Interview: Florian von Hofen

One of the most influential figures on the world event production stage since taking over the helm at the German VPLT trade association, it is unlikely that anyone quite as protean as Florian von Hofen has ever weaved such an intricate path through the technology jungle.
Wearing one of his more recently-adopted hats - as editor in chief of the association’s impressive magazine - he recently delivered an eloquent leader criticising the freeing up of radio frequencies, under pressure from German internet providers, to enable rural villages to hook up to broadband internet. The move has been brought forward by the economic slowdown, as a result of which promises to the wireless microphone community have been broken, he argues.
As chief executive of the VPLT (Professional Lighting and Sound Association of Germany) Florian is part of a consortium of wireless technology users who want to retain the frequency spectrum for their own use. In Germany, the VPLT have been joined by the VDT (Association of Sound Engineers), VPRT (Association of Private Broadcasters and Telecommunication), EVVC (European Association of Event Centres), Deutscher Bühnenverein (German Stage Association), to form a powerful national lobby group and the basis of an international forum.
Of course the battle to retain UHF radio frequency availability for the entertainment industry is not unique to Germany - the UK industry is fighting similar threats. But today, trade associations - working co-operatively around the world with a common cause - not only have a stronger united voice, but have used it to raise the awareness not only of threats such as this, but many aspects of safety and the need for proper qualifications.
Florian will probably argue that he has long listed creative writing in his career toolkit, which includes playing in semi-pro bands, working as technician and assistant director for both commercials and major concerts, building discotheques, and manufacturing smoke and fog machines (under the Smoke Factory marque which he began back in 1990). At the same time the Hannoverian could be said to be workaholic, world traveller and wine lover in about equal measures.

TO UNDERSTAND how Florian von Hofen rose to become the most powerful man in the German production and communications industry you only have to examine his ambition during his early career.
Relaxing in the VPLT hospitality pavilion during Frankfurt’s recent Prolight+Sound (an ever-expanding adjunct to the famous Musikmesse which VPLT themselves had also lobbied hard for), he traced a career stretching back 35 years.
It is probably fitting that Florian’s first encounter with any band as a lighting technician should be with those champions of new technology, Genesis, during their Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour in 1975.
“I had 16 very primitive dimmers at my disposal,” he remembers. “But I spent 20 years on front of stages - as bass guitarist and singer - and I did 1,000 jobs with a Top 40 ‘covers’ band. This helped me finance my studies at university.”
As an assistant director he shot commercials for British and American companies in Europe, working in spectacular locations like The Alps with brands such as Asda supermarkets, Thomson Travel and Glaxo.
Advertising production gave him not only the freedom to work but an opportunity to save. Soon he was directing a crew of 60 on a shoot for United Airlines, commanding a budget in excess of Dm2.5m budget.  
But combining this with touring (whether in musician or technical support roles) was gradually taking its toll on both health and relationships, and after 12 years he pocketed his degree in music and became part of the first wave of high-technology nightclub designers.
The new genre had been spawned in America at the end of the previous decade and was now sweeping through Europe. If Italy was leading the way in kinetic lighting design, and UK in electronics by the mid-1980’s then Germany was putting the whole puzzle together conceptually to lead the way in holistic utility design. Plus, of course, it had Demag cranes to manage the elaborate new rig movement and Tarm to deliver the superior laser shows.
Florian joined forces with Ingo Dombrowski in the company id-technik, and between 1986-89 they were responsible for building some great clubs, such as the Baghwan-owned OSHO in Hannover.
It was during this period that he fell in love with fog, leading him eventually to set up The Smoke Factory as an antidote to shortcomings in the industry.
He remembers, “On one occasion I put an Italian fog machine I had been using on a job, along with the other equipment in the back of the 406 Diesel Mercedes. But during the journey back, the machine fell on its side and the fluid leaked out and ruined the lighting desk and sound system. I was really upset that this machine had not been safe to transport.”
He also noticed that with customary lack of forward planning, discotheque owners were forever phoning him on a Friday afternoon asking for emergency supplies of 5-litre fluid bottles to be delivered - to get them through their big weekend nights.
Instead of spending his Friday afternoons driving around the circuit’s nightclubs he implemented a subscription service. “Almost immediately we were selling three tons of fluid every month.”
While eager to commend reputable German smoke machine producers like Korner and Safex he could also see flaws and inconsistencies in some of the fluids, and so id-technik started to develop their own, placing high emphasis on safety and specifying only the highest grade of pharmaceutical glycol (which could safely be heated to more than 300°).
“This was the end of the 1980s and customers who bought this fluid from us believed we would also know about machines.” And so they started sending broken hardware for repair.
