Classic Gear Live, the celebration of historic lighting, sound and other entertainment technology which Rob created based on his monthly Classic Gear column in Lighting+Sound International magazine, returned for the third year to the PLASA Show in London, and once again attracted enormous attention.
In a new location this year, upstairs on the balcony at Olympia, the stand collected together a remarkable array of products and, more importantly, a remarkable set of people who first made, sold or used those products to talk about their creation and history.
Products on show this year included ‘Betty’, the System CD ‘organ’ lighting console which ran the lighting for all of the shows at London’s Palace Theatre between 1956 and 1980; Thorn’s pioneering Q-File memory lighting console; ETC’s Microvision, Obsession2 and the fourth Source Four to roll off the production line, celebrating the company’s 50th anniversary; the Vari-Lite VL1, marking the 40th anniversary of Live Aid; other moving lights including DHA’s remarkable Pitching Digital Light Curtain and Martin’s PAL1200; from the audio world, a Revox B77 reel-to-reel tape machine including editing block and a WEM Copicat echo machine, and much more. In a separate area, Classic Gear Live featured the world of psychedelic projection, remarkable effects created using liquids, oils, colour changes and imagination!
The stand also celebrated the 40th anniversary of LSi magazine, with a copy of every issue of the magazine on the stand - Rob realising he’s been writing for the magazine for 33 of those 40 years!
Amongst the many visitors to the stand was lighting designer Andrew Bridge who, with the lighting plan for the orginal Phantom of the Opera spread out before him, explained his design for the show and how it has evolved over the decades.
Rob was also thrilled to host a series of panels at the show, including sessions on Live Aid, on the newly refurbished and re-opened Soho Theatre in Walthamstow, and looking back on forty years of making hit shows with production manager Richard Bullimore, sound designer Andrew Bruce, production electrician Howard Eaton, and Unusual Rigging’s Tom Harper. Videos of these panels are coming soon.
Classic Gear Live will be back at the 2026 PLASA Show, with some more major anniversaries to celebrate… stay tuned for more news!
Classic Gear Live 2025: [link]