The IES Progress Report put on their annual presentation at the IES Annual Conference in Indianapolis. The report typically interjects humor to break up the excitement of the new products. Their goal is to report on the progress of the art and science of lighting. Past IES President, Fred Oberkircher said it was the best progress report he has seen.
The committee featured 116 items and for the first time ever, there were no HID, Fluorescent, or Incandescent products. In addition, the submission of control items doubled.
Your humble editor will leave it to LD+A to report on the products, I'll report the humor:
StarWars skit. One of the best produced skits we have seen from the Report. They talked about the old guard, and flashed black and whites of Bill Hanley and Rita Harrold, as well as the new guard, Tim Licitra the new IES Executive VP. In addition, they spoke of the big threat to the old guard. As they were talking in their StarWars costumes, a huge planet comes out of nowhere and dominates the screen. "That's just Acuity Brands," said one of the actors. The presentation mixed video from old StarWars movies with current Progress members and the visual affect was quite stunning. Our sources agreed that the skit was clever and very well done.
For humor to be effective there must be an element of truth and judging by applause, the DLC shakedown skit seemed to accurately reflect what many in the audience felt. It started with a large menacing mafia-looking character sitting at a desk. He is approached by a luminaire manufacturer with a large saddle of money. Upon turning over the cash, the DLC characters says in his burly voice, "The fee went up!" When the OEM complains about not being notified, the DLC character asks, " We sent you an email at 12:33 a.m., don’t you read your emails?" The OEM throws a wad of cash to the DLC man and storms out.
The next scene has the same DLC character in St. Petersburg, explaining the process to a few Russian entrepreneurs. He boasts, "We charge to put them on a list; we delay, and we charge more money." He goes on to say, "First we start with luminaries and once they are hooked we slide in controls." One of his Russian friends asks how successful the program is in America. He responds, “It works perfectly, it’s like printing money.”
There was a Dancing with the Stars skit with Andrea Hartranft and a hairy chested Kaitlyn Jenner that was quite timely. There was a great basement shopping skit featuring the DoobieLED grow fixture, for four easy payments of $69.95. The medicinal marijuana infomercial was hosted by Mary Jane and Bud. While this can be a sensitive subject, I thought it was in fairly good taste and no one I talked to was offended. The skit ended with a parody of KodaChrome, changing the words to "Don't take my DoobieLED away."
The last skit was a Top 10 list by Indiana native David Letterman.
Not funny. The most important part of the Progress Report focused on member, Kathleen Packard, who was recently diagnosed with ALS. The speaker did a nice job transitioning to the subject of ALS and the recent success of the Bucket Challenge. Kathleen's husband Brett has left his job to provide care. You can help the Packards by going to VENMO and searching Progress Report.
As always, the IES Progress Report's hard work paid off and they provided a great report on the progress of the art and science of our industry. The report seemed to be well received by the audience.
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