Day 3 of Lightapalooza 2025 has come and gone, and with the exhibition floor being open the full day now, I decided to switch up my strategy and instead spent most of my time checking out the booths. There’s a lot to cover, and it may get a bit rambly at times, but I’ll try to stick to the usual structured format as I dole out this Lightapalooza Day 3 Recap.
The thing of note with Lightapalooza, if you’re not aware, and something I love, is that it’s a much more curated space of exhibitors compared to other shows. That’s by intention as Tom Doherty, the head of the show, seeks to create more intimate and meaningful connections between both exhibitors and attendees.
All that to say, at least in my experience, you tend to get a lot more out of a booth visit vs. other larger shows.
My first stop of the day was at WAC/AiSPiRE’s booth. Having already gotten a look at their new Colorscaping system from last year, I instead opted to see what they were up to elsewhere while sitting in on some colorful lighting presentation they had set-up. By colorful I mean the setting. The lights, while still tunable, mostly kept to color temperatures of white to showcase how much can be done with just simple adjustments. The results were striking!
From there, I made a quick stop at Proluxe to see what they were up to after their showcase suite showing. The booth had just as many striking visuals with frosted glass video panels and an eye-catching moon display, which, while mostly for commercial, offered a good well rounded picture of their product when paired with their showcase suite.
Lightapalooza took place in late February, and the growth of the event has mirrored the rapid ascension lighting fixtures and controls.
After that, I swung by over to FX Luminaire, an outdoor lighting manufacturer showcasing a handful of fixtures as well as their Luxor control system. While nothing was explicitly new to show (so you guys may have heard of this one before me) they were featuring a relatively new wireless communicator for their satellite and control boxes that leverages long range wireless, which, for setting stuff up outside, is just such a nice thing to have.
Control4 was next up on the light train. With the company having released its Lux keypads for the show I had to see them in person, and I have to say, the dichromatic options with the metal sheen and colored buttons sold me completely. Apparently that’s more of a European aesthetic. Who knew? Great customization options from what they had on display at the show and scalability to match, though.
I swung by Screen Innovations afterward, where they had their KAOS outdoor screen on display alongside their interior shading options. The KAOS really stole the show however, being as heavy duty as they come. I was also told they’re in the process of tweaking one of their other outdoor shades to be able to withstand up to -20 degree Fahrenheit weather without degrading. Northerners rejoice!
Stopping by Wall-Smart, their booth had just about every other manufacturer at the show under the sun, sunken in with Wall-Smart’s custom flush mounts, of course. New to the market, however, they had flush mounts for the new Josh Touch Panel, Hunter Douglas, and Control4’s newly released Lux keypads. Really keeping ahead of the game there.
No show would be complete without a trip to Vantage, at least from my perspective. The company has done tremendously for circadian lighting over the year, and while they’re often quiet on the flashy news front, when they come out with something, it’s usually a big deal. Case in point, when I arrived, they were showcasing a new set of modular keypads (still in development so the stuff at the show were dummy pads) as well as a new RF range of keypads powered by Zigbee that come programmed for Vantage right out the box.
From there I moved on to visit QTL (formerly Q-Tran). Originally a commercial company, they got their start in power supplies before, after enough people kept using them for tape lights, they decided to start making tape lights as well. The eye catcher at the booth may be the multi-flexible color-tunables they have up on the wall, but their cove lighting and micro fixtures take the cake for me. Plus they already make the power supplies to help protect the lights!
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t running out of steam at this point, but there was still SO MUCH to see. Sticking to the same general area, I stopped by Lightheaded, another commercial-leaning-luxury-residential company featuring quite the array of 1”, 2”, and 3” fixtures with their new to show offerings being their ultra-luxe color tunable line.
Following up from there, I moseyed over to Crestron where the primary emphasis was interoperability between fixtures. I suppose I’ve yet to mention that, but a lot of the control manufacturers were emphasizing how well they were playing with other lighting fixtures while at the show. What struck me with Crestron however was their Hue integration, which, from general industry chatter, is becoming quite the popular option on projects.
Of course, Crestron was also touting their partnership with DMF Lighting, and as such, I couldn’t end my tour there. If you haven’t read the news yet, DMF Lighting released a new lighting system PhaseX that lets integrators digitally control it overpower lines, a method used by AV brands in the past, now strengthened by a little bit of signal isolation. I’m simplifying it horrifically. Even after I had the engineer who helped develop it explain it to me, the understanding is still a bit above my paygrade. All I can say is that it was a great booth to end the day on.
With Day 3 of Lightapalooza 2025 in the bag, one more remains. Though, with my time bisected by travel, it’s likely I’ll only have a small window to tour the floor again. Stay tuned though, as in place of a Day 4 summary I’ll likely be providing my own little postmortem of the show like I did last year.
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