Electronics trade show takes luxury to new level

By Jeffry Scott

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Amid a Times Square-like glare of lights and logos and the noise from dozens of amped-up sound systems, one little booth stood out Friday at the Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association convention at the Georgia World Congress Center.

The First Impression Theme Theaters booth was like old money that didn’t have to prove itself -- but didn’t mind making that known.

The company has been in business since 1975, before the expression “home theater” became a synonym for “I probably make more money than you do.”

First Impressions builds home theaters that cost from $150,000 to $1 million, including the one in the 109-room Fayette county mansion of boxer Evander Holyfield. Chairs like the ones you’ll find in Holyfield’s theater -- cushy, with cup holders aplenty -- were arranged around the booth Friday, and president and CEO Jeffrey W. Smith was there ready to talk.

So, Mr. Smith, how’s business for your luxury products in this tough economy?

“I’m not going to say we’re immune to it,” said Smith, whose company builds about 30 theaters a year, all over the world. “We’re off, but not to the extent others are. In our market, we’re always dealing with somebody with money. They still want to relax with their family even if their stocks are down.”

All over the convention, versions of that explanation were offered. Sellers of customized high-end gizmos, after all, rode the boom just about as hard as anybody on Wall Street.

Utz Baldwin, CEO of the design and installation association, said attendance, at about 20,000 this year, is probably down about 20 percent from 2008. The industry overall is in a slump because it’s directly linked to the housing industry, he said.

Still, he said, the show attracted residential electronics systems contractors from all over the world, who these days are putting less emphasis on home theaters and more on building networks that run everything in a house from lighting, heating and door locks to sprinkler systems and swimming pools.

He said systems to run a home from a single panel used to be sold mostly to “high end estate homes” but added that now, “we’re starting to reach a point of mass adoption -- homes less than $500,000.”

Depending on which booth you visited at the show, which is not open to the public, you got a different version of whether it takes lighting, sound or security to make a home complete.

Don Laird, a lighting designer at the New World Lighting booth, said controlled illumination saves energy and is suited to various tasks.

“If the job is you’re going to have sex in this room, you need one kind of light,” he said. “If the job is you’re going to cook dinner, it’s another kind of light.”

Jeff Davis, sales manager for Definitive Technology, said it’s all about sound, especially when you’re talking about movies. His company has a new line of wall speakers that are only an inch and a half thick, cost about $800 a piece, and are mounted next to the new thinner flat screens TV.

“The truth is audio adds much more to the home theater experience than video,” he said.

Not far away Samsung pushed its new 65-inch flat screen TVs as Walter Torres, a co-owner of Pure Custom Audio Video, in Virginia Beach, watched. Torres said he sees growing demand for bigger TVs.

“We sell tons of 55-inch screens,” he said. “And a lot of people ask: ‘Can I get one bigger?’”

Back at the First Impression Theme Theaters booth, Smith said there is always a market for bigger and better, no matter the economy.

“We just had a client in the Grand Caymans pay $180,000 for a video projector,” he said. “You can buy one of those for a few thousand.”

On the other hand, the trappings of affluence can be fleeting, he said.

Smith once built a $1 million, 27-seat theater in a $45 million home in Cumming home, he said, and the owner used the house to show his salesmen, “you can have this life, too.” After last year’s market dive, the house got a new owner.

“A lot of my clients don’t have their houses anymore,” said Smith.