Hire an Outdoor LED Screen or Projector & Screen for your Outdoor Cinema
There’s nothing quite like going to the cinema. Films transport us to another world and provide us all an escape from the mundane goings-on of day-to-day life. But when the warmer months roll around, it almost feels like a crime to shun the beautiful sunny outdoors to watch a film in a dark cavernous auditorium. What’s more, recent events have made sitting in close proximity to others indoors a severe health risk.
By setting up your very own outdoor cinema, you can combine the magic of the silver screen without having to sacrifice the enjoyment of the lovely outdoors or risk your health. Only a handful of outdoor cinemas exist in the UK, so now is a fantastic time to create your own outdoor cinema experience for your friends, or perhaps host a drive-in cinema event for a wider audience. With an outdoor cinema screen hire from the Sound & Light Hire Company, you can produce a technical set up worthy of the occasion.
But you might be wondering what the requirements are for pulling off such an event. So let’s take a look at them in a little more detail.
What Equipment is Required for an Outdoor Cinema?
Outdoor cinemas are great fun as they combine the best of both worlds. You get to pull up a perch on whichever outdoor furniture takes your fancy and immerse yourself in a film that captives the mind and soul. There’s nothing quite as dramatic as settling down to watch a movie on a big screen outdoors during a marvellous sunset, before becoming immersed in the film’s grand finale as darkness envelops the sky.
The most crucial element of an outdoor cinema is the screen. While there are a variety of different options for you to consider, you’re going to invest in outdoor screen hire in one way or another. Whether you choose to hire a projector or state-of-the-art LED video wall, your choice is mostly going to depend on the number of attendees.
For smaller and more intimate outdoor screenings involving a few friends and family, then it makes sense to go down the projector route or to hire a stunning high-definition plasma TV screen. For more significant events for up to 100 attendees and beyond it makes much more sense to invest in outdoor screen hire designed for this specific purpose.
Once again, depending on the size and scale of your event, you’re likely to need sound equipment to provide the complete immersive outdoor cinema experience. You may not require such a set up for small outdoor screenings, but you’ll require premium complementary sound equipment if you’re making use of LED screen technology. Additional staging and trusses may be necessary for the screen assembly process too, depending on the nature of your venue.
What Size of Screen Do I Need for My Outdoor Cinema?
An excellent question, and often the first to be asked by many of our clients. The answer is the classic “it depends.” However, the size of your audience is usually a pretty useful gauge. Generally speaking, the more people you’re trying to cater for, the larger the screen needs to be. That way, you can ensure that everyone has an excellent viewing experience at your event.
For a smaller outdoor get-together between a group of friends, hiring an HD LED Smart Screen TV may provide the best option. For slightly larger gatherings of several families or friends, you may want to upgrade to a projector and screen combination.
If you have a screen and speakers that you’re happy to use, then the projector might be the only equipment you need to hire. But just in case you don’t have those on standby, we can also provide a range of projector screen sizes to match your specific requirements.
If you are hosting an outdoor cinema event with more than 30 or so attendees, then you might want to start thinking about upgrading from projector hire up to LED screen hire. LED screens utilise the latest advances in LED technology to provide breath-taking picture sharpness and quality from a range of distances and viewing angles. It doesn’t matter whether you are one metre away or ten, the result is crystal-clear visuals.
For even more significant events, then you’re likely going to want to make use of a LED video wall. This gives people the chance to benefit from a brilliant viewing experience from as far away as 20-plus metres.
Which Size of LED Screen Should I Hire?
Once you’ve decided that you need the scale and performance of an LED screen, it can be tricky for the initiated to distinguish between the different specifications. We have many different LED screens in stock, and the main parameters for choosing which one to hire will be based upon pixel density.
The closer the pixel density, the more precisely the video content is displayed. The standard pixel pitch sizes for LED screens are 12.5 mm, 9mm, 6mm, 4.6mm, and 3.9mm. As a general rule of thumb, the larger the pixel pitch, the larger your audience and scale. To give you an idea, when we work with large festivals, they often hire 12.5mm LED video walls since almost everyone is at least 20 metres away from the screens. Thus, they don’t notice the gaps between the LEDs.
By contrast, LED screens used in a conference or exhibition environment are at least 6mm and below (preferably 3.9mm) because viewers are much closer to the screen, and thus require much smaller gaps to best portray high-resolution full-HD content.
