Virtual Event Planning &amp; Event Production Hire Services With The Sound &amp; Light Hire Company (A short story)

+44 800 861 1136

10 Hillspur Close

Guildford

Surrey AV

GU2 8HF

14th April 2021/by Tim Maysh

Virtual Event Planning & Event Production Hire Services

The Sound & Light Hire Company Logo

Virtual Event Planning & Event Production Hire Services With The Sound & Light Hire Company (A short story)

Meet Jack… Jack works for a great company. Jack’s company values its employees, and the employees are able to work remotely. Jack reports to one of the C-Suite leaders in his company, and is asked to put together a virtual event for their team. They used to do this even in person, and want to do the event virtually, but not lose the energy and excitement, and they want to keep everyone engaged.

Jack needs to find a local audio visual hire company in or near Guildford

Jack starts to research how to put on the event, while maintaining participation, and keeping it fun. The problem is, he doesn’t know what platform to use, and doesn’t have access to a studio or the right equipment in order for the event to appear professional. Jack just wants the virtual event to be smooth, seamless, and engaging for his team. Jack needs to find a local audio visual hire company in or near Guildford, Surrey as that is where they are based.

After Jack does some research online & read reviews about some of the local lighting & speaker hire company in Surrey, he calls The Sound & Light Hire Company to produce a fun, engaging, and motivational event to help connect their team virtually. First, The Sound & Light Hire Company listens to what Jack wants to accomplish, and how they can help deliver the content and positive energy to his team. The Sound & Light Hire Company works with Jack to design and plan the event, making sure that Jack feels confident, his boss is on board, and no details have been missed. Once the virtual event is designed, Jack gives The Sound & Light Hire Company great feedback, and gives The Sound & Light Hire Company the go-ahead to proceed to the last step, producing the event. Based on what Jack & the company needs to hire they have the options of LED screens, custom built stage sets to just simple wireless LED uplighters to back the whole virtual event feel a little more special

The Sound & Light Hire Company helps Jack and his team go live

On the day of the event, The Sound & Light Hire Company helps Jack and his team go live to create a welcoming environment and an engaging atmosphere that carries on throughout the whole event in included a stage set with LED backdrop, a small PA speaker setup, some wireless LED uplighters & a large 5m wide x 3m LED video wall screen acting as a large TV screen at the back of the stage. Jack and his co-workers really enjoy the experience happening on their screen, and they love seeing their leaders and the The Sound & Light Hire Company moderator having a good time, sharing important information, and engaging with them through chat, poll, and other interactive ways. The chat is flooded with entertained employees, and they are all engaged. The participation rate is through the roof.

At the end of the virtual experience, Jack feels grateful for The Sound & Light Hire Company. He is thankful that his team feels more connected, even from home. Jack’s company raves about the virtual event, and tells their peers how easy The Sound & Light Hire Company made this experience for their team.

The Sound & Light Hire Company is a local lighting, staging & PA hire company based in Guildford

So if you’re like Jack, and you don’t know how to create an engaging virtual event for your company or your organization, give us a call. We’d love to help you and your team. The Sound & Light Hire Company is a local lighting, staging & PA hire company based in Guildford, Surrey. You can hire small & simple ipod party speakers to large outdoor festival stages or even indoor / outdoor LED screens for conference work. One you can be sure of tho is that The Sound & Light Hire Company delivers an amazing services at a cost effective price point.

The Sound & Light Hire Company

+44 800 861 1136

10 Hillspur Close

Guildford

Surrey

GU2 8HF

22nd February 2021/by Tim Maysh

What Is A Preamp & What Does A Preamp Do?

The Sound & Light Hire Company Logo

Hey guys, girls This is Peter at The Sound & Light Hire Company in Surrey.

In this article, we’ll be talking about preamps. What they are, what they do, and different types of them that will help you choose the right one for your purposes. Before we dive in, you should know that The Sound & Light Hire Company is not only a great resource for information about sound, lighting, staging or LED screen equipment, but also that we’ve got hundreds of thousands of products available in our hire stock at any given time, with sound engineers like myself waiting to help you out. So visit us today at The Sound & Light Hire Company at https://truesoundhire.co.uk/ Let’s get started.

So, what is a preamp? Preamp is short for preamplifier.

A preamp is a kind of amplifier that’s designed specifically to take really weak signals and, well, make them louder. Think about like a microphone. When you plug it into something like a mixer or a recording interface. What it’s going into is a kind of preamp. You might wonder why you might be presenting your preamp with a weak signal to begin with.

So, to better understand this, we’ve gotta talk about microphones as a kind of electrical device called a transducer. A transducer, at, at its most basic form is any kind of device that takes one form of energy, in this case the vibrations of molecules in the air that we perceive as sound, and trans, uh, transduce it into something that, uh an electrical device like a mixer or a recording interface can use, a voltage.

If you think about what a microphone is doing, the diaphragm inside is responding to really, really tiny vibrations of those air molecules. So, when that energy gets tra- transduced into an electrical signal, it’s a really, really tiny signal at the level of millivolts. But our devices, like mixers or recording interfaces or speakers, can’t really use that signal, it’s too low. So that’s why that microphone has to first go into a preamp that can give it the amount of gain necessary without inducing a lot of distortion or noise into the signal. This is why preamps are a kind of specialty amplifier, because they have to take that really weak signal and make it louder without inducing a lot of noise.

Preamps do this in different ways. There are different circuits, there’s, uh, different components that are used in different types of preamps to make this happen. Some use technologies like, uh, tubes, that you might be familiar with. Some use transistors. Regardless of the kind of preamp, at the end of the day, it’s still taking your microphone signal and essentially making it louder in a clean or coloured way, so that the devices further down the chain can use that signal.

Let’s talk about different scenarios in which you might need a preamp.

Let’s say you’re performing, uh, live with your band, and you’re singing into a microphone. Chances are you’re going into a mixer like this one. The microphone input on this mixer is a kind of preamp. It takes the signal coming off of that microphone, and helps you add gain to it so that the rest of the mixer can use that signal, so that it can be mixed with other signals, and then eventually be sent on to a recording device, or, uh, monitors, or your main PA speaker system.

Same thing if you’re using preamps in a recording environment. Let’s say you’re at home, in your project studio, recording a microphone on vocals or an instrument. Chances are you might be going through an interface like this one, which microphone input on that interface would also be your preamp. Or you might be going through an outboard preamp like this one here, which is more of a specialty piece that would still need to go into a different kind of device, like a converter, downstream.

In any case in any of these situations, you’re still using a preamp, which is helping to take your microphone signal and add gain to it, so that devices down the chain can use that signal.

Any electrical device, just by its very nature, is going to add a little bit of noise to your signal, right. But preamps have to be designed in a specific way so that they can minimize that while giving you what you really want, which is the sound of your microphone, so that you can get a bunch of clean gain without adding that extra distortion or noise.

You’ll see these things in technical specifications for preamps when you’re picking them. You’ll see distortion listed as THD, which stand for total harmonic distortion, or, uh, the noise floor spec, which refers to, uh, when no signal is passing through that preamp, what is that idle noise floor?

Both of these are important specs to keep in mind, but at the end of the day, we also need to remember that preamps are, uh, different flavours in our recording or live sound setups like this Live Sound Package. Some preamps might colour our sound, or add character to our sound in a way that’s pleasing to our ears. Others are designed to be very clean or transparent, meaning that they don’t add a lot of color or extra harmonic saturation to your signal, but allow you to get a bunch of clean gain from that signal so that it can be processed however you like later on.

Whether we’re using a clean preamp or a coloured, or character preamp, it’s important to know the different types that are available.

