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Ahead of Lightapalooza, Tom Doherty Talks on Leading North America’s Largest Lighting Education Event

As the Director of New Technology Initiatives at HTSA in addition to being one of the formative minds behind CEDIA Expo, Tom Doherty has seen the home integration industry undergo some incredible evolutions over the years. However, its his most recent work with Lightapalooza that really helps to drive that point home to many newcomers to the industry as the lighting category continues to be a hotbed of activity.

Playing an integral part in what has now become a watershed moment for the industry, Doherty’s greatest challenge now lies in being able to navigate a continually evolving role for the annual lighting event as more designers and architects–as well as integrators–become interested, extending the event’s reach beyond custom integration and into lighting design as a whole.

CE Pro had a chance to sit down with Doherty ahead of Lightapalooza’s most recent installment for 2025 to discuss the challenges of heading such a fast growing show, as well as where he plans to take the event in the future and what people can expect when the show takes place January 20 – 23 at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas. Below is an abridged version of our discussion.

CE Pro: What are the challenges of running an event like Lightapalooza?

Doherty: This year’s Lightapalooza will be our 4th, and each year we try to learn from the previous years as well as react to the the evolution lighting, fixtures, sales and lighting design in the CI channel. It’s one of the reasons we added power last year.

One of the things that we want to do moving forward, however, is continue to be relevant to these folks that have attended previous shows. We have people that have attended all three up to this point and that are attending this one, so in order to stay relevant to those people, we have to continue creating compelling content for them.

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At the same time, we have to support and have value for folks that are earlier along in this evolution.

CE Pro: So how are you approaching education this year then?

Doherty: We are repeating a lighting fundamental certification this year. We did it for the first time last year. Both sessions were sold out. Ninety-six people went through that program, and this year, we’ve expanded the number of seats. The second one’s not sold out yet, but I expect it to be sold out by the time the event occurs. So right now that’s 128 people ready to go through an 8 hour hands-on lab for lighting fundamental certification.

Meanwhile, Peter Romanello will be attending for the 4th time. His classes are always jam packed. Last year, his fixture best practices for fixture placement had 252 people in it. This year, we’re repeating it twice and we have over 300 people registered for that session.

In addition to him and several of the other, talented lighting professionals, however, I also reached out to academia.

So now we have the head of Parsons New School in New York and Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Doctor Craig Bernecker presenting. We have both Mariana Figueiro and Jennifer Barnes from the Light and Health Research Center from Mount Sinai School of Medicine presenting two separate sessions on Health and Wellness as it relates to lighting. And then we have Doctor Kevin Houser, who will be delivering a keynote as well as multiple courses.

We also have courses on business, marketing and process being led by Ron Callis, Jason Sayen and Matt Bernath, as well as the returning power experts.

Last year’s conference delivered the most lighting and power education of any event in the world, I know that sounds like hyperbole, but it’s a fact that we had over 6500 seats and about 10,000 hours of education consumed in two and a half days, and thus far with registration, we’re exceeding that this year by a little bit.

CE Pro: Outside of education I imagine the exhibition portion is popular among attendees.

Doherty: Yeah, a big part of the reason why people give us accolades is the networking that occurs. It’s that engagement with peers and it’s the opportunity to have hands-on and personal discussions with the leading exhibitors.

So this year, we’ve grown again, and now there’s a curated list of the 59 top exhibitors in the channel, making it the largest number of lighting, power and business related exhibitors in the CI channel all in one location.

CE Pro: Any other changes people should expect at this year’s show?

Doherty: Yes. So, the conference has traditionally been: arrive Monday, education all day Tuesday, education and exhibit floor open Wednesday and then wrap up on Thursday.

This year has a similar format in that we’ve got the start of the fundamentals training, a welcome reception on Monday evening–let everybody say hello–and then Tuesday morning kicks off education.

This year, however, we have a keynote from from 1:00 to 2:00 P.M. on Tuesday and after we’re going to open up the exhibit floor a half day early. So from 2:00 to 5:00 P.M. on Tuesday, the exhibit floor will be open. And then from 5:00 to 7:00 P.M., we’ll have our traditional cocktail reception for everybody that has grinded since 8:00 in the morning.

Additionally, where the cocktail reception is–it’s in the mezzanine just above registration–we have 8 breakout rooms that we’re calling showcase suites. Eight manufacturers have taken these suites and they’re going to be able to use them in addition to their show floor.

These rooms will have a more controlled lighting environment because on the the show floor you can never dim the lights enough for a manufacturer to truly exhibit their own fixtures. This will give these manufacturers a better chance to really highlight what their products can do, given that it’s a more controlled lighting environment. Many of them are also going to host hospitality events and trainings, so they’ll be all unveiled Tuesday.

It’ll be kind of like an open house that everybody will see for the first time and then on Wednesday and Thursday, these exhibitors are either hosting manufacture training or they’re having meetings or they’ll be able to use them in any way they want, much like at other trade shows.

CE Pro: That’s exciting.

