Building on Martin Audio’s established ‘Open Day’ model in the UK, Ampco Flashlight Sales, the manufacturer’s long-serving Dutch distributor, chose a classic venue for the hosting of their own event.
They invited a vast range of audio professionals, ranging from system integrators to freelance engineers and even music venues to the Gebr. De Nobel, a leading multi-room industrial concert venue in Leiden, originally owned by the Nobel brothers.
Ampco has a long history with the venue, and Martin Audio is woven into its DNA. Starting back in 2014 with a W8LCI compact line array, this has recently been upgraded to a state-of-the-art, scalable and optimizable Wavefront Precision (WPS) in the main room.
The March 14 event was divided into afternoon and evening sessions, and was hosted by Martijn de Jong, Ampco Flashlight Sales Audio Product Manager and his colleagues, with full support from Martin Audio in the shape of Bradley Watson, Dan Orton, Andy Duffield and Robin Dibble.
On show were the full range of market leading products for all sizes of live application, including WPS (with SX218 subs), WPC (with SXH218), TORUS with SXC118, CDD-LIVE and LE100, LE200, XE300 and XE500 floor monitors. Explaining the product choice de Jong said, “I deliberately wanted to showcase products intended for the live segment of our industry. In fact, if we had more space, I would have put WPM in there as well but unfortunately that was not possible. I like the concept of Martin Audio’s open day presentations and we worked closely with them to make this happen.”
And “happen” it most certainly did. “We received nothing but very positive feedback from the people that attended which made the event thoroughly worthwhile,” he appraised. “Some visitors who hadn’t heard any of Martin Audio’s latest products were very impressed by the quality.”
Martijn de Jong is unequivocal in stating that this will be the first of a series of showcases. “The team and I have managed to create some positive momentum thanks to investing a lot of time in the preparation, which has provided a good foundation for future events.” He also thanked DSL, another Dutch partner of Martin Audio, for infilling with some of the products.
As to the future, he says, “I would like to stage the next event targeted at system integrators so we can show them products for installation—and we would probably do this with other brands for whom we are distributors.”
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