They’re all ultimately different tools that we can use in our musical setups, whether you’re performing live or recording in the studio. Another important thing to consider when choosing your preamp is the type of microphone that you’re gonna be using with it. Because different types of microphones output different signal strengths, this is something to keep in mind when choosing that preamp.

So, for example, a condenser microphone, which typically gets power, uh, over phantom power, is gonna output a hotter signal. It’s more sensitive, and it might not need as much gain as a low-gain microphone like a Shure SM7B, for example, or an Electro-Voice RE20 would need. These types of dynamic microphones are low-gain microphones because they need more gain from the preamp. The signal coming off of that microphone is a little bit lower, so it needs a little bit more help before it can go on to the rest of your signal path.

Consider ribbon microphones as well. By their very nature, because of how the transducing mechanism works, they also output a much lower signal. In fact, there are preamps that are designed specifically for ribbon microphones to help you get a bunch of gain in a really clean way to preserve the character of the ribbon microphone, while also getting you the amount of signal you need for the rest of your path.

As you can see, there’s lots of factors to consider when selecting a preamp, and we’re just starting to scratch the surface. The Sound & Light Hire Company audio engineers are here to help you pick. We’ll talk to you about what’s in your setup, and what might be the right addition moving forward. Be sure to like this blog if you want to see more like it, and leave us a comment below. Thanks for reading .

The Sound & Light Hire Company

+44 800 861 1136

10 Hillspur Close

Guildford

Surrey

GU2 8HF

15th February 2021/by Tim Maysh

The Sound & Light Hire Company Become Audio Visual Supplier for Guildford Borough Council Moving into 2021 for Local Events & Outdoor Cinemas in Surrey

The Sound & Light Hire Company Logo

Moving into 2021 for Local Events & Outdoor Cinemas in Surrey….

Well, we’ve certainly started the new year with a bang! First, we told you about the slightly unexpected but very welcome boom in demand for our outdoor stages this summer, and now we’ve won a council contract for several events planned for the spring and summer of 2021!

Of course, we have worked with Guildford Borough Council before on numerous occasions over the years, and we have a great relationship with all of the fantastic team over there. Still, it’s really nice to win another contract when the world is more than a little topsy-turvy at the moment!

So without wasting any more of your time, let’s tell you all about it!

The Sound & Light Hire Company Win a Contract to Supply Audio Visual and Event Production Services for 2021 Outdoor Events

As mentioned, we’ve worked with Guildford Borough Council on numerous events over the last decade. However, this contract represents a change of tack, with many events that traditionally take place indoors now moving outdoors for fairly obvious reasons! What that means is that, for the first time ever, we will be supplying outdoor cinema hire services to this Surrey council.

So what are the events in question we hear you ask? Well, they are a range of family fun days (eight in total) that will have all kinds of attractions put on for kids and big kids (sorry, adults) to enjoy alike. The main attraction will be the enormous outdoor cinema, which will screen a family-friendly movie to bring the proceedings to a close.

Of course, as any of you that will have attended an outdoor cinema screening (which might be quite a lot of you since they’ve made quite the comeback in the 2020s) will know, we’ll be supplying far more than just the LED screen hire. We’ll also provide the Guildford Borough Council team with outdoor stage hire and a full range of audio visual (AV) services.

So let’s take a look at those services in a little more detail.

Outdoor Stage Hire for Surrey Council

Of course, an outdoor cinema needs staging. There are a few ways you can use truss and staging structures to support an outdoor LED screen installation. You can choose to “fly” (suspend) an LED screen from a purpose-built truss structure. Or, instead, you can have the LED screen ground supported by the staging equipment.

In this instance, we will be supporting the LED screens from “the ground up,” as it were. The reason is that it gives the council event planners the option to have a versatile stage area for the day in addition to the outdoor cinema. So they, should they wish, could use the stage for live performances from children’s entertainers, or even a live band, should they want to.

As is the case with all events at the moment, these fun days are all pending, so the finer details are yet to be worked out. Still, we’re at least 90% sure that we’ll provide this kind of set up from the point of view of versatility as much as anything else.

So with the staging covered, let’s take a closer look at the LED video panels themselves.

Surrey Outdoor Cinema Screen Hire for Local Authority Events

Of course, an outdoor cinema experience wouldn’t amount to much with the screen! So let’s talk about the specifications of the LED screens we’ll be supplying in a little more detail.

Perhaps the first thing to note about our screens is that they are 3.9mm pixel pitch, which is about as sharp as it gets in this industry. What that means in the real world is that those in attendance can be as little as a few metres away and still enjoy crystal-clear, stunning HD footage without seeing those tiny black spaces in between the LED nodes.

These screens also score very highly in terms of nits (a measure of brightness), so even if these events are blessed with copious amounts of sunshine, our LED video panels won’t struggle. They have a brightness output of over 4,000 nits, more than enough to deal with even the most dazzling of sunny days.

Given that these screening will take place in the evening, the sun shouldn’t really be a factor, but it’s always good to let you know just how impressive our equipment is anyway 😉 These video panels are also IP 65-rated, meaning they’ll withstand the rain should the weather do it’s best to put a dampener on proceedings.

Finally, in terms of the size of the screen we build, we’ve still yet to receive confirmation from the council, but we imagine it will be 5m x 3m as this size is one of the best configurations for 16:9 aspect ratio (HD) video content.

Staging and LED screen aside, there’s still plenty of our event equipment hire services that we’ll be supplying to these fun days, so let’s take a look at them.

Event Lighting Hire for Local Surrey Borough Council

Of course, any stage production needs accompanying event lighting equipment to bring it to life. In this case, we will be providing a relatively all-encompassing set of lighting fixtures to draw in attention to the stage and keep it focused there.

We will have all of the usual suspects such as spotlights and moving head stage washes, but we will also install a few showstoppers to really create an immersive experience for audience members. We’ve already got a few OPSL laser systems lined up, along with a fog machine, but we’ll keep the rest close to our chest so as not to ruin the surprises in store!

More broadly speaking, we have also been tasked with providing atmospheric lighting for in and around the outdoor cinema area. For these purposes, we are going to be using our wireless LED uplighters.

Since they are battery powered, there’s no need to worry about those attending the event tripping over cables. Better yet, the performance figures on these lights are just staggering. Thanks to their energy-efficient LEDs, these lights can run for around 20 hours off a full charge. Yes, that’s right, 20 hours! We could come back in the morning to pack everything away, and they would still be going!

But enough about lighting, let’s tell you all about the sound options we’ve got in store for these events.

Sound Equipment Hire Services For Surrey Council Funday Events

Unless you’re in the business of showing screening silent films, then you’re going to need a sound system fit for totally immersing the audience in what they are watching. Whether it’s the Avengers or a Pixar movie, soundtracks carry the film every bit as much as the visuals do, which is why we are going to be supplying the best outdoor PA speaker system in the business.

For those of you unfamiliar, there is one stand-out brand when it comes to outdoor (and indoor for that matter) PA speaker systems, and that’s d&b audiotechnik. This German company has been streets ahead in terms of audio quality and sheer power for quite some time now, which is obviously why we stock so much of their kit!

We’re not 100% sure on the exact arrangement the council will opt for, but we know it’ll be d&b, as there’s no other solution that comes close. In terms of the equipment, we’ll be supplying line array speakers and accompanying subs. Depending on how the stage will be used for the rest of the day, we may provide additional sound equipment such as stage monitors and amps.

Surrey Audio Visual (AV) and Event Production Services Handled By The Sound & Light Hire Company Team

Of course, we couldn’t go without mentioning that none of these services can be provided without the help of our excellent team. Upon the award of the contract, the Guildford Borough Council noted the previous performance of our on-site staff members being a factor in securing the work.

