Pro Audio Associates June Open House Draws Record Turnout

Distributor Professional Audio Associates (PAA) hosts 250 integrators for one-day open house in Woburn, Mass., featuring key vendors such as LG, Sonos, and Bose.

CI Staff

For a territory whose most significant building boom was well over 200 years ago, the greater Boston area is home to a quite a few CI/CE distributors vying to serve the needs of commercial and residential clients. Every day is a grind to stay on top of the hearts and minds of customers.

Professional Audio Associates (PAA) of Woburn, Mass. is benevolently ruled by its legendary president, Lew Freedman. Going back to his successful days in retail, one of Freedman’s guiding tenets has always been the famous KISS principle or “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” It applies to everything PAA does and its annual Open House is no exception.

For the seventh year, Freedman opened the doors of his 38,000-square-foot building and turned it into a one-day mini CEDIA Expo. Over 25 vendors exhibited this year showing, selling and training a record crowd of over 250 customers from Maine to Connecticut.

Included among the vendors were PAA Open House veterans LG and LG Commercial, Sonos, Proficient, Optoma, Triad, Tannoy, Onkyo, Parasound and Liberty/Intelix as well as newcomers Bose Commercial, Newline Interactive and Clare Controls.

As it recent years past, the big draws were LG and Sonos. Many show attendees were getting their first chance to compare LG’s curved screen models to their flat screen counterparts in a controlled setting. This was also the first opportunity for PAA sales personnel to discuss the new LG annual programs with their clients. LG’s space at PAA dominated the first floor and was busy every moment.

Upstairs there were another 20 or so vendors pitching their goods and answering questions. Sonos and Bose Commercial had two of the demo rooms which were both wall-to-wall people from the jump throughout the day. The vendors surrounding the perimeter always had an eager audience as well.

Outside, next to the food tents, OmniMount was holding court in its custom-built Road Show trailer. And of course, there were raffles, door prizes and drawings as well. Those were sponsored by Proficient and SpeakerCraft.

Show Specials
Along with the tried-and-true “show specials” from the exhibiting and non-exhibiting vendors was a new twist: “Ian’s Let’s Make a Deal Room” in the back of the warehouse. There Lew’s son Ian was authorized to take any reasonable offer on a huge selection of “last ones” and other orphans of discontinued products and vendors. Business was brisk as the attendees shopped for deals.

At the front counter, it was “all hands on deck” as showgoers lined up to buy show specials as well as essentials. Many opted to have their purchases shipped, knowing that PAA well deserved its Platinum Award for shipping policies in CE Pro’s recent “Quest for Quality” competition among suppliers nationwide.

After a hectic eight hours of face time with the accounts (and, for many, a second day if they participated in the previous day’s annual golfing event) the participants looked forward to another PAA tradition, the vendor-only dinner at the renowned Cafe Escadrille in nearby Burlington hosted by Freedman and his senior staff. It was a fitting end to another simple but successful day at Professional Audio Associates.

Click here for a slideshow of the event from CI’s sister site, CE Pro.

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