PLDC 2017 venue confirmed
(France) – Featuring new modernised conference format, Professional Lighting Design Convention to be held in Paris, France at Palais des Congrès from 1 – 4 November, 2017.
PLDC 2017 will take place in Paris and will be held at the Palais des Congrès – a modern convention centre that claims to be the largest in Europe. Located at the end of the Champs Élysées, with close access to the Périphérique, the venue is ideally positioned within the city. It has its own metro station for easy access and has a number of high and medium class hotels close by for attendees’ comfort and convenience.
The PLDC organisers will be cooperating with key persons in the Paris Municipality to take the event to a new level. Paris was one of the first cities to start using street lights during the Great Exhibition of 1889, and was promptly referred to as the City of Light. The city fathers now have the chance to regain the title in the modern sense as the “City of Light 4.0”. By the year 2020, Paris is planning to change its public lighting system radically. In future, more emphasis will be placed on the needs of pedestrians and cyclists.
The convention will again be built around a three-day professional conference offering around 70 professional papers given by high-profile speakers from the world of lighting design, architecture, research, city planning, daylight design and other related professions. Three tracks will be offering traditional 45-minute presentations, the Research track will adopt a new format comprising twenty-minute scientific papers, including both Lighting Application Research and R+D. A Call for Papers will be issued on 1 September 2016. The convention will also include invited Keynote Speakers, a manufacturers’ exhibition, pre-convention meetings, excursions to lighting / architectural projects, social events, moderated discussions, the final round of The Challenge, self-running electronic poster presentations, lighting installations in the City of Paris and a Gala Dinner during which the Professional Lighting Design Recognition Awards will be given for outstanding achievements in Architectural Lighting Design.
For the PLDC Paris edition, the organisers have announced that the conference format has been modernised in accordance with feedback provided by an international Think Tank and other partners. PLDC remains a four-track conference, but the structure has been amended slightly so that the audience will only have to select between three papers at the same time, instead of four. The Research track has been split into two and will feature twenty-minute papers on research findings from independent researchers and designers plus cutting-edge R&D input.
In preparation for the convention in Paris, and to give the Professional Lighting Design community the opportunity to meet on a regular basis in the run-up to PLDC, a series of warm-up events are being held in different parts of the world.
Warm-up events will take many different forms, including: evening events, breakfast meetings, film screenings, museum visits, Pecha Kucha presentations, etc.
These events are open to the entire lighting design community and lighting enthusiasts who are new to the market. They are designed to provide a networking platform with a back-up educational or cultural programme.
Warm-up events in preparation:
Paris/F, on 7 July, 2016: The event will be in close collaboration with PLDC partner ACE, the French lighting designers’ association. ACE will be hosting the warm-up together with iGuzzini. As an indication of the quality that PLDC conference papers offer, the evening will include a keynote presentation given by the enthusiastic international lighting designer Emrah Baki Ulas, who has given papers at former PLDC events. www.pld-c.com/warm-ups
Wismar/D, October 2016: At the close of the Light Symposium (www.lightsymposium.de) the Events Team and partners will be inviting the seminar attendees to an evening event and cult party (http://www.pld-c.com/pldc-2017-warm-up-in-wismar-2016/#more-5506.
Dubai/UAE, October 2016: On the occasion of Light Middle East, the VIA Events team and partners will be organising a PLD-interactive seminar (http://events.via-verlag.com/). Registration is now open
Vienna/A, November 2016: An advanced practical workshop on museum lighting (http://events.via-verlag.com/), headed by Francesco Iannone and Serena Tellini, will be held in one of the world’s most famous museums in Vienna/A – more information will be available shortly.
Round III of The Challenge in London/UK, February 2017: a two-day conference ((http://events.via-verlag.com/)).
More warm-ups will be added shortly.
PLDC 2017 is expected to attract more than 1,700 attendees from all over the world. Professionals from different fields of practice and research will be coming together to discuss and exchange ideas, approaches and concepts. This international and interdisciplinary understanding of lighting design supports the continuing process to gain recognition for this specialist discipline and for the profession as a whole. Strategic partnerships are in preparation. The motto of the sixth PLDC will be “Shift happens!” – pointing to the dramatic changes on the lighting design landscape, the impact of digital technologies, and the processes the design community will have to undergo to adjust to changing conditions.
Substantial changes are anticipated in the public realm with regard to structural reorganisation. Lighting programmes in towns and cities in future will be addressing issues such as atmosphere and energy savings to the same extent.
