Well, here it is again. Time for “The Show.” InfoComm time. And, as usual for someone in the rental portion of the industry, I go off to “the Show” looking for things a little different than the rest of the industry, a little different from the things the advertising and hype will attempt to direct […]

Well, the spring we were all waiting for is finally here. The trees are budding, the snow (for those of us who get snow) is melting, and hopefully the rental market is thawing out a little, too. For most of us, it was a pretty cold winter in that regard, and we’ve all been looking […]

In the movie “Ghostbusters, there’s a highly memorable scene where the three “heros” are called upon to remove an “obnoxious little spud” of a poltergeist from a hotel. The three, who are wearing illegal experimental nuclear accelerators, gather at the door of the haunted ballroom, but are stopped by Dr. Egon Spengler (Harold Ramos) with […]

Yesterday, I sat (like several others on my staff) waiting for Apple’s usual “insanely great” announcement of their latest “breathtaking” portable technology – the iPad. Let me first explain that I’m the starry-eyed type when it comes to portable computing. Gary once pointed out in a seminar (to a lot of laughs at my expense) […]

CubeX Vide last week introduced what they said is the most cost-effective 2×2 and 3×3 video wall controllers yet to hit the market. These are stand-alone systems, without a PC, that turn new or existing plasma or LCD monitors into video walls.  The video wall controller accepts analog (VGA) or digital (DVI or HDMI) signal […]

As energy concerns rise, it’s no surprise that LEDs have commanded much of the lighting world’s attention. Unfortunately, many of the fixtures flooding the market provide less than stellar light. Technicians and lighting designers are still in pursuit of that holy grail of LEDs: one that can provide incandescent-quality light while still remaining simple, energy-efficient […]

Although not bright enough for professional or college-level stadiums, this new LED-based solar-powered lighting system does have a lot of staging and maybe even some rental apps.  And, the system is available as a fully portable solution. Using the energy-efficient LED lighting technology, the system can illuminate areas up to 40 meters by 20 meters […]

By Joel Rollins, CTS-R Well, I seem to have hit a nerve with my last column on training programs (or the lack of them) in the Rental and Staging portion of our little industry. And, with only this column left in the current year, it’s been difficult to answer the emails — or, better yet, […]

By Joel Rollins, CTS-R Often, running an AV Rental and Staging company is a bit of a high-wire act. We have to prepare to offer the latest in services and equipment to our clients – while not plunging too deeply into costly investment avenues that don’t always pay off. We all know that the big […]

By Joel Rollins, CTS-R Sorry, folks, that this issue is a couple of days later than we expected it to be, but a number of things have happened for the rental and staging industry over the last few days, and I wanted to tell you about them. The first and foremost is the return of […]

By Joel Rollins, CTS-R WHOA!!!! HOLD THE PRESSES! Folks, I’ve been in the middle of writing an article for this issue on show control systems (one of my favorite subjects) when something crossed my desk I thought we in the rental industry would all find important. It’s a communication from the President of MPI (Meeting […]

January. The holidays and parties are behind us, and here we are, back at work. Job One — assuming we have already deleted those company party photos — is to organize for 2009. In our office, we’ve been discussing how the economy will affect our staging business. Shows that were large and complex in years […]

By Joe Rollins For several years now, I’ve wanted to locate Mr. Zeminicki from my high school, and apologize to him. Mr. Z was my nemesis, the math teacher who taught algebra and trigonometry. I was the long-haired student who constantly argued that “people don’t do this in the real world.” He was the teacher […]

30-Year Staging guru, Joel Rollins, to be Contributing Editor and Columnist Kayye Consulting, publisher of rAVe Pro and rAVe Home eNewsletters for the commercial and residential audiovisual channels, announces rAVe Rental [and Staging]. The new publication, to be published on the rAVe website and distributed via email in the same fashion as rAVe Pro and rAVe Home, will be […]