In case you’re wondering, we don’t just supply all of the equipment from our in-hour inventory. We have a team made up of some of the most experienced and highly-skilled technicians and engineers in the business. From the moment our stage crews arrive, to the final minutes of loading up the last van full of equipment to head back to the warehouse, our team members are friendly, polite, and the ultimate professionals. We couldn’t be any prouder of them!

In terms of these events specifically, our team will be taking care of stage and truss structure construction, the rigging of the lighting fixtures, the assembly and set up of the screen, and the installation and positioning all of the associated sound equipment. We’ll then keep a few engineers and technicians around for the duration to ensure that everything runs as planned.

It’s another reason why The Sound & Light Hire is such a good fit for these types of events. Because we have the experienced team on hand, we can provide a turnkey solution whereby we handle all of the AV and associated technical aspects for you. All you (or in this case, the council) have to do is specify their requirements, and we’ll handle the rest. Yes; it really can be that simple!

Choose the Sound & Light Hire Company for Your Outdoor Events This Summer

If you’ve been smart and reading between the lines, you’ll have noticed that’s potentially eight dates whereby a decent chunk of our premium equipment is already reserved to go out on hire. While we are a large scale operation that serves multiple events every day, there is a limit to how much we equipment we can hire out (although we do have some pretty big warehouses!).

That’s why you need to act fast if you want to book in some equipment hire with us. Even if you only want to reserve a PA speaker hire package for a weekend in June to use with your phone or laptop, we’re anticipating one of the busiest summers on record.

Most (if not all) of us are ready to celebrate the end of COVID-19’s grip on our lives, and so even the smaller equipment hire packages are going to even more popular this year. That’s without mentioning the sheer amount of cancelled, postponed, and brand new events lined up right across Surrey for this summer!

Even if you just THINK you might need something from us or just want some friendly advice about putting together an outdoor event such as a garden party, give us a call on 0800 8611136 today.

We are open seven days a week, and we can’t wait to hear about what you’ve got planned!

10 Hillspur Close, Guildford GU2 8HF, United Kingdom

10th February 2021/by Tim Maysh

Surrey’s Premium Sound, Lighting & Stage Hire Company

The Sound & Light Hire Company LogoSound Light Equipment Hire Surrey

Here at the Sound & Light Hire Company,

We’ve worked hard over the years to become Surrey’s leading provider of sound, lighting, stage, and LED screen hire to name but a few of our ever-growing arsenal of event services.

Whether you need to hire an outdoor stage for your festival event at Nonsuch Park, or you need some speakers for your summer garden party in Guildford, we have you covered! Better yet, not only do we provide our equipment with helpful, friendly advice and a smile, but we can also help to set everything up for you, should you wish.

We are proud of what we’ve managed to build over the last 20+ years, and we’re continually striving to add new event hire services to ensure we remain at the top of the pecking order when it comes to event equipment hire services in Surrey.

But what if you’ve never heard of us before? Perhaps you’re organising your first event, or you’ve been living under a rock? Either way, we thought we would use this space to outline the massive number of services we can provide for your birthday party, wedding, corporate event, or music festival taking place in Surrey.

Let’s start with our bread and butter, Surrey sound hire!

Sound Hire Surrey

Sound hire services are the first we offered way back when we helped DJs back in the nineties put on the best parties in town! Fast forward almost thirty years, and we still provide the best in the business concerning sound equipment hire for your events.

Whether you need a PA system for your live DJ set, or you’ve booked the local band for your wedding reception we’ve got everything you need in stock to ensure the sound is nothing less than perfect. We can even include live sound engineer hire from as little as £125 per day should you wish to have a professional overseeing the sound mixing.

If you’re a little apprehensive about the fact that you’re not sure what you actually need, fear not! Our expert sound team is always on hand to listen to your requirements before providing a package that is a perfect match for your particular event.

In this regard, we tend to stand out from competitors because we simply have more experience (sadly; we’re getting old!). On far too many occasions to recall, we’ve had to save the day when other equipment hire companies have supplied equipment not capable of even half the duties they were hired for. So always make sure you hire sound equipment such as speakers that are powerful enough for your event requirements.

On a related note, we also differentiate ourselves as Surrey’s top sound hire company because we only stock industry-leading brands. We supply predominately d&b audiotechnik audio equipment, a company that is widely regarded as the best in the business and demanded by many leading international music artists such as Coldplay on their riders.

Not only do we stock the best brands, but we also take good care of them too. We service all items in our inventory every six months, check each item as it comes in and when it leaves the warehouse, and we sell and subsequently replace any piece of equipment that is older than three years. How’s that for a commitment to quality?!

It’s the main reason why we’ve never experienced any significant failures when hiring out our sound equipment, and that’s not a track record we intend on letting slip any time soon.

But if you’re planning an event in Surrey, sound equipment will only get you so far. So let’s move on and take a look at some of other essential event equipment hire services.

Event Lighting Hire Surrey

Your event lighting is often just as important as your sound setup. As mentioned, when we first started, we were a sound-hire-only company. But as we quickly found out, what’s a party od a DJ set without any disco lights? Within a few months, we were a sound and lighting hire company, hence the new name!

We didn’t waste any time assembling a lighting equipment inventory that puts many lighting hire specialists to shame. LED uplighters, “sound to light” disco lighting fixtures, and high-end intelligent moving head fixtures, we literally stock everything you could need regardless of the specific event you’re hosting.

We specialise in providing the latest and greatest in LED technology. We passionately believe that LEDs represent the industry’s future and have therefore invested heavily in this particular type of versatile lighting equipment. They are kinder to the environment, they are easily programmed, and they don’t suffer from the heat-related issues that traditional lighting formats do.

We know that if you plan and getting people up and dancing, excellent lighting can make the dance floor all the more enticing. For DJ performances, parties, and weddings, lighting setups are crucial to your event’s success. Whether you need disco lighting hire, or you want to hire some laser machines to add a touch of professionalism, we can provide you with demos of any of our lighting fixtures to ensure your completely wowed before making your investment.

We also supply all of the associated equipment such as lighting stands and cabling, just in case you wondered!

With the crucial aspects of sound and lighting taken care, you might have what you need for your specific event. However, what if you need more? Don’t worry; we’re only just getting started with our range of services!

Stage Hire Surrey

Some events, such as local community gatherings, fundraisers, outdoor music festivals, and even weddings, need a stage. Fortunately, we’ve been providing stage hire services to Surrey clients for almost a decade now, so we’ve developed a lot of expertise in this area too!

If you’re hosting an outdoor event such as a music festival, then you’ll want to take a look at our selection of outdoor stage hire packages. The beauty of these packages is that they include our top of the range sound and lighting equipment, giving you a complete stage production.

However, we’ve got indoor events covered too! Whether you need to hire a stage for the live band at your wedding or need an indoor stage for your club night DJ set in Farnham, we can supply a stage solution that works for you. Once again, these packages come with lighting and sound equipment included, making them unbeatable in terms of value for money.

Also included in the price is the setup of these stages by our experienced stage crews. Of course, we’ll also have our lighting technicians and sound engineers on hand to set up their respective pieces of equipment too.

Therefore, if you need to hire a stage with all of the associated production for your event, you can count on us to deliver a turnkey solution for your event!

Thought we were done? No! We’ve still got more to cover!

LED Screen Hire Surrey

The 2020s so far have been the decade of the LED screens. Outdoor cinema events, in particular, have been making a comeback. We’ve invested heavily to create one of the largest LED screen inventories in the country.

