The 2008 NAB convention was once again a huge success. With nearly 105,000 attendees and hundreds of vendors, the Las Vegas Convention Center was buzzing with the latest equipment for the broadcast industry…complete with a display of news helicopters.
Sarah and I had a different approach this year in that we did not have a dedicated booth but spent time with one of our good dealers, BGS. The traffic in the booth was high and we were able to spend time with many of our clients, engineer friends and other dealers.
On Tuesday we spent the day in meetings with several large dealers as well as two of our rep firms plotting the new direction for Heil Sound direct sales to the dealer force and working on plans for expanding those ‘feet on the street’ – the beloved sales representatives that work so hard to bring the excitement of the new technology of large diaphragm dynamic microphones from the folks at Heil Sound.
Wednesday at the show closing Heil Sound once again hosted the Amateur Radio reception in the Las Vegas Hilton next door. Over 800 broadcast engineers, ham radio operators, dealers and friends gathered in Ballroom B. This year, BSW was a guest host with us and helped to put on one of the best receptions to date. Over $16,000 in attendance prizes were given out and a great time was had by all. We honored Dale Tucker of Radio World with his own Classic microphone as he is retiring this year. Dale has been a huge supporter of Heil mics and a dear friend to the company. One highlight was the appearance of Jeff Glixman, now producer but he played in a number of bands, including the Kansas precursor, Cocky Fox. He and Bob told the story of Jeff driving from Wichita through Missouri on a dark snowy night and ending up at Heil’s Ye Olde Music shop in 1973 where he purchased one of the Heil HM 1000 modular mixers, some white fiberglass horns and one of Bob’s books. Jeff went back to Kansas to help record “Dust n The Wind”. The stories of Bob’s friends through the years continue to resurface and bring such wonderful memories of simpler and fun days in the music industry.
Jeff is now using the new Heil PR 22, PR 30 and PR 40 large diaphragm microphones in his recording studio and helping some of his concert artist friends with these higher quality vocal microphones.
Sarah and Bob are already making plans for an even bigger and better NAB 2009.
