Thursday was the trade-only day at Axpona, held at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. Many of the exhibitor rooms are situated around a lovely, inviting pool. I arrived in Atlanta at around 2pm, thrilled to see sunshine and feel warm, southern air on my skin. The staff at the Sheraton immediately struck me as being just as warm, eager to help and genuinely happy just to smile and say hello.

Thursday’s show activity was limited to system setup, however—many exhibitors had been up till the very early hours of morning, unpacking boxes and crates which had arrived only a few hours earlier. It must be tremendously tough to unpack gear and set up a system after a long day of travel. Some exhibitors told me they’d stayed up until 4am, preparing and tweaking to achieve the best possible sound.

Judging from what I heard today, on the first full day of the show, they did an outstanding job.