The future of the Professional Lighting Design Association (PLDA) has been called into question after the association's Circle of Sponsors (CoS) sent a letter to its members announcing that it is discontinuing its sponsorship contracts with the organisation.
In the letter, the CoS cites the deteriorating relationship between PLDA and VIA Verlag, the publishers of the PLDA's membership title, Professional Lighting Design magazine, and organisers of the Professional Lighting Design Convention (PLDC).
The letter says: "Over the last few years and especially since Light+Building 2012 in Frankfurt, the relationship between VIA Publishing and PLDA has deteriorated to what we believe is a point of no return. Indeed, we have been informed that several court cases have been or will be filed by VIA Publishing against PLDA claiming them huge amounts of money. Although PLDA has lost the first case, the CoS is not in a capacity to comment on who is right or wrong."
The CoS goes on to state that it asked the PLDA's council to resolve the situation but could "only observe that the scarce resources [of the PLDA] are primarily used to fuel the never-ending dispute with VIA Publishing and very limited progress has been achieved on all the other activities".
The CoS suggested PLDA members were suffering as a result of the dispute and were getting poor value from their association. Following a meeting on 28 November, it said it would look for a new way of supporting PLDA members. The group of sponsors said it had already had initial discussions with the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) and would like to "explore with great urgency the necessary conditions to create one strong global lighting designers association with regional entities preserving regional specificities".
The CoS is composed of companies actively supporting the development of a strong lighting design profession. Its sponsorship contracts with the association stipulate that 50 per cent of the money it invests should be used for education, 25 per cent for fairs or similar activities and 25 per cent to cover administrative costs.
Lighting tried to contact PLDA but nobody was available for comment.