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AV Power Up at InfoComm: A Great Show (Times Two)

I am writing this blog to talk about our podcast show that took place at InfoComm, which was in the end nothing short of a grand slam as we had achieved exactly what we had all been looking forward to doing – a tremendous AV Power Up! show at InfoComm 2015, which I had called “the show at The Show” when announcing it on social media. Scheduled to take place the Thursday morning of the show at the rAVe Pubs booth on the show floor concourse, it was the opportunity to do the show live in front of an audience and as with every one of our shows, it’s recorded to post on our rAVe Radio website.

While many do know about the show, for those who may not know, AV Power Up! is a podcast show on rAVe radio with a mix of guest interviews, tech talk and great humor to go with it. Show regulars Christa Bender, Chuck Espinoza, Hope Roth, Johnny Mota and I attended InfoComm 2015 and got together the Thursday of the show at the rAVe booth to record the show. Prior to getting together, I had sent everyone profile information on certain guests who they may not have known as well as the others.

We talked a bit when we got to the podcast station however as with every one of our shows, there is no rehearsal – after we talk and get acclimated we hit the record button and go. We do know who the guests will be and know what we will be discussing with them, however it’s all done in a steady content flow – humor of course always injected into the tech talk by the co-hosts and the guests. The guests stepped in at their scheduled time, put on the headset, approached the microphone, and just continued to roll and flow with conversation throughout the show until we hit 1:28 and ended it on our usual perfect note. Grand slam, high fives in order.

Now as happens with technology, we all know we can face challenges and let’s just say this happened to be one of those times. This particular issue had to do with the software, and in short the show audio file unfortunately became irretrievable. It was certainly tough for us to figure how this could happen, however it became a situation where as we know stuff can happen and you move on. And that we did as we decided on doing it again (yes, of course I was determined).

The next day we assembled again, although unfortunately Christa and Hope had already gone home and that left Chuck, Johnny and myself to do the show. I told Christa that we were doing the show again and she thought it was great. Chuck and I had to stand in as hosts and that’s always an adventure in itself if you’ve ever listened to us try to host a show. We didn’t have guests lined up for this show and I actually had a lot of show floor responsibilities that day for rAVe, however Jane Johnson of Pivot Communications, who is a great friend of ours, said that she would help me to get people off the show floor to come over in the afternoon and take time from their schedules to join us as guests on the show.

People showed up one by one during the show from AVI/SPL, QSC, FSR, Listen Technologies, Pivot Communications and Terra Speakers, and we got them on headset and microphone as they arrived (or just happened to be walking by). We had a couple of first timers talk to us which was great since Johnny was too. In fact, we ended the show with one of them, a young lady who is an audio engineer and graduate of Columbia College in Chicago — and you have to hear us talk with her about what appears to be a very bright and promising future, including a potential career in programming as well.

It ended up becoming a terrific show and of course while we missed Christa and Hope (and even mentioned Stacy Kringlen one of our long-time co-hosts as well as Rich Prevete our “Hot Jobs” guy), we hit that grand slam that we also hit the day before.

Enjoy it!

AV Power Up! – Episode 11: Live, Loud, And #DoubleAwesome At InfoComm 2015

Here is the list of guests who we had on for our previous day’s “the show at The Show” podcast (who will be invited on future AV Power Up shows):

  • Brad Grimes of InfoComm (to talk about InfoComm 2015 and all that InfoComm International does to put on a bigger and better show every year)
  • Byron Tarry of Sharps AV, President of the Global Presence Alliance (GPA) and the InfoComm CTS Holder of the Year (who talked about the GPA, the prestigious CTS Holder award, and Microsoft being at the show this year)
  • Kevin Kelly of Stampede (to talk about the Unmanned Systems and Drones Pavilion which they sponsored and drone technology in the industry)
  • Jane Johnson of Pivot Communications and Women of InfoComm Network (WIN) Co-Chair (to talk about WIN, the breakfast that morning as well as the Council Meeting which Hope Roth presented at)
  • Andrew Stillman of Microsoft (to talk about Microsoft’s presence at the show, their industry manufacturer partnerships and further industry strategies)
  • Erin Bolton of MRM//McCann and WIN Chairperson (who continues conversation on WIN and talks as well about how the organization will be moving forward from here)
  • Cory Schaeffer of Listen Technologies (who told us all about what Listen was doing at the show as well as talking about her new position with AMX by Harman).

(Simon Dudley of Excession Events was supposed to be on with us, however due to a slight issue he was not able to join us).

AV Power Up InfoComm

A picture from our first podcast “the show at The Show.”

As we did on the show, we all wish Cory Schaeffer the best of luck as she moves forward with the next step in her career in the AV industry at AMX by Harman.

Many thanks again to Jane Johnson for all of her help in making the Friday show happen!

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