Category and judging changes

     • Added a new category: Laser Fine Art

     • For Nightclub/Disco/Music Festival, added a clarification to discourage entries that focus on a performer or band and thus should be in the Live Stage Show category.

     • Combined two old categories, Laser Show (with Multimedia) and Multimedia Show (with Laser), into a single new category, Laser Show with Added Effects/Multimedia.

     • Live Laser Jockey: Increased the length of a performance to 3 minutes (up from 2 minutes)

Submission and entry changes

     • Entry eligibility dates have been changed. It is now a 15 month period – the 12 months of the previous year (2015 in this case) plus three months in the current year (2016).

     • Entries submitted via the internet now use a Dropbox form on ILDA’s website. This will upload to us. (In previous years, entrants used their own upload method and sent ILDA a download link – we are not doing that in 2016). [March 9 2016 note: The Dropbox form is not working, so use your own upload method and send us a download link like in 2015.]

     • We are tightening our request for safe and legal shows. Do not submit shows that depict audience scanning, lasers on performers or other potentially unsafe effects unless you have documentation of the measurements and procedures that were done, prior to the show, to ensure a known, safe laser light exposure.

Other changes

     • Explicitly stated that there is a shipping charge to send Award trophies to winners who did not attend the Awards Presentation at the ILDA Conference.

You do not need a special entry form to nominate someone for ILDA’s highest honor, the Career Achievement Award. You can simply enter by sending one or more nominations by email to ILDA by the deadline, Thursday, March 31 2016 (at 11:59 pm your local time).

Who may be nominated

You can nominate any person who is an "exceptional individual with a distinguished history of achievement in the laser display industry." The nominee can be anyone -- they do not have to be an ILDA Member. You can even nominate yourself, if you wish; this is fine!

In the past, there have been three broad categories of winners:

     • those who helped build significant laser display-related businesses,
     • those who made artistic and technical achievements, and
     • those who worked to improve ILDA and the laser display industry.

The nominee can have achieved in one, two or all three of these areas. In whatever area(s) they worked, the person should have made significant and lasting achievements in the field of laser display.

How to enter

To enter, submit the nominee's name, plus a biography/description of the person. This should go beyond just a "resume listing" of places they have worked. It should include information about the career of the nominee and why his or her achievements are significant. If you are nominating another person, feel free to work with them, so they can help put together this document.

As a guide, past CAA nomination biography/descriptions have been from 1 to 10 pages, with the average about 2-3 pages.

Send your CAA nomination via e-mail to ILDA. Your nomination submission is confidential; no one will be told who made the nomination.

Automatic entries for 2016

Every CAA nomination is good for five years. This means that once a person has been nominated, they automatically are considered for the next five Awards years (or until they win, of course). These are the "automatic" nominees for 2016:

     • Stephen Harvey, LM Productions (first nominated 2013)
     • Alberto Kellner, Laser Entertainment (first nominated 2013)
     • Chris Matthews, LCI (first nominated 2013)
     • Dr. Alexander Timofeev, Orion-Art Multimedia (first nominated 2013)

We will use the most recent biography/description in our files. If you want to submit a new or revised biography/description, send this via e-mail to ILDA by the deadline.

Previously-nominated persons

The following persons were nominated more than five years ago. They will NOT be nominees this year unless someone re-nominates them:

     • Fred Fenning, Image Engineering (first nominated 2004)
     • Carl Hannigan, Precision Projection Systems (first nominated 2004)
     • Olesya Kazantseva, Laser Artist Co. Ltd. (first nominated 2010)
     • Chris Matthews, Laser Creations Int'l. (first nominated 2004)
     • Dick Sandhaus, Science Faction (first nominated 2004)
     • Cory Simpson, LFI/Lightspeed/KOHR (first nominated 2007)
     • Michael Sollinger, Laser Animation Sollinger (first nominated 2013; in 2014 declined nomination for any future years)
     • Bernd Steinert, spectrabeam.de (first nominated 2006)
     • John Tilp, Laser Images (first nominated 2007)

To re-nominate someone, email to ILDA by midnight, your local time, Thursday, March 31 2016.

Judging process

All nominations received by the deadline, plus the "automatic" nominees, will be listed on the ILDA website later in the year. ILDA Members will be able to vote via email for the CAA nominees. And, at the 2016 ILDA Conference in November in Baltimore, the winner of the 2016 Career Achievement Award will be publicly announced.