Our high-resolution LED video wall panels grab attention and can give your event that stand-out factor. They boast 3.9mm pixel pitch, 4500+ nits score (brightness rating), and they’re IP 56-rated, meaning even the most robust British shower won’t interfere with their operation. You can have your attendees just a few metres away, and they can drink in the crystal clear HD footage your broadcasting.

We can build you want a solid wall, suspend them from truss structures, or provide separate screen areas depending on your event’s requirements. We have over 120 square metres of LED video panels in stock to meet even the most challenging of demands.

While we have plenty of other equipment choices available such as special effects hire and LED furniture hire, we thought we should quickly cover our event production support services, which are available with all of our equipment hire packages.

Event Production Support Services Surrey

Whether you’re planning a wedding or organising your daughters’ 21st birthday bash, you might have enough on your plate as it is. The thought of setting up sound systems and lighting fixtures might seem like the last thing you want to be doing.

To be clear, we feel all of the equipment we dry hire is incredibly accessible, and we spend as long as it takes for you to understand what you need to do when setting up and dismantling. However, sometimes you don’t want the hassle. You might want to focus on selling tickets to your event or decorating the venue. We get it. That’s why we offer our personnel should you want them there to oversee the technical side of your event.

You might need an experienced sound engineer to mix the sound levels for the live band you’ve booked for your party, or you may need a skilled lighting technician to choreograph and program a spectacular light display to accompany your bonfire night celebrations. Whatever you need from our technical support team, they can provide it for you.

Which Areas of Surrey Does the Sound & Light Hire Cover?

We couldn’t let you go without answering our most commonly asked question. The truth is, if you or your event is based in Surrey, then we can help you. The truth is we actually cover a much larger area that includes all of London, Hampshire, and most of Hertfordshire and Berkshire too.

However, if you want specifics, here are some of the most popular Surrey locations to which we provide our event hire services:

Ashford
Camberley
Dorking
Epsom
Farnham
Godalming
Guildford
Haslemere
Horley
Leatherhead
Oxted
Reigate
Staines-upon-Thames
Sunbury-on-Thames
Weybridge
Woking
And everywhere in between!

Why Choose The Sound & Light hire Company for Your Surrey Event Equipment Hire Services?

Over the last several years, we have worked hard to establish our reputation as Surrey’s number one event equipment hire company. Our 7-days-a-week operation allows us to give our customers unrivalled support, and our straightforward hire packages will enable you to understand precisely what you’re getting for your money.

Unlike so many other companies, we cover the entire spectrum of event services. From small iPod/mobile phone speaker hire packages to the grandest of outdoor festival stage productions, there’s no Surrey event too big or too small for us to help out. With one of the biggest equipment inventories in Europe, we often serve dozens of customers simultaneously every single day.

So if you have any further questions before hiring equipment from us, just give us a call on 0800 8611136, and we’ll be more than happy to chat about what you need for your event. We can’t wait to hear from you!

The Sound & Light Hire Company
https://www.google.com/maps?cid=177697462353676083
+44 800 861 1136

1st February 2021/by Tim Maysh

Popular Sound & Lighting Packages & Whats On Offer

https://www.truesoundhire.co.uk

The Sound & Light Hire Company Logo

The Sound & Light Hire Company Discuss Our Most Popular Dry Hire Products Which Are Suitable For All Types Of Smaller Functions:

This may be useful for those looking to do something fun over the festive period all from the comfort of your own home!

So, it looks like Christmas parties and New Years Eve will be spent inside, at home, rather than going on a pub crawl or watching a pantomime performance over the festive period & we will all miss the outdoor Christmas light switch on’s !We normally would be out building our outdoor stages.

Well what can we say, most people stay at home with their loved ones for Christmas anyway, it is just the lead up where the parties will be put on hold this winter. Don’t fret! You can still have as much fun at home with your own party set up rather than spending lots of money elsewhere then trying to get home late into the evening.

The most popular speakers we do are:

Our popular EV active 12” speakers on stands which work perfectly for house parties & smaller gatherings of up to 70 people. We call it our ‘small ipod system’ don’t be fooled by the name it doesn’t just connect to an ipod or come compact in size. This system is 2 x speakers on stands and we provide a cable which will connect to anything with a headphone output. This system is absolutely perfect for letting your hair down in your own 4 walls and dancing the night away. The speakers are not huge but a decent size, they fit easily into any car as with most our customers they prefer the option of collecting this themselves rather than opting for a delivery service, as this is such an easy thing to set up.

If you are after something with a little bit of extra punch then add a subwoofer to give the ultimate bass experience. The sub is a 12” active sub so no external amplification has to be added it is prebuilt inside. This goes for the top speakers as well. That is another reason why these systems are so popular, they are so easy to set up and low hassle, no fiddly connection of amplifiers which can be quite daunting when you are a novice at setting up anything audio related.

MEDIUM IPOD Speaker Hire Package

The 2 x top speakers with a sub we call our ‘medium ipod system’.

Of course, you can add 2 subs to the top speakers to make it an even distribution of bass. You may think that this is all going to cost an arm and a leg but on the contrary, the small system is £45, medium is £75 and finally the large ipod system is £90.

Any of the above set ups we would suggest for use at home that is why these systems are the perfect solution for all the in-house party festivities which will be going on this winter.

When you turn up at our unit we set the system up for you to run through how it works and to show you it in working order before you take it away. This gives complete confidence and reassurance that you will be perfectly competent when you get the speakers the other end to set up!

Most customers are after the full shebang and require lighting in addition to the sound requirements to really enhance that party vibe. Not a problem we have lots of disco lighting products in stock, again they are the perfect accompaniment to the speaker systems mentioned above.

Our sound to light activated disco lights are sent out in pairs, and we provide a lighting t bar stand for them to hang from as well. They are the Equinox Revolution lighting effect, which are so easy to use and noticeably light in weight indeed. The lights just require a standard power plug in the back, turn your music up loud and away they go they do their own thing. You don’t require any lighting desk or a special assistant to press play, stop etc. they are just a plug and play solution for your house party. They offer different colours and patterns thrown out from the lighting fixture, which remains static but the patterns move.

Perhaps you are having a marquee in the garden or hiring a hall in the New Year for a birthday celebration

And are just after some form of moving light to give a party atmosphere, well these lights are perfect for exactly that. If you would prefer to not hang them on the lighting t bar stand then that is absolutely fine they have a bracket on the top so they can sit on that and adjusted in the direction you want the light to shine. It is advised though to use the stand as this gives a much better spread of light across your party room.

Special Effects Hire Surrey

Another great enhancer of the light is one of our smoke machines. These smoke machines are so effective and so easy to operate. It is just a case of pressing a button to start then pressing another to stop it with the controller. Should the controller not be with it then you will need to manually hold the ‘go’ button then release to stop. The smoke fills up a room really quickly and doesn’t use that much fluid at all. We guarantee you will not use all the fluid that is provided with the smoke machine for your party. Yes, that is right the smoke fluid is also provided as well at no extra cost!

Don’t get this smoke machine mixed up with dry ice/ low lying fog effect that is something different which remains low to the ground without rising whereas the smoke machine rises and fills up a room, depending on how much you want to fill it up of course! We do also stock the low-lying fog machine, but we will discuss that product another time, as the blog is really about all the popular hire items we get requests for that are easy to use. We do get asked a lot will the smoke machine set off my smoke alarm. Well the truthful answer is possibly yes! If you are using the smoke machine in the same room as your smoke alarm or close proximity, then yes it will do. It is best to use it in spurts and away from the smoke alarms.