”We could see how much junk was on the market, with their terrible designs, and no regard for electrical safety; often there was no overheating protection or the thermostat was broken and so the aluminium around the coil would start to melt. None of them had 0-10v or DMX; there was no flow control and remote cables were fixed to the machine with no choice of length. We knew there must be a way to do this better.”
Florian started asking questions that would overhaul the fundamentals of conventional smoke machine design - like why couldn’t the flight case also be the smoke machine housing itself?
Ingo and Florian eventually decided to go their separate ways, and The Smoke Factory opened its account on January 1st 1990.
By this time the latter had become a member of the Verband Deutscher Discotheken-Ausstatter (Association of German Discotheque Suppliers/Contractors) - persuaded by one of his former company’s suppliers, Franco Neumetzler of SLV, who happened to be chairman.
After making outspoken comments at his first AGM he was promptly co-opted onto the board. “I was talking a lot about the need to restructure to make the Association more professional. Discotheques were important but it was not the whole story.”
Thus Germany adopted the same position as the British Association of Discotheque Equipment Manufacturers (BADEM) who metamorphosed into PLASA, themselves renaming to VPLT (Verband fur Professionelle Licht- und Tontechnik) in order to represent a wider spectrum of activity.
The Association was particularly concerned about the inferior standard of some lighting coming out of Spain and Italy - particularly evidenced when concert touring finally started adopting automated disco lighting in the early ‘90s (Clay Paky’s Golden Scan being the transition vehicle). A lot of ‘moving mirror’ devices that followed in its wake were simply not sufficiently robust for touring. “Some of them were of terrible quality,” he remembers.
And so Europe’s trade association network finally started to flex its muscles, with APIAD (later APIAS) fighting the Italians’ corner.
Sensing the need to take on a part-time employee, VPLT recruited well known media man Peter Blach. But such was the exponential growth it would soon became clear that managing the growth would require a full time position.
At the 1990 Musikmesse that spring, The Smoke Factory presented its first machine, the Enterprise TC2 with the combined chassis/flight case, which quickly established itself within the rental community. While the name, ‘Enterprise’ reflected the company’s love of all things Star Trek (the theme continuing with products like the tiny battery-operated ‘Scotty’), ‘TC’ was a reference to Telecommand, indicating that that this had a wireless remote control.
“This was a big surprise because it was a completely new design, which quickly found its way into rental companies. People trusted me because I had the practical experience and had been a touring technician.”
One of these companies was Rock Sound, co-owned by hugely popular band, The Scorpions, with whom Florian had once shared a rehearsal facility in their native Hannover.
Based just 1km from Smoke Factory’s facility, Rock Sound were a major supplier for stadium tours and it was their lighting division, Media Design, that became the first to use the machine; they also liked the subsequent Fan Fogger which combined wind and fog and was available in 3kW-9kW versions.
Rock Sound were later taken over by Procon and Florian von Hofen says that machines sold in 1992 are still running to this day.
Reflecting on the company’s early successes, he recalls that Smoke Factory had been the first to introduce a remote with flow control, the first to come up with a remote which could operate over an extended distance, the first to manufacture a machine that was truly transportable and the first to produce a machine controllable from the lighting desk. In addition they were the first company to produce a machine with radio remote, the first to produce a chassis that doubled as a flight case - and the first machine that could generate continuous fogging.
The big commercial breakthrough came when Florian was introduced to Mike Goldberg of M&M Lighting in London - a move that quickly established the range as standard on the West End stage. “He became my distributor and introduced many more people to me.”
M&M Lighting’s success came largely with the Sky Walker, a 19” metal housing installation version of the flightcased, touring Enterprise. This offered good flow/output control (using high-grade Swiss pump) through any 0-10V desk, 3-pin XLR for easy remote wiring, low noise, easy connection to fluid cans - and it was operable in any position.
With the acceptance of Smoke Factory’s machines came a growing corporate responsibility. Bad products with sub-standard temperature control were giving the industry a bad name. “For instance, if you overheat the glycol you can get bad side effects,” says Florian. “From the first day we produced safety data sheets and we were happy to talk openly to actors’ union, Equity, after concerns had been raised concerning safety issues.”
Working closely with clients and health and safety authorities finally led to the attainment of a ‘BGV C1’ certificate - the labour safety standard for theatres, stages and studios in Germany. This has legal status and enjoys both European-wide acceptance and global recognition.
Smoke Factory’s BGV C1 certificate covers not only electrical safety of the machines and purity and quality of the fluids, it also makes the statement that that the fog and haze emission is safe and not dangerous to health.
Measurements were taken from around 1,000 air samples to check for any toxic or dangerous ingredients. “Every Smoke Factory canister that goes out bears a serial number - and a sample of the original production retained should any questions be raised.”
