The LDI 2025 Booth and Best Debuting Product Awards honor technological advances in new products from our exhibitors and those companies who excel in their booth design.
The LDI Awards are presented to the best debuting products launched at LDI 2025 or available for the first time in the United States on the LDI 2025 trade show floor.
Marian Sandberg, VP and brand leader for LDI, welcomed everyone to this year’s awards breakfast.
Thanks go to our sponsors, Lightswitch and Lightwright for bringing the 2025 recipients of the Pat MacKay Diversity In Design scholarships. Laura Lee Everett, executive director of USITT, introduced lighting designers Bianca Akoa and Elena Hewett; projection/video designer Audrey Allen and sound designer Ashley Nava. One final recipient unable to attend lighting designer: Tait Truong.
The Battle of The Busk Winners:
The Most Creative: FOH (Freaks Of House) - Syllia Newstead, John Holmes, Jensen Chambers on ChamSys + Pixera
The Most Unique: Flying Pixies - Isabel Delgado, Nate Doyon, Markus Martinez, Pui Leung on Hog + Pixera
The Most Cohesive: Take 512 – Conner Lin, Cole Randall, and Lilly Pierce on MA3 + Hippo
The Jaw Dropper: Busk Till Dawn - Eric Bodden, Tony Dash, Jacob Izzo, El Lieu Wolhardt on MA3 + Hippo
Industry Choice: FOH (Freaks of House) Syllia Newstead, John Holmes, Jensen Chambers on ChamSys + Pixera
The Inaugural VJ Challenge, hosted in conjunction with Visual Artform.
10 incredible VJs competed on the Battle of the Busk stage for a cash award and a license to Depense Show Control & Visualization software from Syncronorm.
The winner: VJ Legacy JP
LDI present its sixth annual Sustainability Award for a product or initiative that promotes a greener future, addresses climate change, or promotes sustainable energies.
This year the winner is EcoVault - From HyperPower. The EcoVault series revolutionizes power delivery for a wide range of applications. A 10kW battery power station capable of supporting up to 31 additional 10kW battery packs in-line, the EcoVault supports CamLock tie-ins and boasts fast and simple recharge times from a range of sources including a standard 120 volt 20 amp wall outlet. In the words of its creator, a totally rad product.
The LDI2025 Booth Awards
Most creative use of light: Elation Professional
The Best Product Display: Chauvet Lighting
In the Best Small Booth Design category: Mod Scenes
And the Best Big Booth Design award: Martin, with an honorable mention for Glow Motion.
Debuting Product Awards
The SOUND Award:
The new Qu-series from Allen & Heath, which delivers pro-level mixing in a compact, budget-friendly package ideal for a wide range of venues — from small theaters to university performance spaces to small venues, and mid-size events. It offers reliable sound for live shows, lectures, or installations and delivers outstanding value for any organization or venue seeking quality audio without over spending.
The WIDGET Award:
The product that improves the lives of those that use it goes to Lightwright. An already powerful tool, Lightwright has moved into a new era with a ground-up rewrite aimed at supporting innovation at the speed of our fast-paced industry. It introduces real-time collaboration and advanced power planning. No longer just a tool for theater, Lightwright is ready to support a wider range of projects across many fields.
The SPECIAL EFFECTS Award:
Hazebase America won for the Fab 2: Building on the award-winning Hazebase Touring 2 and Cube Hazer, they have changed the game for maintenance and ease of operation. All repairs and troubleshooting can be done with the Fab 2 in its operating location, thus saving valuable time in getting your show up and running.
The STAGING AND RIGGING Award:
ETC Prodigy Balance: A safer counterweight rigging system where the weights remain at stage level, using pins and a drill for adjustments instead of loading bridges. The system includes integrated brakes and sensors to prevent runaway loads.
Projection And Digital Media Control:
The Hippotizer Hyco MX, a flagship-class media server built for high-stakes, large-scale live production. It delivers multiple production outputs, and massive Notchmarks processing. The platform’s commitment to supporting intuitive DMX-driven programming workflows is second to none. It is positioned as a powerful, competitively priced, future-ready tool.
The Projection and Digital Display Award:
Roe Vanish Air Rental, which represents a significant shift in LED display panel philosophy. It is a beautiful, solidly engineered transparent Indoor panel that emphasizes the display rather than the technology that powers it. It's a thin frame that barely registers and hides all the technology that powers the LEDs.
The Architectural Lighting Award:
The Black Tank Tiny Light and Platform Driver System. Its “ludicrous mode” reallocates voltage and current to maximize output and efficiency of LED sources. The Tiny Light is small but mighty! Particularly in Ludicrous mode, it is very bright for a fixture its size. Its colors are rich and punchy. We see many uses for a tiny fixture with great output.
The Lighting Control Award:
MACULA redefines the remote followspot industry by adding an organic integration between operator and control surface, creating a more natural and fluid spotlight operation.
The Fixture Award:
The beautifully designed Chroma-Q Color Force 3 family. With more than double the output, IP65 rating, and wonderfully effective FlexOptics, this family of fixtures is well equipped to light the way with clarity, from the easy to access lens system, to the individually addressable white SparQle LED’s.