Thinking ahead to New Years Eve at home, why not try our 30mw green lasers? These are just the most fun solution to a party at home. Add these to the disco lighting set up and a smoke machine and you really do have your own club experience in your living room! They offer green beams of light which are sound to light activated making them an automatic laser system which means they are incredibly easy to use, just plug and play the same as the disco lights. We do suggest using the smoke machine alongside the lasers to really get the most from the lasers, it is quite impressive how much more impactful the lasers are in amongst the midst of the smoke.

Something we decided to invest in earlier this year which is something we were asked for a lot is a battery powered speaker system. This is a great choice for more compact party areas especially in the home environment or outside where no power is nearby. The Bose Pro1 system is a battery powered high impact speaker with clear sounding audio, lightweight and versatile usability. It can connect to your phone/ laptop through a cable we would provide but it also has Bluetooth capability which is another popular request from our customers. Just connect your Bluetooth and play your music from a distance- this is suitable for garden or marquee parties. This speaker we would recommend using for up to around 50 people as a rough guideline. It has a battery life of up to 12 hours of use, so this gives you plenty of time to dance the night away!

This takes us onto another battery powered product we stock

That again is high in demand for all types of events, our wireless LED up lighters. These are a fail-safe solution to adding subtle or vibrant ambient lighting to any venue environment. They can be placed up against dull walls, in marquees, against buildings or outside against trees. We do always advise the more up lighters used the better as the greater the lighting result and as a general rule of thumb one light every 2 meters. The battery life on these lights are between 8-10 hours and the colour can be set to your choice or have the colours fade from one to another via the in built colour reel.

A lot of people hiring disco lighting also enquire about these wireless up lighters which are normally placed at the opposite side of the room to the disco lights, one end becomes the dance area the other is a more chill out area but still adds to the party atmosphere. Not only can these be used for house parties & garden parties they are very popular for weddings, product launches and Christmas productions. We can provide some charging cables for you if you would like, especially for those people hiring for longer than a 1 day rental, they will come in quite handy.

Another battery powered item we do is our LED furniture range. The smaller items are fine for dry hire, whereby the customer collects from us, the larger items though would require delivery and collection an additional service we offer within Surrey, Hampshire & Berkshire. We have LED cubes which come with a black padded top for extra comfort and can also be used as a small table, the top can be lifted off so these make great versatile units.

Our LED poseur tables are either rectangular or circular, these alongside the cubes are great for garden parties where some additional seating/ tables are required or just used as another form of lighting- they are very cool products.

For larger gatherings we do LED curved benches and an LED curved bar. If you are after more bespoke LED furniture such as a straight LED bar just let us know and we can help with this as well.

Being based in Guildford, Surrey we are in a great location for people looking to hire locally within Hampshire and Surrey towns.

We are also closely linked to London as we are just off the main road which leads to the motorway so you can get to south London within 45 mins (on a good day!) If you are not convinced about having to collect, set up and then return after your event that is not a problem we do offer a delivery service.

One of our team would be happy to set up the equipment for you and return at an agreed time the following day to collect. You don’t even have to pack it away they will take it apart for you as part of the service. We do try and advise people to collect themselves for smaller hires as this keeps it extremely cost efficient for you, but the option is there for you to decide. This is based on our availability of course!

As mentioned, this article was focusing on the hire items which are used everyday and our most popular products people ask for. We do cater for all types of events so if you are having a larger outdoor production, festival, wedding or product launch in the New Year once the current Covid restrictions are lifted, please do contact us and we would be more than happy to assist you with your staging, LED video screen, sound and lighting requirements.

/https://www.google.com/maps?cid=177697462353676083

17th November 2020/by Tim Maysh

The Sound & Light Hire Company reflects over the past 12 years of serving as a production company in Surrey, Hampshire & London areas.

The Sound & Light Hire Company Logo

Well where do we being! I suppose from the start is a good place….

The last 12 years have gone past so quickly, and we have grown as a company in so many ways since we first started. Things have changed hugely within the events industry, the most significant change being the current pandemic situation we are all experiencing.

It all began back in 2008 when we decided to make a go of offering some sound services to club promoters and event organisers within the Berkshire and Hampshire areas. Reading was a popular town for us as we knew several up and comping promoters who were keen to start their career in the same industry. As young people we grew up around music and have a great passion for it and the acoustic spectrum, so we were keen to delve into this as a career.

The first few events we offered our services free of charge to just get our name out there as a starting point for the business venture. The events we were involved with back then were late night raves so the hours we worked were extremely long for not much profit! It didn’t matter too much though as we were so keen to make it work we kept pushing through. We used too supply an Opus sound system (Opus CS750 & CS1200 with SB218 & HB415 & even the Opus Audio SB221) which was extremely heavy to load in /out of the van and get into venues. At the time this sound system was just what the promoters had asked for, a lot of bottom end and a lot of noise came out!

Once we had conquered Reading’s busy nightlife, we found we were getting a lot of requests for London areas as well, so we were slowly branching out. The hours were the same, long and tiresome at unsociable times of the evening/morning dealing with a lot of inebriated individuals!

Whilst we maintained supplying club/ bar and pub venues, we also wanted to expand being able to offer some form of lighting as well. It took a while to save up enough funding to then stock some basic disco lighting to accompany the sound, but we got there eventually, and it worked well for what it was intended for.

In order for us to try and break into the wedding and private party sector we decided,

It would be a good idea to offer a DJ mobile disco service for Hampshire, Surrey and London areas. After a couple of gigs, we utilized our small car to transport the equipment, obviously the current bulky Opus system did not. This meant we had to re-invest in a different PA system.

In fact, the very first mobile disco gig we got we had to use a van to transport the top speakers and subs to a pub in Surrey. Arriving there we were greeted with a steep staircase into the venue which held about 100 people! The PA system we had brought would have done a mini festival; it was quite funny looking back.

Needless to say, the client was absolutely gobsmacked and over the moon by the undercharged PA system we rocked up with. Luckily it just managed to fit, and I say luckily as it took 3 of us to get it up the stairs! We didn’t have that long to set it up either but the guys were pros at this by now after the club events so that wasn’t too much of an issue.

I believe we supplied them with some sound to light activated disco lighting effects on a lighting t bar stand. A more appropriate set up for the room it was being held in.

Going back to our choice of PA for this type of service, we knew then we had to invest in a more suitable system for smaller parties so we had a pair of Mackie SRM speakers on stands which seemed a more sensible option for mobile discos. Back then there was no downloadable music to your phone / laptop we had to supply a mixing console and download music in advance of each party onto a CD using different software applications around at the time which took absolutely ages! We would spend hours and hours just waiting for songs to download onto CDs.

We used to advertise our services in the local paper and Yellow Pages, social media was extremely new at that point, it sounds very old fashioned now, but this is how businesses put themselves out there back then. I think we only just managed to land a considerably basic mobile disco website on the internet.

The majority of enquiries we used to get through were for weddings, and with this the requirements were becoming slightly more variable than just a couple of disco lights and couple of speakers.

We then invested in some more speakers and subs for additional bass sound,

As well as a professional wired microphone to attach to our compact CD mix unit for speeches and announcements. As mentioned before we couldn’t use a laptop with downloaded music already on there, so we would transport cases of CDs all labelled with a variety of genres of music to adhere to all ages of party goers for each event.

We decided to try and get our own speakers made for the larger events as we weren’t completely satisfied with the current speaker’s sound they produced. The project took a few months but eventually when they were ready, we took them on a few club events which turned out to be highly successful! We still had our large PA system for the club events but the demand for the mobile DJ service was becoming more and more so we really needed some more smaller speakers with subs to suit that type of function. EV ZLX active speakers were suggested to us, and we were impressed with the sound quality as well as them being robust units we decided to invest in these.

