Key people Peter Johansen (CEO) Headquarters Aarhus | Website www.sgmlight.com Founded 1978 | |
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Industry Stage, Architectural and Retail lighting Products Intelligent lights, LED solutions | ||
SGM Light A/S is a Danish manufacturer of LED lighting and custom engineered solutions for the concert touring, entertainment, architectural, commercial and industrial sectors. The company is based in Aarhus, Denmark and owned by Peter Johansen, the founder of Martin Professional, who acquired it in 2012.
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History
SGM Technology for Lighting was founded in 1978 in Italy, by Gabriele Giorgi and Maurizio Guidi — the company name a truncation of ‘Societa Gabriele Maurizio’. In the early days they were known for producing a diverse catalogue of products for the emerging disco industry — ranging from illuminated dancefloor modules, ‘bubblesmoke’ machines and controllers — from their base in Pesaro.
In April 2009 ownership was passed by president Gabriele Giorgi and his daughter Alessandra to long-standing Italian pro audio company, RCF Group.
Peter Johansen was brought in to head up R&D in late 2010 — marking his return to the industry following a ten year absence, after earlier setting up Martin Professional which he subsequently floated on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange.
He recruited many of his former R&D team and quickly relocated the operation to Denmark — to work on innovations for the entertainment and architectural segments.
In February 2012 Peter Johansen formed a consortium to acquire the company from the RCF Group. Renaming it SGM A/S, today it is headquartered in Aarhus, and continues to focus exclusively on developing LED solutions.
As the major shareholder in SGM A/S, Peter Johansen was joined by the LED specialists from his Danish R&D team and former members of his Martin Professional sales force as well as some of the company’s Italian personnel.
With R&D, administration and after-sales based in Denmark, manufacturing initially took place at bases in Italy, Thailand, and China before being consolidated into a single, purpose-built factory in Denmark. To broaden its marketing reach, SGM has set up subsidiaries in key territories around the world, including SGM Deutschland and SGM UK, while the operation in Italy has seen Johansen reunited with his former distributor at Martin Professional, Mario Radice.
Since then, SGM LED products have appeared in large numbers of festivals and on world tours by artists including Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Pink, and One Direction, and featured on international events such as the 2013 and 2014 Eurovision Song Contest.
In installation, SGM’s portfolio of users ranges from The Playboy Club, London, to the Cristo Luz in Brazil — while in the dance industry they custom engineered 1.5 km of high powered LED tube for dance promoter, Sensation's Source of Light spectacular in 2012.
In november 2015 SGM A/S was restructured as SGM Light A/S with new ownership by Paolo Covre and new capital, while maintaining the management, the entire team behind the company, the distribution network, etc.
Products
SGM manufactures a wide range of products, from 3D domes, light strings and LED light tubes to high powered architectural wash lights and coloured and white colour strobes. SGM launched a suite of 20 new products in March 2012 at the Prolight+Sound trade fair in Germany. Twelve months later they launched the G-Spot IP-65 rated LED moving head profile spot.
Industry awards
In October 2013 SGM won the prestigious PLASA Award for Innovation for developing the weather-resistant G-Spot LED moving head.
In April 2015 SGM won the Prolight+Sound International Press Award (pipa) for best lighting product for the Q-7 flood, blind, strobe.