Audio/visual firms grow with casinos, conventions

Kevin Ferguson

Wednesday, June 20, 2001 | 10:47 a.m.

Steve Rypka says that since he opened the Las Vegas division of SPL Integrated Solutions four years ago, the company has been overwhelmed with major projects.

Among its many jobs, SPL has installed the sound system for the dancing fountains at Bellagio, the music and paging system throughout the Venetian hotel-casino and the sound system for Caesars Palace's Magical Empire.

"It's been a non-stop, full-speed ahead operation for four years," Rypka said, noting the Columbia, Md.-headquartered company has grown from a $10 million annual-revenue generator in 1997 to a $100 million firm.

The Las Vegas division was the company's second office to open. The company now has offices in 14 U.S. cities, but Rypka said it's clearly noticeable that Las Vegas projects have boosted the company's revenues.

Las Vegas has become a prime market for businesses like SPL due to major Strip development and convention centers in the past few years. And though Strip megaresort openings have leveled off for now, other industries are calling on these audio and visual specialty businesses to enhance their presentations to the public.

From churches wanting large monitors to post hymn notes to small businesses needing mini-projectors for presentations, industries typically not considered high-tech are reaching out to the audio/visual experts.

"We've seen a great increase in business from the retail sector, like shopping malls," said Zellie Dow, president of Las Vegas-based Z.A.V. Services.

Dow's 12-year-old company rents out audio and video equipment -- like audio amplifers, camcorders, computer monitors and large video screen monitors. Until recently, the bulk of the company's clients were typically trade show exhibitors, hotels, stadiums.

But lately his company has been busy installing and renting out numerous large movie-type monitors for Disney retail stores and Lady Foot Locker shops.

While browsing through 300,000 square feet of exhibits of the latest audio and visual technology at the Sands Expo Center and Venetian Resort last week, Dow said growth in his industry will be in the large four-inch thick movie-type monitors called gas plasma panels.

The thinness of these monitors makes them ideal for businesses and wealthy homeowners to mount on a wall.

The InfoComm 2001 trade show, sponsored by the International Communications Industries Association, attracted about 30,000 visitors to view these types of offerings. The show had 513 exhibitors.

Industry observers say its difficult to determine the scope of the audio visual industry. But Jason McGraw, ICIA's vice president of expositions and conventions, said its no doubt a multi-billion industry in the United States. Dow estimates its more than a $50 million industry in Las Vegas.

It's hard to dispute that when considering the numerous mega-sound systems and video monitors along the perimeter of the Strip, inside the hotels, the various convention centers and the valley's shopping malls.

InfoComm's visitor list strongly demonstrated how the audio/visual industry is reaching out to new sectors. The list included production staff from the Clark County Fire Department, Nellis Baptist Church and the Las Vegas Metro Police Department.

"(Some) courts are now using video-conferencing technology to speed up the judicial process. They don't have to take the extra day to bring a prisoner to the courts. They can view him and talk to him while he's sitting in his cell," McGraw said.

Video-conferencing is certainly a high-tech growth area being exploited by the business community. One benefit is that it allows people to share information and communicate through the Internet.

"It saves so much money for companies if (its employees) don't have to fly all over the country for meetings," Rypka said, noting that that's why many businesses of all sizes are investing in the technology.

At InfoComm, Sony Electronics unveiled its E-Conference software, which offers the technology to wirelessly stream power-point presentations from one laptop computer to another.

Walter Sebastian, Sony vice president of video-conferencing, said it bridges the communications gap in today's delivery of presentations by accelerating the flow, pace, connectivity and productivity of meetings.

"We've all been in meetings that were disjointed owing to technical hiccups that have challenged our patience," Sebastian said, noting this E-Conference technology is a remedy for improving the use of meetings. "It's simply plug-and-present with no wires."

Sebastian said the InfoComm conference was the ideal place to showcase this technology, because "Las Vegas is the meetings capital of the world."