By 1994 The Smoke Factory had set up its global distribution and was functioning like any well-oiled machine. Perhaps it was as a result of this that Florian von Hofen started to turn his attention increasingly to the administration of the VPLT. And when Peter Blach left to concentrate on his media agency, The Smoke Factory supremo was asked to take over the reins.
“I’m a man who likes challenges. At that time there were no safety standards and we needed to do something about education. We also needed a ‘voice’ in order to share information with the industry.”
Initially he was asked to take on the role part time but the problem, he says, was that he fell in love with it. “One day people in my company asked ‘Are you working for us or for VPLT?’ I realised I was working ten hours a day for VLPT and two hours for Smoke Factory.”
He was asked the same question while tearing down his Frankfurt stand in 1993, in the days when smoke and laser companies inhabited the rare oxygen of Halls 9:2 and 9:3. Florian von Hofen had clearly arrived at the professional crossroads.
He rationalised two things: with a base of 37 members he could quickly grow the VPLT to a 100-member company and at the same time he believed he could leave the Smoke Factory in the hands of its employees and become an absent owner. And so he threw down the gauntlet to the committee and in 1998 he was appointed the Association’s full time chief executive.
Under Florian’s guidance the membership grew to 1100 - mainly from the German speaking countries - an increase which led to the formation of the quarterly VPLT Magazin and their own training school (Deutsche Event Akademie).
Industry education (and its national recognition) have been the VPLT’s single biggest achievement.
Thanks the to the training academy, VPLT’s three-year curriculum for event technology has been approved by the Federal Ministry of Commerce and the Federal Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Technology.
Furthermore, Veranstaltungstechnik (event technology) has been formally recognised as a career field by governmental bodies. This is important in Germany, where trades that require specialised skills are highly regulated.
VPLT also represents members’ interests with standards-drafting organisations such as DIN (Deutsches Institut fur Normung), VDE (Verband der Elektrotechnik, Elektronik & Informationstechnik), and ESTA’s Technical Standards Program. In fact they are surrounded by allied agencies - from the German Institute for Certification (DPVT) to the World Entertainment Technology Federation (WORLD-ETF) which Florian was instrumental in founding. “The whole event industry makes as much turnover as the car industry yet our industry doesn’t really have a political voice yet.”
Nationally, VPLT has managed to form an alliance of the four major trade associations: DTHG (German Theatre Technicians Association), EVVC (European Association of Event Centers), FAMAB (German Association of Direct Business Communications), and VPLT has also joined IGVW – the German event industry syndicate. IGVW and its working groups set up quality standards, industry standards, and coordinate their activities in education and politics.
However, gaining standard uniformity still remains an issue. Having set qualifications for safe rigging and chain hoist operation, for example, Florian believes that if approval is granted in one European country it ought to hold good for them all.
Another major VPLT achievement has been the development of the Prolight+Sound trade show in Frankfurt. “In the early ‘90s we had to present our productions at the Musikmesse, in low-ceiling halls surrounded by guitars and drums. We had to put a lot of pressure on to be given our own halls and own brand identity. Today Prolight + Sound is by far the biggest trade show of its kind worldwide.”
Within WORLD-ETF, VPLT and its sister associations also decide which trade shows to recommend to their members for participation by its members. “We think it’s time that the industry - and not just the trade show organisers - decides which shows are needed.”
Like all good politicians, Florian von Hofen declares, “I am not working for my ego, I’m working for our members.” However, he knows the committee has no control over the current fiscal pandemic. “We asked every country we work with to report on how the credit crisis was affecting them … Italy, Spain, US, UK, Germany and Japan. All said that 2008 was still pretty good and although in 2009 the crunch started still no-one is 100% pessimistic.”
As for the Euro’s weighting against the pound, he is understandably dismissive. “No, I don’t think the Euro is too high, if the UK had had the Euro in the first place we would not have the problem. Having worked across Europe for the past 35 years, I believe the Euro was the best thing that could happen to us as no-one needs to talk about an exchange rate anymore.”
Looking ahead, like everyone, he is hoping that the vast technology infrastructures required by upcoming global events on the world stage - 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa and 2012 Olympic Games to name a few - will act as a buffer against the economic downtown.
Thus, while 2009 generally finds both the VPLT and Smoke Factory in fine shape - the latter is now mainly run by Florian’s wife Marina and son Mario - the entrepreneur shows no signs of letting up. Yet he admits the further he travels, the greater the love for his native city Hannover becomes.
To exemplify this, he remembers attending the first CALM Show (later renamed PALM) in Beijing, in 1991. “I think China was very different than the place it is today, and the landscape consisted mostly of a lot of brown terrain. Flying back to Hannover via London I remember coming in over the canal and lake, with the sun going down - and just being so moved by the beautiful green countryside.”