In Martin Professional’s early days, it was all smoke and mirrors. Literally. Entrepreneur Peter Johansen founded the company in 1987 in Aarhus, Denmark with the main factory located in the city of Frederikshavn, about 115 miles north of Aarhus. It all started with smoke machines, based on experiments using dry ice in a coffee machine. The Martin name was acquired through cooperation with a French smoke machine company. It soon added lighting products for discotheques, but quickly diversified into lighting for the professional markets, particularly lights with moving mirrors such as the PAL 1200 and fixtures with moving heads.
(By Terry Bourquin, Managing Editor, PROMAG magazine)
In 1993 Electrosonic SA launched an eight page AV and Lighting newsletter and called it Pro-Magazine. “High-tech meets education” was printed in bold as the intro paragraph of one of the first articles. An extract from that story reads: “In the training centre itself, the 120-seat main auditorium is equipped with a Panasonic data projection system, which allows the projection of anything from printed pages and 35mm slides to overhead transparencies and even three-dimensional objects”. It continues: “Panasonic 67cm colour television sets and VHS VCRs have been installed…”
By Bruce Schwartz (Entertainment Lighting Manager)
On 6 September Ellis Park hosted the inaugural I Heart Joburg Music Festival - an uninterrupted 12-hour musical explosion dedicated to the extraordinary city of Johannesburg. The festival delivered one of the biggest entertainment line-ups to hit our shores, or should that be mine-dumps, and boy did the energetic music-lovers of Jozi rock the magnificent stadium of Ellis Park.
Electrosonic SA’s Suren Lutchman (Entertainment Lighting Technical Sales & Support) recently went on a Martin Professional training trip to Denmark and the Czech Republic. This is what he had to say.
Martin Professional:
The week began on Monday 8 September at Martin Professional’s HQ in Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city and the country’s main port. There were attendees from all over Europe as well as from Japan and Singapore. The day’s training session kicked off with an introductory talk by Henrik Christensen, the new manager for Martin’s service team, which consists of eight people. Henrik mentioned that in the future Martin will focus more on training, and I discussed with him the possibility of getting some of his trainers to come out to South Africa.
