AV News Magazine | Page 18

AV News 196 - May 2014 T h e C o lo u r & M u s ic S p e c ta c u la r 2 0 1 4 Adrian White On March 13th, 14th and 15th the Leeds and District Audio Visual club held its annual show in St Chad's centre in Headingley, North West Leeds. We believe this to be the world's oldest annual AV show as it has been running every year since 1976. In 1976 Ralph Smith, seen here at this year's show with his wife Evelyn, persuaded his club, the Leeds Camera Club, to hold a slide-tape based AV show at St Chad's. Owing to the hard work of Ralph and his friends this show attracted an audience of well over 200 to its 3 performances and the Colour & Music Spectacular was born. The show continued for 10 years under the aegis of Leeds Camera Club until Ralph and a group of AV enthusiasts established the Leeds AV Group in 1986/7. This year's show, the 39th, continued in the fine tradition established by Ralph and his friends such as Geoff Holmes and his wife Mary who are also still members of the group. Since 1990 money raised from the shows has been given to the local hospices to which the AV Group has already donated over £22,000. This year the selection panel for the show selected 19 sequences from 12 different members, producing a two hour show covering a wide variety of subject, including sequences which interpreted songs, travelogues based on landscapes or cities, and others of a more creative or storytelling nature. Over the three nights around 450 people attended the show some coming many miles to our event and we were pleased to be able to welcome again this year many of our friends from the wider AV community and local Camera Clubs. As ever there were also many local residents in the audience who come each year because, as they often tell us, they enjoy the show so much. Each year the sequences are judged by an invited judge and the audience is also asked to select their favourite three sequences. Page 16