Doherty: We also had architects and interior designers in attendance for the education last year so we’re doing that again this year with 7 AIA, IDEC CEUs on Thursday that we’re hosting back to back in this large breakout space that runs contiguous with the show floor.

CE Pro: The addition of academia must be exciting as well.

Doherty: It is. When highly respected lighting designers attend Lightapalooza it helps confirm the credibility of this conference. Right now we have Sean O’Connor out of Los Angeles, who amongst his peers is considered one of the best lighting designers in the world. He’ll be moderating a panel discussion that will include Doctor Kevin Houser, Mariana Figueiro, who I mentioned before, and Addie Smith, who is a lighting designer in in Denver.

So we have lighting design, academia, research, and the medical fields all represented in that one panel.

We also have Scott Hirschman, who will be wearing two hats here. He is formerly with Fisher Moran Stone, one of the most respected firms in lighting design, and he is currently is with LFA and is the co-founder of LF lighting. He also represents the work being done on the manufacturer side the manufacturer side.

So essentially the panel discussion will be around the topic of bridging lighting research with residential lighting practice.

CE Pro: Your time is probably very limited during the show, but is there anything you’re planning on making time to sit down for?

Doherty: I’m excited about the keynote. It’s already got 470 people registered and it’s going to be pretty nerdy. I’ll be interested to watch people’s faces and see how they’re taking it.

CE Pro: That’s what it’s all about though, right? Just being nerdy about these new technologies and translating that into the home experience?

Doherty: Our industry over the three-and-a-half, four decades I’ve been involved has always been about learnign what’s next. Even if it’s not about wanting to be an expert about it, it’s still about at least understanding it and exploring that range of expertise on a topic.

Specifically, I recall the second CEDIA Expo in San Francisco. It was 1991, home theater was in its infancy, THX was being introduced, and so a lot of us went to Skywalker Ranch. We wanted to have an event there where we could really learn about how they make movies, how sound is done; we were all interested in that.

And then at this event, this is the first time Joe Cain, really the father of the Image Science Foundation, showed up. I say that insofar as he introduced integrators to color, space and grayscale, how to get into the service of a projector and set grayscale and and calibration. The notion of being able to do that with video happened there.

And even then, people were nerding out about it. Everyone was like “I need to learn how to hang in a projector. I need to learn how to converge it. Oh, I need to learn how to set it at 6500 Kelvin, and I need to have the color space such that I’ve got the grayscale correct so that I can get what the director was trying to achieve.”

Integrators have been doing the same thing with lighting, and I think we’re ready to hear from academia. It’s time to introduce people to concepts that many of them probably haven’t even considered up to this point

So, like I said, I’m really looking forward to this keynote, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the audience takes away as well.

CE Pro: Have you gotten a read at all at how the presenters are feeling? I mean they must be excited to want to participate like this.

Doherty: Well one of the big things is that these people don’t interface with integrators regularly. They interface with their students. They interface with manufacturers. These people are meeting these integrators for the first time. We’re not normally on their radar. I’ll be really interested to see what they think of us after the show.

Do they want to come back? Do they see the potential of this industry? Are they inspired?

To answer you question, though, when I reached out to Kevin, I just saw Sean–who I already knew at that point–liked a post of his on LinkedIn, so I DM’d him: “Hi you probably never heard of Lightapalooza. This is what it is. We’re focused on this. Do you have time to talk? I’d like to see if you’re available to speak.”

What hooked him was me saying, how many hundreds of people sit in classes. These guys are used to showing up at a conference and there’s 20, 40, 50 people in a room. I think I said last year we had a class at 252 people and he was like “What?” Just recently told him something like, “450 people are so far registered for the keynote. We’re probably going to have 500 people listening to your keynote.”

Really, they’re all excited to be coming. And I’m highly interested in what their experiences, because I want to continue to always have the best possible faculty for Lightapalooza that  that we can deliver.

CE Pro: It’s funny that you say faculty, because I feel like introducing academic theory really is the next step towards growing out the education.

Doherty: Yeah, I think that you got it on the mark. I felt like it was important to add this element while still having those entry level/intermediate courses. Speaking of university, we’re going to have 100 series courses. We’re going to have 200 series courses. And this year and we’re even introducing 400 series courses.

CE Pro: Do you ever think that you’ll expand the education beyond this annual meetup? I feel like that’s the next step for what Lightapalooza is doing for the industry.

Doherty: Yeah. I’ve said at some point we’ll have a platform that has a library of education online. We did certifications last year on a fundamentals course. We’re doing those certifications this year although we’ve renamed it SHINE for Specialist in Home Illumination and Natural Energy. And we’ll expand the certifications over time

We’ll use Lightapalooza as well so that, in addition to recognizing other education that happens out there, we can use CEUs to maintain certifications. That’s something we’re moving towards. If I had to make an analogy, we dipped our toe into it last year. This year I’m still below my knees in the baby pool with this, but yeah, people want education year round.

The reps want education that they can deliver to their dealers year round. The manufacturers want their dealers to learn and demonstrate that they’ve learned things and what I think we’re going to do is take that leadership role there as well.

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