Suddenly our inventory was growing and we could now cater for club events for 400-500 people as well as run mobile disco parties for 70-200 people. I should mention at this point that all the equipment was stored inside our house which was fun and games when mixing this with everyday family life.

Once we had done a few mobile disco events word got around that we were a company to rely on so more and more enquiries came in for private functions, birthdays, Christening celebrations and corporate functions. We had never not turned up for an event and the equipment we used to supply for the parties was of a very reasonable quality which made a huge impact to how the night would go, the sound and lighting had to be adequate enough to create a real party atmosphere, which I believe it did.

Now we had smaller PA systems, lighting and the larger PA, we wanted some other type of product to offer people, so we started to supply smoke machines and lasers as extras. These became really popular especially for younger people- birthday parties or Halloween events.

The club / bar events we supplied PA for also requested lasers and laser shows became a popular option for certain promoters we worked with. We thought about just becoming a laser hire company but decided against that as our passion was more for the sound then special effects.

New Years Eve parties were a big thing, we would have large PA systems out for club hires and smaller sound & lighting packages out for mobile discos but this would be our limit for supplying any services as we didn’t have a huge hire stock inventory just enough to cover 2 different scaled events at the same time.

The time had come to change up the PA again as more time passed,

We became friendly with different people within the industry who demonstrated other brands of speakers to us such as OHM and RCF. We have stocked both brands and during that time we had to make a very big decision on whether we continue to store equipment at our home premises or try and rent a unit nearby. Not only did we have to make this decision we also were becoming inundated with enquires for disco services, so we then had another conversation about the direction we saw the business going. With this in mind we decided to take the plunge and rent a warehouse unit and with that start offering a hire service where not only can we deliver and setup the equipment but people were able to hire the equipment from us to take away.

It started small we only had a few sets of speakers and lighting effects. In time the club/ bar events we used to supply equipment for had subsided and the hire enquiries had become more and more.

We started to slow down offering mobile disco services and concentrate on the hire/ rental side of the business.

It was a good thing we did as our stock grew to multiple sets of speakers, subs, sound to light disco lighting effects, smoke machines, moving head lighting effects, wireless battery powered up lighters and LED tourcans. All these items were and still are easy to set up once taken home, so the essential party pack was something people loved and love to hire from us.

Being set up in Guildford we were in a prime location between Surrey, Hampshire and London,

And people were happy to travel to us. For those slightly further away or limited to transporting the equipment back for their party, we offered a delivery service at a very reasonable rate, just charging fuel at cost. A couple of unit changes over the years, we are still located in Guildford and happy to still offer the same hire service for dry hire or delivery.

To appeal to other types of events and those after a supplier who will deliver and setup for birthday, corporate and wedding functions we went on to stock white LED dance floors, backdrops, LED furniture, AV equipment and more. This broadening out allowed us to cover all party & events.

Finally, we moved over to the popular and versatile brand of d&b Audiotechnik sound which until this day remains our favourite, reliable PA system. We use this for all our outdoor events, as well as indoor events for events/ parties where a very slick coherent sound is required.

The next thing on the ever-growing list was staging…

It became apparent that a lot of people enquiring for outdoor productions required some sort of staging as well as sound and lighting. We wanted to be the company people could rely on as supplying everything in house without adding on hidden charges for hiring in equipment from 3^rd parties. So that is what we did, started to supply outdoor covered stages.

We were thrilled with our 10m x 8m covered outdoor stage so shortly after this we invested in a 6m x 4m covered stage. The smaller stage is incredibly popular for all types of events such as Christmas light switch ons, school fetes/ productions, small festivals and weddings.

Lastly and the most recent addition to our hire stock just before the horrendous pandemic hit our industry, we are able to supply outdoor and indoor LED video screens. The cinema experience is currently one of the more popular choices for event organisers at this moment in time so we are very lucky to be stockists of LED video screen offering this to customers looking to put on a socially distanced functions.

Now we are a production company, going from small supplier of PA hire for clubs, mobile DJ services, dry hire party equipment rental to a production hire company. All this being run as a small family business after all these years. We are proud to still be running and are trying to press on forward through this difficult time for the events industry but are confident summer of 2021 will be one to remember. Here is to another 12 years!

Contact The Sound & Light Hire Company on the details below:

30th October 2020/by Tim Maysh

The Sound & Light Hire Company Talks Christmas Parties & Event Production

The Sound & Light Hire Company Logo

Normally at this time of year The Sound & Light Hire Company is busy planning Christmas parties…

Corporate Christmas dos, light switch ons and we would be talking to brides finalizing their winter weddings. This year however will be slightly different for a lot of us! This article will explain how you can still put on an event, plan a party and enjoy Christmas.

This year we have seen an increase in the demand for outdoor covered mobile stages. As all events are basically taking place outside due to Covid regulations, The Sound & Light Hire Company have been busy talking to local councils and event promoters about supplying outdoor stages for Christmas fairs, fetes, and light switch ons. Let us discuss a couple of the most popular packages that event organisers/ companies hire when they are looking for an outdoor stage package.

We will start with our 6m x 4m arce’d roof festival stage which is the perfect size stage for local fetes, fairs and Christmas town productions. We won’t go over all the technical details about this stage but some of the key points about this stage and why this seems to be the more popular choice is the low hire cost point. To give you an example to hire this stage in the Surrey/ Hampshire area for a day would be £1200. That cost includes the crew to build and de rig after the event, as well as the transportation cost. Not only does this come in at a very reasonable price point it is also very quick to set up ideal for those who have limited restrictions on set up time/ get out times.

We can set this stage at the standard height of 1.5ft but we can raise it on higher legs if this is preferred to 1m. We have noticed that during the Covid time more people are opting for a higher stage height due to the audience being more spread out for distancing reasons.

The 6m stage will comfortably hold a 6-8 piece band and at Christmas it is common for councils to organise performances from rock choirs where you can have a large group of people performing. We suggest 10-20 people on the stage at one given time as the limitation is roughly between 18-20 people. However, with the current regulations in place we would recommend halving that so people can distance from one another.

Most event companies / planners come to us for the sound and stage lighting as well. This is because we stock a vast range of sound systems, lighting and special effects all in house. We can put together packages of all different sizes enabling us to meet the most basic or more demanding of technical requirements. Not only do we cover the production side we offer LED video screen as well which we will come onto further into this blog.

For those putting on slightly bigger outdoor Christmas show that have more live music or bigger bands or perhaps they just require more space on stage to run the event in line with current Covid regulations our 8x6m covered stage will comfortably hold up to 30 people giving you that extra needed room. To give an example of the price point for this stage you would be looking at £2000 which covers the crew costs and transportation within Surrey & Hampshire areas. Again, most people opt for an all-inclusive package which caters for stage, sound and lighting. Not only do we supply this, but we provide a professional technician to remain onsite throughout the event to ensure it runs without a hiccup. What Is quite common with this stage is adding on LED outdoor screen and this year more than ever promoters and local councils are all looking to hire some form of outdoor digital signage. Promoting things like local events, Christmas performances and local awareness messages about current restrictions and lockdowns.

Continuing This Topic of Outdoor LED Screen

We can supply screens either side of your stage ground supported or flown, or we can supply one large screen at the back of your stage. We have some newly released renders on our Instagram page to show this, as well as our previous jobs displaying the stages setup.

