Day 2 of Lightapalooza 2025 sits firmly in the bag, and with the show floor opening a day early this time around, there was certainly a lot more ground to cover than in previous years. For today’s recap, we have education, show floor experiences, the keynote, and showcase suites on tap, so, without further ado, let’s get into what went down on Day 2 of Lightapalooza in Dallas.
While I popped in to see the reconvening of SHINE certification classes in the early morning, I mostly spent the first half of the Lightapalooza Day 2 bouncing between the sessions.
The highlight definitely had to be the classes being hosting by members of the academic community. The first I experienced featured Mariana Figueiro, one of the leading researchers in lighting and human health at Mount Sinai. She went incredibly in depth on the research behind how light affects people. It was dense, but I also love talking about lighting research, so even though the talk was an hour, I easily could’ve stuck around for two more.
The other opportunity came at the end of the day where I sat in on a panel discussion led by Sean O’Connor, one of the most respected designers in the lighting industry. Again, a very technical panel as it also featured Figueiro alongside keynoter and fellow educator Kevin Houser, but there were so many interested topics that bridged the gap of lighting theory and practice that I could not get enough of. For instance, did you know why LEDs look so awful when they dim? I always thought it was a problem with the technology, but apparently the way human eyes perceive light changes drastically as it gets dimmer with dim-to-warm really only working to make it less noticeable. Cool stuff!
Speaking of Houser, Lightapalooza’s Day 2 keynote was a perfect encapsulation of theory meets technical know-how and application. Being an educator in architectural lighting, Houser’s passions dovetail between art and science and that intertwining couldn’t have been more noticeable here. Breaking down lighting in terms of hardline technical features and more theory driven components really tickled both my left and right brains and if you’re someone with a passion for lighting coming into it through the technical side, I’m sure it might just do the same to you.
Lightapalooza took place in late February, and the growth of the event has mirrored the rapid ascension lighting fixtures and controls.
The best and most striking way he highlighted this, however, was the project of an entirely glass house. Trenches carved outside fired uplights towards the ceiling of the home that then reflected and flooded the space with soft light at night. Distant trees were spotlighted to create contrast in the landscape. The base of the house itself was linearly lit to give the house the appearance of floating above the grass in the evening.
It was a grand display of lighting knowledge and technical ingenuity at play, and while some aspects of the home might be harder to achieve nowadays, it was enough to get me, someone who never considering going into design once in his life, amped up enough to want to be able to work on projects like that.
Immediately following the keynote, we shot off to the show floor, and with a semi-limited two hours, I managed to swing by a few booths to see what was going on at the show.
Ahead of the keynote I had an opportunity to peep Coastal Source’s booth to see their Evo line of products before bouncing over to Séura to get a second look at their color tunable mirrors. Being colorblind, I’m a pretty big sucker for bold, saturated colors (they’re the only ones I can tell what they are beyond a shadow of a doubt), and those mirror TVs are always an incredible draw with their sci-fi aesthetic.
Moving on I popped on into Savant to check out the company’s Proseo line since I didn’t get a chance to see it at CEDIA Expo. As someone who arrived to the industry right after the pandemic, I got to see many integrators start to go all in on larger projects in the luxury market, leaving what I always considered to be a sizeable opportunity in the middle market on the table, so seeing Savant branching off into more affordable solutions, it’s hard not to get excited about it.
I also swung by Electric Avenue (thank Joe Piccirilli for that name) to check out some of the power exhibitors while I still had a functioning brain. Stopping by Torus Power and RoseWater Energy, I didn’t see much in the way of new products, but I did see plenty in the way of new approaches to the channel, with both Piccirilli of RoseWater and Kevin Main of Torus discussing how their teams have been helping integrators design and sell these systems considering the overwhelming nature of the category.
The day ended with the opening of the showcase suites on the upper mezzanine, and while there were roughly five or six suites from what I saw, I mostly stuck to the Proluxe suite as I was drawn in by the visuals but stayed for the presentation and conversation. Though I already knew of their partnership with Séura (that’s Proluxe lights in the color tunable mirrors!), I was surprised to see both illuminated Leon speakers and Josh.ai there, in addition to it all being run on a Vantage control platform.
Most peculiar, however, was that one of the lights was being wirelessly managed by Josh, through Wiz of all things. I knew that wireless control had steadily been gaining traction for retrofit applications, but this was a delight to see (both for myself and many of the integrators in the room). The only downside is Proluxe hasn’t released that fixture yet, so I guess all excited parties are just going to have to wait.
I guess I’ll have to swing by the booth to find out more on Lightapalooza Day 3.
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