Now in their 20th year, the AV Awards were born out of a need and desire to celebrate and reward excellence in an industry where achievements often went unrecognised.

The different components of the AV industry have not always seen as parts of a singular, coherent business. All the moving parts of what is now known as the “AV Industry”-the dealers, distributors, producers, service companies and manufacturers- saw themselves as parts of the video and multimedia disciplines.

The users and buyers saw things a bit differently. As they were investing in communications for the benefit of their organisations, the delivery systems were not the main criteria of their purchasing- they were more concerned with the effectiveness and proven benefit of the product. In short, their main focus was the main focus, and they were after any means that would help them achieve their goals.

When the first iteration of the AV Awards was being planned, they knew they had certain objectives to meet that had been satisfied by awards in adjacent sectors:

  • To create an event that would allow industry achievement to be fully acknowledged and explained by publicising case-studies covering the top AV products and practices
  • To include all the aspects of an industry as broad as the AV sector
  • To recognize and reward the industry client, and the organisations who pay for the AV application

This had to be pulled off in a way that would attract sponsors, entrants, and attendees that would give the awards commercial viability.

Their team consisted of people who had experience judging a wide range of awards competitions, which spanned film, video, live events and multimedia in both the UK and America. They had also run a successful AV Trade Convention for the previous five years. All that was needed was to combine the two activities.

The opportunity came knocking when P&O Events, which was based at Earl’s Court, had a contract to run the PLASA Show, expressed an eagerness to expand PLASA to include more AV, sound and light.

With all the pieces in place, it was decided that the two-day AV Trade Convention would be held at the Earl’s Court Convention Centre simultaneously with the PLASA show. The AV awards would run in the middle of the conference at a suitable London venue.

It was decided that the awards would be split into two sections:

  • The project categories- areas such as events and installations, which would be application case-studies and awards. These would go to users who had commissioned the projects.
  • Industry categories like reseller of the year, manufacturer of the year, and rental company of the year. These go to the companies supplying the AV technology.

They also opted to award to Grand Prix awards for product of the year and AV company of the year respectively.

This year, the awards ceremony was held in The Great Room at the Grosvenor House Hotel on 28 September 2018. There was no shortage in attendance, and all the names of the industry were present in full force.

The award highlighted the best of the best in the AV industry, and some of the winners in product category include:

  • Audio Product of the Year– Shure’s P300 Intellimix Audio Conferencing Processor (Sponsored by Audiologic)
  • AV Accessory of the Year– Pearless AV SmartMount Universal LED Mounting System
  • Digital Product of the Year– Christie Digital Velvet CorePlus (Sponsored by Novastar)
  • Interactive Display of the Year– Leyard LED Multi-Touch
  • Projector of the Year (7999 + under)– Sony VPL-PHZ10
  • Projector of the Year (8000 + over)– Barco UDX

In the project categories, winners include:

  • Corporate/Enterprise Project of the Year– Bloomberg L.P- Bloomberg’s London Q- 3 Queen Victoria Street (Sponsored by Midwich)
  • Education Project of the Year- 3D Audio Visual– The Trading Room, University of Western Australia (Sponsored by BenQ)
  • Leisure and Hospitality Project of the Year– 7thSense Design- The Egg at XI Gallery, New York

This year’s AV Awards were a culmination of 20 years of effort, and they most certainly reached the goal they set out to achieve- to celebrate and acknowledge all the game-changers and innovators in the AV industry.

For more information, and to see the full list of winners, please visit www.avawards.com/avawards2018/en/page/2018-winners