Perhaps you are after one big outdoor LED screen to watch Christmas films on for example or outdoor winter wonderland cinema nights, we stock a vast amount of LED video wall and with a competitive price point of just £75 per square meter we are one of the leading screen hire companies in the Surrey, Hampshire, London and Berkshire areas.

We would say the more popular choice of hire item during the Covid crisis which has turned into a newfound form of entertainment for people is hiring the LED video screens for outdoor films to become a cinema experience. This can be achieved with ease as people can remain in their cars and we can tune the sound to their car radio, enabling them to stay comfortably seated inside. This has worked well over the last few months and we foresee this will continue to be popular over Christmas into the New Year.

Moving onto lighting, what lighting do we have on offer this Christmas and what lighting packages do we recommend getting you through this Christmas without having to spend lots of money?

An old-time favourite are our LED wireless up lighters, why are they popular and why do we still recommend using them after all these years? Well they are battery operated which makes them handy units to dot around and spread some festive light. The battery life lasts between 8-10 hours having said that though if they are left in really cold environments this drains the battery quicker which many people don’t know so a little tip there for you! We ensure they are fully charged before they are sent out on hire so don’t worry about that. The fact they are wireless means no messy looking cables, so not only is this great if you don’t have access to power but also if you are trying to keep it looking slick you don’t have to worry about reels of cables around the room/ marquee.

We can provide you with covers for them so they can be placed outside safely without worrying about them getting wet/ damp as the covers are IP rated.

So perhaps uplighters aren’t your thing and you are planning on a small intimate gathering at home we have more vibrant lighting suitable for disco lighting. Packages start from £20 and can turn any home into a dance floor! They can be hung form lighting t bars which we provide and just plug into the mains, extremely easy to use and just do the job. Sending out lots of colours and patterns for a great festive party atmosphere. We stock a vast range of different lighting options so if you have more bespoke lighting requirements with a custom light set up in mind then no problem we can help with that. This article is not covering everything we stock/ offer it is just to give you an idea of popular hire choices over the festive season.

What better piece of equipment to hire at Christmas with or without Covid, is our snow machine. This highly professional machine will enable you to spray fake snow in your garden, over your house, on your stairs or in the lounge! These machines are cheap to run and amazingly effective at covering a small area which is what we have found customers want. With this machine you can project your fake snow up to 15-20m away. Whenever you hire a snow machine, we suggest raising above head height which adds to the effect with the spectacular falling foam but please make sure this is put in a secure safe place, the last thing we want is for any accidents to occur. We must also note that although the snow fluid is not hazardous it should not be sprayed into peoples face or rubbed in people’s eyes as it will sting it can also potentially stain hard surfaces and carpet so an outdoor grassed area with adult supervision is recommended.

One Big Announcement

Is the fact that we are moving our forever popular speaker hire packages to wireless battery powered PA systems. One of out latest additions is our Bose Pro1 battery powered portable speaker. This wireless speaker will give you clear thunderous, powerful sound at your house party or outdoor event in a small slick package. Weighing only a few kilos the performance from this Bose powered speaker system is nothing but exceptional. Stream your favourite music from your iPhone/ laptop or iPad or plug in directly to the back of the speaker and for £65 you will get up to 12 hours of music. It also has the ability to connect to your device via Bluetooth which is definitely a plus point for those not wanting any cabling whatsoever.

We would suggest this speaker to cover a party of up to about 50 people, so if you are having a larger gathering or want that extra punch of bass don’t worry we still have our popular systems which include top speakers and subs requiring power.

All these systems are super easy to use, do it yourself set up packages which give you great sound at a very reasonable hire price.

Recently we have not been delivering as much due to the demand being much less, but we are still able to offer delivery should this be something you really require, within the Surrey & Hampshire areas.

Another firm favourite at Christmas is our large white LED light up sparkly dance floor. This twinkling dance floor is suitable for all size parties as we can offer this in several sizes from compact intimate spaces for your house party to a large 20ft x 20ft dance floor in a marquee. Please ensure the flooring we lay the dance floor onto is flat and level, this is important to keep the panels safely firmly together! White is definitely a colour of choice for the Christmas season, but we can also offer this in black if this is preferred!

What goes well with the dance floor at Christmas time? A low-level fog effect! Add this low-lying fog effect to your Christmas party to really enhance the Christmas vibe, like you are dancing on the clouds without a care in the world.

To sum up on everything we have discussed in this blog, we have all had to adapt and make changes to our lives during this dire time, but don’t let it stop you having fun especially at Christmas time. Whether you attend any outdoor events that are put on by local councils or you are making sure you stay at home, The Sound & Light Hire Company really do have sound, lighting, special effects, and production equipment to suit all eventualities so give us a call to see all the deals we have to offer.

So what are you waiting for? Call us on 0800 8611136 or send us an email to tell us all about your plans, we can’t wait to help you turn them into a reality!

Contact The Sound & Light Hire Company on the details below:

28th October 2020/by Tim Maysh

The Sound & Light Hire Company Gear Up for “COVID” Halloween

The Sound & Light Hire Company Logo

Like many events this year, Halloween is going to be very different. Traditional trick-or-treating might be off the menu, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy a ghoulish celebration to add a bit of cheer to – let’s face it – one of the most miserable years in recent memory.

No matter how you decide to set up your party, since it’ll be so different from previous versions, it’s fair to say that it’ll live long in the memory. With that in mind, let’s take a look at what you’ll need to host a Halloween party this year with the twist of COVID-19 thrown in there.

How to Construct Your Halloween Party?

Given current restrictions, it goes without saying that the party might be a bit different this year, but that doesn’t mean it has to be any less fun. There are absolutely LOADS of ways you can have a great party without having large crowds gathering at your home. If you’re wondering how, we’re glad you asked, as we’ve got more than a few ideas for you.

Firstly, it’s more than likely that you’re going to need the help of video conferencing software so you can call up your friends. Most of us have gotten pretty used to Zoom or Microsoft Teams these days, whether it’s for a weekly quiz night or work purposes. So it makes sense to incorporate it into your party.

You could do awards for best-dressed and pump up the music for your virtual attendees to bop along to. If you really want to get into the spirit, you could take it in turns to tell virtual ghost stories to each other!

If you’re taking your party out into the back garden, you could decorate your lawn or garden area with tombstones and other spooky props for your little ones to navigate and collect prizes and treats along the way. Creating this setup would be an excellent alternative way to celebrate Halloween as a family if you happen to live in a location that is currently severely affected by the virus, and face-to-face events are not a possibility.

If you’re more chilled as a family about Halloween this year, why not get stuck into a Halloween movie marathon? It’s not like there aren’t many spooky films to choose from. Of course, there are the synonymous Halloween movies to make your way through (there are soon to be 13 to choose from!), or you could go for something a little more child-friendly with Goosebumps or the dozens of Simpsons Halloween specials.

Whichever idea you choose; you’re probably going to need to hire some equipment to help these celebrations go as smoothly as possible. Fortunately, here at the Sound & Light Hire Company, we’ve got you more than covered!

Halloween Party Equipment Hire Hampshire

We have an enormous range of sound and lighting hire services that will help you turn your home and garden into a dark and chilling location for the night. Let’s start with speaker hire.

Speaker Hire Berkshire

We have a wide range of hire packages that will suit your home. If you’re planning on hosting a part or fully-virtual Halloween, why not soundtrack it with the best tunes for everyone to sing along at their respective homes? We have several PA speaker hire packages that will give you ample power for your guests. All you have to do is plug in your phone, and away you go!

Alternatively, if you want to take the music outside into your garden to soundtrack your spooky activities, you may be better suited to hiring one of our battery-powered speakers. Even though they run on batteries, they’ll outlast your party, with up to eight hours of playback on 75% volume.

