Welcome to Part 2 of Gordons Bonkers Blog from ISE 2025

Welcome to Part 2 of Gordons Bonkers Blog from ISE 2025. It’s Tuesday 4th?Feb and the opening day of ISE 2025… I wake up very early to get to the show at 8 am, in fact, it’s still dark!!! I don’t have time for a proper breakfast, so grab a banana and a bar from my Hotel Stash… Now, I know some people read my ISE blog for tips… One of my many tips is always to take some snacks with you and steal fruit from the hotel for your room. Let’s be honest: most hotel breakfasts are stupidly expensive, so I don’t consider it stealing, just getting your value from the exorbitant cost… Either way, you can see that I am prepared and also borrowed some wine and gin from BA Business as well on the way over???!

I sponsored the AV News Awards this morning and was the host, so it was lovely that the entire team D-Tools Inc. and a good contingent from PlexusAV came to support me. Massive Congratulations to all the nominees and, of course, the winners. The keynote was due to be the always entertaining Jamie Brothwell from Exertis UK ,?however she was unable to attend so Jon Grundy ?filled in admirably, and they won Distributor of the Year and the DEI Award as well. Lisa Yates from 明基 picked up AV Professional of the Year and Beky Cann and all my old Peerless-AV Marketing team won as well and so all round a very enjoyable and fun event and so great job Sue Pritchard , Saskia Josephine , Bryan Denyer and everyone at AV News Magazine.

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I walk the show briefly with Arthur Brockhoff?from PlexusAV . Arthur is now running their EMEA Business, and I really enjoy spending some time with him. I bump into my old compadre Dan LY ,?who used to run Peerless EMEA for me back in the day and now works for B-Tech AV Mounts Dan is an absolute force of nature, and I love him.

After that, I walk the halls and pick up my wristbands for the Peerless Party and then bump into Iffat Chaudhry , Christopher Neto CTS , David Allen and JENNY HICKS ?on the Midwich Group plc stand and so how can I not get a pic with these legends…

Before I knew it, I was headed off for a meeting with Mark Dunlop from Aberdeen Uni, which also runs schoms . Whilst I have previously met Mark over VC, we have never met in person so it was great to put a face to the name. Just like?Adam Harvey and Aaron Smith, Mark puts a HUGE amount of time and effort into the organisation, and I think that is so admirable. Mind you, Mark I find out, is actually VERY tall, and I look tiny next to him so I make sure I stand up in the pic LOL!???

?I have organised a Press Event for PlexusAV and so you always worry whether that will go as planned, but needless to say Steven Cogels ?smashes it, and the amount of interest in?IPMX?and their Stream Conversion Gateway is massive and so MANY thanks to all the press that attended from ?SCN, SVC, Installation Magazine , pro AVL, rAVe [PUBS] Inavate , AV Magazine , AV News and all the others who attended.

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After grabbing a quick Sherbert with the press, I head back to the hotel to get ready for the Inavation Awards organised by Dan Jago and his amazing team at?Inavate. I have been lucky enough to know and work with Dan and his team for well over 20 years, and despite him being a West Ham fan, he is actually a TOP Bloke, LOL ??!

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The setting at the MNAC is fabulous, and after catching up with Michael Blackman and David Labuskes from Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) and AVIXA ,?I head off inside. Dan has been good enough to sit me on a table with some of my absolute faves in the industry. I sit next to Graham Kirkpatrick and Neil Fluester , Now Graham and I know each other pretty damn well and yet neither of us knew that we had both studied Judo for many years. Turns out Graham was in the Team GB Squad, and we both knew the Team GB Doctor and Physio well, as even today, those Guys are actually still my own GP and Physio. I never reached the heights Graham did, but I did compete in county and national competitions, and I am quite a bit older than him. However, it was amazing that we never knew that about each other. Neil Fluester and I have also known each other for some time but never met and had time to chat so it was really enjoyable to get to know him and the very lovely Kaz Pearman My old mates Steve Hudson and Mass Lambresa ?were also on the table so it’s fair to say it was a VERY lively table????and gets even more rowdy when Scott Aslett ?from Harman comes over to abuse us all.?

I congratulate the amazing Marcus Saunders and Leo McDowall-Benton from Unilumin UK on their wins, but unfortunately, by now… my back is killing me, and so I have to leave early and get back to the hotel, where I have brought a nuclear heat bag and so I spend a little time lying on that and contemplating what I have left to do tomorrow. It’s been a manic second day at ISE, and Mike confirmed they were 20% up on last year, and that was crazy busy, so who knows what tomorrow brings… I take a quick look at my Fitbit, and I have managed over 18,500 steps today and 13.37km ( well over 8 miles for my US Readers???!).

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If you want to know more about what I got up to on Day 2 of ISE and all about the legendary Peerless-AV Party… Then you will need to read on tomorrow.?#avtweeps #ISE #ise2025

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