On May 15, Philips Lighting and Service Lamp Corporation hosted a complimentary, day-long educational seminar for furniture retailers called, "Selling Furniture In A New Light".
Among the participants to this annual event were top managers and operations specialists from Raymour & Flanigan, Gardner's Home Furnishings Center, Good's Furniture & Flooring, Rotmans, Value City Furntiure, RTA Furniture Distributors, Brown's Furniture and Furniture World Magazine.
"The Philips Lighting Application Center in New Jersey is a state of the art facility," said Jeana Kushner of Service Lamp Corp. "It is used used to teach beginning and advanced retail lighting concepts in a fun, interactive environment. Both theoretical considerations and practical store lighting topics were covered in detail at this seminar. The group learned how to use light to display home furnishings to best advantage, and for the greatest efficiency."
Philips presenter Dan Blitzer spoke about and used high tech tools to illustrate aspects of color theory and terminology including color perception, color temperature, color impression, color rendering and the reflection of light off of pigmented colors in home furnishings. He and the Philips team also touched on...
- Ways to increase apparent brightness without expending more energy.
- Strategies for increasing points of visual interest in home furnishings displays.
- Energy efficiency of different light sources (halogen, IRC halogen, incandescent, flourescent, metal halide).
- Effect of store (wall paint) colors on footcandle levels.
- Apparent visual effect of different footcandle levels on the rendering of surface textures and colors.
- How the way that people's faces are illuminated in showroom and office environments, affects their buying behaviors or quality of work.
Later that day, Gary Gordon, took the group to a conference room where retailers viewed the effect of different lighting types on store displays. He spoke about the use and importance of ambient lighting, focal lighting and sparkle in displays. He also touched on the use and misuse of downlighting and wall washing. A discussion of retail problems and specific retail lighting solutions followed.
Finally Paul Hafner, gave the group a calculator and walked them through the process of comparing the total costs of different bulb types. He explained how retailers can save thousands of dollars in energy and labor costs without sacrificing lighting quality.
"Retailers came from as far away as California to attend this seminar, and everyone I spoke to found the sessions to be very helpful, perhaps even enlightening," said Barton Bienenstock, publisher of FURNITURE WORLD Magazine."
Service Lamp and Philips Lighting plan to host another seminar in the coming year. For more information, contact Jeana Kushner at 800-222-5267 or email jeana@servicelamp.com.
