Robe made a big impact at the 2015 Sound Check Xpo in Mexico City working closely with its Mexican distributor Vari Internacional, who this year swapped the space they had occupied in recent years for a larger, more visible booth in Olmeca III, an environment offering full control over surrounding noise, ambient lighting, etc.
This reflects the great success that Vari has enjoyed generally over the last year, which has included working hard to establish the Robe brand as the must-have moving light products across the country, and lighting some of the most influential live artists.
Robe sent Nathan Wan and Steve Eastham to work alongside the Vari team including Hugo Patiño and Francisco Canales, Bruno Carranza, Allan Fernandez, Juan Fco Alvarez (Paco) and Uriel Sanchez … to ensure that the booth looked fantastic!
For the first time, it also featured one of Robe’s famous light-shows, created with all the latest products.
On the sales side, Sales Director Harry von den Stemmen from Robe International rocked up, together with Robe’s Regional Sales Manager for Latin America, Guillermo Traverso.
The Robe Stage was located prominently right at the entrance of Olmeca III. It was illuminated with a selection of Robe’s latest technology including BMFL Spots, Pointes, LEDBeam 100s and 1000s, LEDWash 1200s and 600s, miniPointes, ParFects and CycFX 8s … with BMFL Spots, miniPointes and LEDBeam 1000s all new to the Latin American market.
A schedule was established to allow all the manufacturers exhibiting with Vari to conduct their respective presentations, co-ordinated with the Robe show running approximately every hour … Which generated a huge buzz around the Xpo!
In addition to everything happening during the day, Vari arranged two special events on the booth on the Sunday and Monday evenings.
A 30th anniversary celebration for the company on the Sunday night was attended by staff and ‘special friends’ from amongst the brands and manufacturers represented. Cool live entertainment interspersed speeches, drinks and delicious snacks, and a specially commissioned movie documenting the company history was screened.
On Monday evening, a ‘Meet Robe’ party was hosted on the stand, with a keynote speech by Guillermo and a presentation of the BMFL Spot and miniPointe products.
All agreed that more visitors were welcomed to the stand than in previous years, with the second day in particular yielding many high-quality professional companies and individuals.
The Mexican live music market in particular is influenced by the geographical proximity of the US, and the dramatic increase in Robe business in the US over the last two years is playing its part in positively influencing this very strategically important Latin market.
Harry reports that they spoke to some very influential Mexican production and rental companies over the three days, all of them interested in making substantial future Robe investments.
“I am extremely pleased that we invested personnel and additional budget into this exhibition, and the new presentation and format of Olmeca III worked very well,” stated Harry.
With these good signs and several high profile projects already underway with Vari, Harry is expecting “a steady increase in business in Mexico this year”.
Guillermo concludes, “Mexico´s market has quietly positioned itself to be a major long term economic force. Global economic recovery is expected to help Mexico continue improving the local infrastructure, and new investments from big rental companies plus substantial amounts of new fixtures purchased by local bands have pushed Mexico into the bigger leagues.
“Long term vision, hard work and cooperation with our local distributor Vari Internacional, has helped put Mexico´s performance on a solid footing for the future, and we look forward to introducing the new fixtures presented at Prolight in Frankfurt – like the the BMFL Blade and the DL7 – in the coming months”.
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