The second edition of this fledgling event grew in both exhibitors and attendees.
Located in the Rio Pavilion Convention Center at Rio® All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, this year’s LED Show occurred a scant two months after LIGHTFAIR International was held at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Although encompassing lighting technology in general, the majority of LIGHTFAIR exhibitors debuted products that featured LED. Therefore, LED Show exhibitors were mixed on the timing.
For some manufacturers, innovations that weren’t quite ready for LIGHTFAIR in May were now ready to be unveiled to the industry in August. Conversely, other exhibitors felt the two shows were held too close together, cutting into attendance at The LED Show since LIGHTFAIR would have presumably already attracted much of the local architectural community interested in the latest LED technology.
That said, the 2012 edition of The LED Show attracted companies that either did not show at LIGHTFAIR or felt lost in the crowd of the more prominent players in commercial lighting industry there. For example, DLU Lighting (formerly known as Duralight), is a European LED bulb manufacturer based in Italy, offering LED PARs, decorative, directional, plus low- and line-voltage products. At The LED Show, the company showcased its newest LED high bay fixture and a LED canopy fixture manufactured in the USA.
P-Plus Lighting Corp., which supplies tube lighting and high bay lighting to the commercial and industrial markets, has just established roots in North America this year and was not present at LIGHTFAIR. With a headquarters in Malaysia, the company has already supplied many gas stations and Costcos in the U.S. plus the Chamber of Commerce in Cincinnati, and hopes to expand its business in the USA.
Other exhibitors included Intermark USA, which offers thermal management solutions, and T-Opto, an applications and engineering firm in New York that sells to OEMs. Some of the firms at The LED Show, such as ERG Lighting of New York, have only been in the lighting industry for one to one-and-a-half years and sell to niche applications such as medical companies.
Some companies, like metal fabricator LGS Technologies, exhibited at the show to expand awareness of their factories’ capabilities. LGS performs custom die-cutting, laser-cutting, waterjet, CNC routing and machining, plus metal stamping and can handle orders in 7-10 business days if the materials are in stock. Everything that the company makes is done in its 158,000-sq.-ft. facility in Texas.
Moreland Lighting displayed its user-friendly, compact, and affordable UPRtek MK 350 Spectroradiometer, which provides a complete analysis of the light source including: Lux corrected to V (lambda) spectral response of the human eye; CRI (color rendering index); CCT in Kelvin; dominant wavelength (? nm); and a 3.5 inch full-color touch screen display with three modes of viewing the characteristics of the light (spectral graph to visually see the colors actually represented in the light and the C.I.E. 1931 and C.I.E. 1976 chromaticity to view the x + y and u + v coordinates). Raw data is saved on an SD card in MS Excel format for the user’s records or future use. Also available is the MoreSpectra software, which displays output on computers using Windows XP or newer operating systems and Microsoft Excel.
“The MK 350 allows for spot checking, so you don’t have to send the product out to a testing lab if you have doubts,” explained Joe Duffer of Moreland.
One exhibitor, Low Energy Devices (LED) Ltd., came to The LED Show from its headquarters in Australia. The company produces customized architectural lighting for retail and hospitality applications. The firm also showed at LIGHTFAIR because it wants to broaden its reach in the USA.
The Intertek booth was busy at The LED Show because the testing and certification laboratory is becoming a popular, less costly alternative to UL.
LED Waves (formerly known as Lightwaves) has 50 years of lighting experience and got onboard with LED technology early on. The company manufactures its products in Brooklyn and offers a five-year warranty.
Viribright (part of Matrix Lighting), which exhibited at LIGHTFAIR, showcased its PAR lamps and its new T8s at The LED Show. Attendees were particularly interested in the new 10-watt A19 LED bulbs.
Mark Davidson of Dabmar, which also showed at LIGHTFAIR, was pleased with the quality of attendees at The LED Show. The company is best known for its wide selection of landscape lighting, however, the firm has expanded into supplying light bulbs as well. “I’m seeing smaller chips with brighter light output,” he noted, adding that LEDs are the only part of the industry going down in price. “Metal, shipping, duties, and labor are all rising in cost overseas,” he said.
Exhibitor RAB Lighting recently announced that the calculated lifespan of its LED fixtures, which was previously 50,000 hours, is now 100,000 hours, based on the new TM-21 standardized methodology set forth by the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES). According to the company, this means that with an average daily use of 10 hours, its LED fixtures are rated to last for 27 years.
Las Vegas-based High Tech Lights has been lauded for bringing jobs to the Las Vegas area and unveiled its new and advanced MR16 Chips on Board (COB) LEDs to the market. The company manufactures a full range of indoor and outdoor LED products designed to replace fluorescent and incandescent lighting for residential, commercial, or industrial use.
These MR16 COB LEDs offer multi-faceted reflector lenses and can be used as ambient lighting to illuminate difficult-to-maintain applications. The interchangeable lenses can be easily removed and replaced to achieve a different beam angle in spotlights for display, open recessed fixtures, hallways, lobbies, galleries, and retail locations.
The LED Show was perfect timing for Green Lighting to unveil its LED Shine 360™ bulb, which was not yet available in May for LIGHTFAIR. The LED-powered bulb resembles the A bulb with a frosted acrylic outer shell and offers 360-degree balanced warm or cool light in six- and eight-watt versions equivalent to 60-and 40-watt incandescent respectively. It has a six-year warranty and an estimated lifespan of 40,000 hours.
In addition to the exhibition floor, there was a full roster of seminars and roundtables featuringnoted members of the industry.
The next edition of The LED Show will be August 14-15 2013 at the Rio, with a preconference workshop scheduled for August 13. You can find more information on the show at www.theledshow.com
For more information and news on LED Lighting please see the following stories:
Improved Incandescent Light Bulbs and Innovations in LED