If you’re unsure for any reason, we are always on hand to talk you through your options. Our engineers can also run through your preferred set up options during the on-site installation process to make sure you’re happy with everything.
What About the Rest of the Equipment for an Outdoor Cinema?
Don’t worry; we’ve got that covered too! We know that to create a thrilling viewing experience, you’re going to need the sound equipment to match your stunning visuals. Fortunately, we are blessed with one of the most extensive inventories of audio visual equipment within London and surrounding areas.
Our outdoor sound equipment is the perfect companion to your outdoor cinema screen hire. Not only will it ensure that everyone can properly hear crucial dialogue during quieter scenes, but it will help to make your attendees feel part of those thrilling action sequences!
Similarly, we have an equally large vast selection of lighting equipment hire packages, to really add that extra touch of pizzazz to your cinema event. If you’re hosting an event for hundreds of people, you may also want to invest in an arc-roof staging to give extra protection against the elements, should the infamous British weather let you down.
Why not go the whole nine yards and adding in special effects hire too? From confetti shots to laser and bubble machines, you can take your outdoor cinema concept into the 4th dimension by adding real-life effects to your outdoor cinema screening. Got something film or occasion-specific in mind concerning special effects? Talk to our team about your requirements; there’s not much we can’t accommodate!
Do You Provide Set Up for Outdoor Cinema Equipment?
Yes, we do. LED screens and video walls are intricate pieces of equipment, and some of our screens come in at a whopping eight by three metres! Thus, it may come as no surprise that once you’ve chosen a screen hire you’re happy with, our team will come out on the day of the event to set everything up for you.
Our engineers don’t just install the equipment; they work with you to get screen positioning and various other factors exactly how you’d like them before your attendees arrive. With all of your visual, sound, lighting, and even staging requirements taken care of by our expert team, you’re left to focus on planning other critical aspects of your event. Once your event is over, we’ll return to safely dismantle, remove, and transport the equipment back to one of our warehouses.
If you’re planning on a much smaller scale event, we do dry hire our DLP projectors, projector screens, and Plasma TVs. If you’re not too confident in your technological abilities, we can have one of our technicians come and deliver the equipment, set it up for you, and provide on the spot training should you need it.
How Much Does Outdoor Cinema Screen Hire Cost?
That depends very much on which type of event you’re hosting. For our dry hire packages, you can hire an HD projector for as little as £45. If you’re hosting an outdoor film night with friends and family and you want a little more of extensive setup, we offer short throw projector hire and a large rear projection screen for just £65 and £50 respectively.
If, on the other hand, you are planning a big outdoor cinema event with dozens of attendees, you’re almost certain to require LED screens or LED video walls. The price of these hire packages depends very much upon your requirements and the associated build costs.
To give you a very rough idea of costs for a larger event, let’s say you choose to hire a 4m x 3m LED screen for an outdoor cinema screening at a London-based location. Presuming the screen is ground supported (no higher than half a metre off the floor), the cost of the screen with an on-site technician without any content or pre-production would be in the region of £1800-£2000. Included within this cost would be a video processor that allows you to plug in a range of inputs, such as HDMI, laptops, computers or cameras.
Screens that require trusses and staging to be built around them will incur higher costs, as will larger LED screens. It’s also important to note that this is the cost of the LED screen hire only, and does not include any extras you may want to include such as high-performance PA systems or lighting/special effects packages.
Our delivery rates are based on distance travelled from Guildford town centre, and we must have somewhere safe and close to the venue (no more than 30 metres away) to unload the equipment. If there are any parking restrictions/requirements related to your site, you MUST let us know in advance, and ensure that any associated fees paid for in advance of our arrival.
Where Do You Supply Outdoor Screen Hire?
We operate right across London, Surrey and Hampshire, providing all manner of audio visual equipment to our clients. For dry hire packages, we can provide those services from either of our London or Guildford locations. For outdoor cinema screen hire, technically we are able to travel anywhere in the UK. Still, we tend to focus our operations on the areas mentioned above, where we offer the most competitive rates available.
Whether you’re having a family film night in Surrey, or you’re hosting a largescale outdoor cinema screening event for a good cause in London, we provide industry-beating prices across for projector hire and outdoor screen hire across the vast majority of the South East of England.
If you would like to discuss the potential requirements for your outdoor cinema, you can contact us seven (yes seven!) days a week regarding your ideas using the contact information at the bottom of this page.
We look forward to helping you create a movie experience like no other!