This will be the third Gottelier Award - named in memory of the former designer, developer and commentator Tony Gottelier, who died in 2006. The Award (sponsored by Lighting&Sound International magazine for which Tony Gottelier was a regular contributor for many years), aims to recognise those who have made a significant and sustained contribution to the development of entertainment technology. Former winners are Tony Andrews of Funktion One (2007) and John Stadius of Soundtracs/DiGiCo (2008).
The seven nominees this year include four notable figures from the lighting world and three from pro audio. This year's nominees are, in alphabetical order:
Nick Archdale
As one of the three founders of Flying Pig Systems (along with Tom Thorne and Nils Thorjussen) Nick Archdale was central to the lighting control revolution of the 1990s, with the emergence of the company's iconic Wholehog product line: the Wholehog II control desk was to become the most ubiquitous control surface in the business. Later, Archdale took his talents in a new direction with another serial innovator - Carallon: the company's multi-award winning Pharos product line has made a similar impact on the world of architectural lighting control to that made by the Wholehogs in show lighting.
Graham Blyth
The co-founder, along with Phil Dudderidge, of Soundcraft back in 1973, Graham Blyth remains the company's technical director today and has been behind almost every single product the company has launched since, from the Series 1 - the first flightcased touring desk - through the development of Spirit Mixers, Series 2 to Series 5 and the much favoured MH and GB Range, to today's Vi and Si Series digital consoles. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts three years ago and is a Fellow of the AES.
Jim Bornhorst
The man who pioneered the moving light, Jim Bornhorst is widely considered the father of the modern show lighting fixture. Setting out to improve the efficiency of PAR Can rigs by creating a "gel changer" he and his team instead created the first Vari-Lite - the prototype VL0 - complete with integrated dichroic colour mixing. With the support of Genesis, the first moving light rig was seen in Barcelona in 1981, and the rest, as they say, is history. Bornhorst continues to make an impact on the concert touring market: he was recently behind the development of the PRG Bad Boy luminaire as seen in such large numbers on U2's current 360° tour . . .
Alex Cooper
Alex Cooper joined Klark Teknik in 1979. By the early eighties he was head of the test department, and in 1985 was tasked with testing the newly-acquired Midas consoles. In 1990 he was put in charge of building and debugging the first prototype XL3, which also contained a few of his circuit designs. As head of R&D he went on to design the XL4, which was to become the industry-standard live sound mixing console. He has also designed, or had significant input into the KT DN800 stereo crossover, Midas XL250, Heritage 3000, 2000, B2000 and Verona consoles, the Klark Teknik DN540 and DN530 Creative series and Square ONE Dynamic processor and the Midas XL8 digital console.
Christian Heil
Dr. Christian Heil's introduction of the L-Acoustics V-DOSC line array system in the mid-1990s led to a fundamental shift in the live sound market, and line array systems proliferated for the next decade and a half. Scarcely a pro loudspeaker manufacturer on the planet has failed to join the line array party. Still Heil and L-Acoustics continue to refine the line array concept: the latest K1 system, which debuted this year on a number of high profile events to great acclaim from audio p
