NEWS

Video & Audio Center Redefines High-Def, With 8K Samsung Event

April 25, 2019

Nancy Klosek 
 
 

Event signage outside the store’s Westfield Century City location

An evening reception and marquee technology event at Southern California-based experiential retailer Video and Audio Center’s Westfield Century City location April 17 –Samsung’s 8K QLED Showcase, which was billed by the retailer as ‘High Definition Redefined” – drew 200 clients. The invitation-only gathering attracted store customers who crave the latest cutting-edge technologies, enabling them to both mingle with celebrities, movie studio executives and Samsung personnel, and to learn about the features of the latest Samsung 8K TVs, which were explained every 30 minutes from 5 pm to 8 pm. The store had Samsung’s full breadth of 8K screen sizes on demo, starting at 65 inches and ranging upward to 85 inches. The sets are endowed with the ability, using built-in Artificial Intelligence (AI) processing, to upconvert content to 8K for display on the screens without noise or artifacts.

L. to r.: Dan Freeman, sales director, Samsung; Bobby Menbari, sales manager, Samsung; Joseph Akhtarzad, co-owner, Video & Audio Center; Jorge Madrigal, senior VP, Samsung; Mayer Akhtarzad, co-owner, Video & Audio Center; and Tom Campbell, corporate director/chief technologist, Video & Audio Center

“The record-breaking attendance at this event shows that consumers are embracing and have an appetite for new technology like never before,” remarked Joseph Akhtarzad, co-owner of Video & Audio Center. “Many came out of curiosity, and when they saw the content – from cable and streaming media – on the sets, upscaled to 8K, it won them over.”

“They came to see, and with an intent to buy,” said Tom Campbell, the retailer’s corporate director and chief technologist.

In fact, the experience was so game-changing that it made this new technology a “must-buy” for 14 of the clients in attendance, who each ended the evening by purchasing an 8K TV during the three-hour event.

L. to r.: Miko Brando, son of Marlon Brando; Tom Campbell; Jorge Madrigal; Elizabeth Collins, national sales trainer, Samsung; and Joseph Akhtarzad