadcast community what KoSound is to its live church and government industry. But the high count of line arrays and other PA loudspeaker systems is evidence that the country’s market divides itself differently. So it is that visitors would find the JD Media stand almost entirely given over to DAS Audio, with an extensive display of speakers accompanied by some of its own brand of installation matrix switchers, amplifiers and peripherals. Similarly, Daelim devoted its booth space to Master Audio and was rewarded with a steady flow of visitors throughout the show. Daelim general manager Ji Sun-uk modestly described the stand as ‘busy’, but it was more than that.

Around the audio hall floor you could also find mainstream brands including JBL (Sovico), Electro-Voice (Kevic), Community and Martin Audio (Cona), Meyer Sound and VMB (Avix Tech), Adamson and RCF (Sound Solution), Kling & Freitag and db Technologies (Kusan), as well as Delta Loudspeakers and Nova (Karak Electronics), Verse (Kodicom), Thunder Technnology, Fulcrum (Accord), Selenium (Han Kook), SEG and Silver Acoustic.

The remit stretched further still. A corner of the Thunder stand contained a Japanese stone lantern – or, rather, a model from the company’s DS Series of installation loudspeakers. Very oriental but not very broadcast. One section of the Ingang Audio stand, meanwhile, provided regular demonstrations of Bugera guitar amplifiers, an extension of the diverse Behringer range that occupied the remainder of the large and busy booth.

Returning to the show’s mainstream, many distributors were covering a number of bases and ensuring a good spread of equipment from a range of manufacturers were being shown. Kevic, for example, had equipment from Digidesign, Crest and Samson alongside Electro-Voice, while Young Nak had a big display of Midas consoles that included the Pro6, Siena, Verona and XL8 alongside processors from Klark Teknik, and Fostex loudspeakers and audio recorders. In addition to a good complement of Vista and OnAir consoles from Studer, Dong Yang Digital was showing a Fairlight Dream and equipment from Sonifex, Tannoy and Wohler. Sound Solution also had TOA, Trantec, beyerdynamic and Sommer Cable keeping its loudspeakers company, while Avix Tech added XTA, Denon and Chinese brand Fontana. And where Sovico was displaying various Harman lines, Lectrosonics and Neutrik, Dai Kyung Vascom required two stands to accommodate Genelec, Allen & Heath, Neutrik, Aphex and Apex among others. There was a large stand for Danish Interpretation Systems, kitted out with a full boardroom conference system opposite Yamaha, but smaller stands like Fine Trading played their part, adding the likes of Jünger, Sabine, Schoeps and Rycote.

National broadcaster MBC had rolled an OB truck onto the show floor where the audio and video halls joined – three stories up – and was using it to broadcast live each day. In the video hall itself there were further OB trucks to explore, including DG’s HD OBvan rental unit with a Euphonix Max Air console, and the Buddhist Television Networks truck on the Sony stand with its Studer OnAir 2500.

The broadcast/video hall also hosted a number of audio companies including a selection of equipment from Shure, TC Electronic, Riedel and Dynaudio Acoustics at Sama Sound, Sennheiser microphone systems at the Koil Corporation (also on Dai Kyung Vascom in the audio hall), Mayah and TSL at Huton and Telex at Dongshin Trading. Lawo’s mc256 and crystal radio consoles could be seen at Soundfox, meanwhile, along with the PortaDrive disc recorder, CDR-882 and UDP-89 from HHB.

There were omissions, however. Without Soundus or Dreamsound, there was nothing to see from DiGiCo or Cadac, and the absence of SoundDog counted out sE Electronics, Violet Design, MBHO and Oktava. Some visitors will have been disappointed but many more will have found the show worthwhile.

Regardless of the political situation with the north, South Korea’s Government has relaxed its restrictions on building height in its cities resulting in plans to build a series of very tall ‘statement’ buildings. ‘These will require a lot of installation work,’ observed Yamaha’s Kim Kyung-wook. ‘There will be many facilities, perhaps even concert halls. It looks different from outside but we are used to the situation with North Korea. For us, it is normal.’

The government’s support for the country’s arts and performance facilities continues, as does the move towards termination of analogue broadcasting – presently slated for 2012. Both events are playing their part in keeping South Korea’s pro audio business moving in spite of difficult economic and political situations. Typical of the country’s broadcasters, the YTN 24-hour news channel is simultaneously moving to HD digital operation and new premises, keeping various suppliers and integrators busy. Likewise, the SaRang Church has outgrown its already impressive premises in Seoul and is about to begin work on a new building in order to accommodate the 34,000 people who regularly turn up for service each Sunday.

The show’s final day coincided with the funeral of former president Roh Moo-hyun. To the outside world, the posturing of North Korea was bigger news, but south of the DMZ the loss of a remarkable leader caused more upset. With tens of thousands of people lining the streets of Seoul, it was still pretty much business as usual inside Coex, however, underlining the positive message offered by Koba on behalf of South Korea.

by Tim Goodyer, Editor of Pro Audio Asia_

http://www.proaudio-central.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=885:koba-2009&catid=71:show-report&Itemid=36

PRO AUDIO ASIA에 실린 한국 KOBA SHOW 기사와 나!
Tim이 우리 부스 앞에서 사진찍을 때 장난치던 찰나에 찍은 사진.. 좀 이쁘게 나왔음 좋았을걸! ^^;
Tim의 눈에도 노대통령의 서거와 반응이 심상치 않게 와닿았던 모양이다..