Last week was the 1st Professional Lighting Designers Conference (PLDC) in London. It was organized by Professional Lighting Designers Association (PLDA), which is the main lighting association in Europe. There are a few different associations worldwide that focus on lighting, for instance the IESNA in North America.

The PLDC in London was, as I believed, to be an open conference for all people working with light. The conference focused on lighting design theory and practice, and had some great speakers involved like Mark Majors of Spears & Majors among many other great architects or lighting designers, mostly based in Europe and the States. It was really refreshing to be at a conference where ideas were the focus and not manufacturers or products.

While the conference itself was great the 'awards' ceremony at the end of the conference was certainly a letdown. It became very clear that the awards ceremony was a way to congratulate PLDA members and those within their community with what they had achieved. It made absolutely no sense to include such high-profile people up for awards such as Tadao Ando or James Turrell, only to let them lose to someone who is directly associated with the PLDA. Did these people even submit their work into the contest?

That being said, I gave my own lecture that clearly garnered a strong response (many people telling me it was an engaging lecture, more than one said it was a highlight presentation, an invitation to present at Parsons in New York, etc..), nevertheless, they gave the award in my category to a student whose teachers and mentors happen to be the very organizers of the conference.

While there is no problem with recognizing the work of members of the PLDA, why bother calling it an open awards ceremony and just say its a ceremony to recognize work of people in your community? (ie. let's award people who pay our membership fees...)

The PLDC was a great conference for the content alone. The PLDA and the PLDC have a lot of potential to validify and create a stable platform for lighting designers everywhere, but only if they become an open community not an exclusive one. I hope that after patting themselves on the back during the awards ceremony at the 1st PLDC, the PLDA will open their arms to all those working with light (after they pay their membership fees, of course)...