Hire Special FX Equipment London

Speaking of which, whether you are going to town on decorating your home or you do indeed set up a Halloween-themed obstacle course in the garden for your kids, then it makes sense to hire special effects equipment to really make the experience as immersive as possible for them.

What better way to make your garden and fake tombstones (if you’ve got them) as spooky as possible than by hiring a smoke machine to recreate the effect of the fog rolling in on an eerie graveyard? You’re not going to do much better for realism than that!

Similarly, you could invest in a whole host of related equipment to create whichever ghostly effects will suit your specific activities. As part of our lighting hire packages, you can select a UV light to make everything bright and white glow in the dark. Perfect for those ever-popular skeleton outfits!

Again for outside or inside, you might want to hire a bubble machine. They are always a popular choice for children’s’ birthday parties, and they are just as well-suited to becoming part of your haunted house. If you really want to impress your guests (and their children), we can supply the machine with UV bubble fluid. When you combine the bubbles with the UV light hire package mentioned above, you can enjoy massive glow-in-the-dark bubbles. Trust us when we say that they look VERY cool!

Halloween Lighting Hire Surrey

There’s another lighting fixture we’ve not mentioned yet that is also perfect for Halloween – lasers! By hiring a laser machine, you can light up your back garden or indeed your dark and spooky house with the piercing lights of the laser. They are brilliant if you’re hosting a Halloween inspired disco (think Thriller!), or, combined with the smoke machine, they can totally transform your outdoor space into a Halloween inspired adventure playground. The choice is yours!

Another excellent choice for lighting up your terrifying back garden, are wireless LED uplighters. These battery-powered lights don’t need to be plugged in, saving you any worries about getting power to them, and removing the chance of young ones (or more likely the “older” ones!) of your party tripping over cables running between each light.

You could have them in various shades of Halloween orange and use them to denote a walkway through a spooky tour of your “haunted” garden, or use them as a beacon of safety/rendezvous point if kids get lost in the smoke and lasers!

Hire a Projector and Screen for Your Surrey, London, or Hampshire Halloween Party

Halloween isn’t the same as any old night; it’s a unique occasion that only comes round once a year, which means it’s only right that you mark it appropriately. While you could just watch a few spooky movies on your TV, why not make it extra memorable by hiring a projector and screen package?

You can all get dressed up, partake in a number of the activities suggested above (as well as some more traditional ones such as apple bobbing) before settling down to watch a creepy, scary film? With a projector and screen, you can recreate the feeling of going to the cinema from the comfort of your own home. You could even make it a four-dimensional experience by combining the film with special effects such as fog or bubbles.

Alternatively, you could take the whole experience outside (if you wrap up warm first!). This would work particularly well if you’ve already planned plenty of outdoor activities. You could also hook up the speakers to the laptop you’re playing the film on to provide the full outdoor cinema effect. We can even offer a pop-up tent to shelter under, should you need it.

How The Sound & Light Company Are Gearing Up for a Safe Halloween

Of course, it would be remiss of us not to address the elephant in the room, COVID-19. As some of you will already be aware, we’ve introduced sweeping changes to our hiring, delivery, and collection protocols to ensure that none of our devices can accidentally become a vector of the disease.

All of our staff members use hand sanitiser several times during a shift. If you order our delivery and set up service, our team will arrive complete with the recommended PPE for both your safety and our own. Then there’s the equipment too. We thoroughly disinfect everything that comes back into the warehouse, and we do so again before it goes back out on hire.

We are acutely aware that while we could all do with blowing off some steam at this moment in time, safety always has to come first. After a great deal of hard work, and after careful liaison with industry bodies and local government associations, we’ve pioneered a set of working protocols that maintain COVID-secure standards for events. As those guidelines are fluid, we will regularly update our methodologies and retrain employees where appropriate.

Choose The Sound & Light Hire Company for This Year’s Halloween Celebrations

This year has unprecedented in so many ways, but just because the virus has robbed so much from us this year, it doesn’t mean you can’t have a little fun. This is especially the case for your children, many of whom could do with something to look forward to at this moment in time.

So why should you choose us?

Well, we have one of the biggest inventories of sound and lighting equipment for hire in the country, never mind Surrey or London. What that means for you is that we can cope with the demands place on us for a one-night celebration taking place up and down the country. We have thousands of devices in our warehouse, stocked up and ready to go.

We’re flexible too, we can offer you both a dry-hire option, or we can come to your house to deliver the equipment and set it up for you. Regardless of the which option you choose, our friendly team will also be on hand to provide you with any on-the-spot training you might require.

Finally, we offer everything you could possibly need when it comes to sound, lighting, special effects, and any other Halloween party equipment. There’s no need for you to approach several different event equipment hire companies to organise just one party. You can just pick up the phone to us, and we’ll sort everything you need in return for one easy-to-understand and straightforward price.

If you need us to, we can even help you in the planning and design of your little get-together. Having been in the industry for over two decades, it’s fair to say we’ve got a pretty good idea of what makes a good party!

So what are you waiting for? Call us on 0800 8611136 or send us an email to tell us all about your plans, we can’t wait to help you turn them into a reality!

Contact The Sound & Light Hire Company on the details below:

12th October 2020/by Tim Maysh

The Sound & Light Hire Company Remains Positive Whiling Investing in The Future

The Sound & Light Hire Company Logo

Well, there’s no doubt about it, 2020 has been an unprecedented year in all manner of ways. The events industry has had to rally together to keep moving forward through what has been an incredibly tough and challenging period.

Here at The Sound & Light Hire Company,:

we’ve been rapidly adapting to the situation with each twist and turn of government guidelines, providing our outstanding service throughout, and developing a wide range of new equipment hire services. We would just like to reiterate that we are going nowhere (contrary to some malicious reports) and are, in fact, using this period this invest more money into equipment that is going to prove more pivotal moving forward.

So let’s start by taking stock of the events industry as it stands, state why we remain optimistic that the sector will recover, and talk about those investments into the future in a little more detail.

COVID-19’s Impact on the Event Service and Equipment Hire Industry

There’s no point in trying to dress the impact of COVID up as anything other than disastrous for the events industry as a whole. The ban of large gatherings of people effectively put an end to the festival season before it had even begun. Weddings, birthday parties, and almost all forms of collective celebrations were put on hold, as were events such as conferences, exhibitions, sports events, and live music concerts.

To put some figures on the impacts of those events being cancelled, arts and cultural events contribute £5.6 billion to the economy, festivals, fairs and shows produce £6.0 billion, music events rake in £17.6 billion, and sporting events add a further £9.6 billion. Of the million-plus jobs that depend on a thriving events industry, up to 600,000 could be lost without further support from the government. Those figures don’t even take into account the economic impact of the cancellation of private celebrations such as weddings or birthday parties.

However, the picture may not be as gloomy as it may seem, and we’ve been busy helping clients make alternative arrangements to ensure that they’re planned events could still go ahead, albeit it outside and a reduced number of attendees. What’s more, even though continental Europe is experiencing a second wave, the events industry has already demonstrated that events can go ahead even if the virus is here to stay.

There’s another reason to be positive, too. We are at the onset of rapid testing.

Advances in Testing Capabilities Give Cause for Optimism

Another reason behind our upbeat outlook is due to the rapid advance of testing technology and availability. Already, some tests exist that can determine the COVID status with a high degree of accuracy within 15-minutes. While they cannot, at this moment, be used as the sole method for screening individuals prior to entering a venue, large public events, or sporting events, they are a very much a start along the right path.

With the government attempting to pull off Operation Moonshot – a plan to test the whole UK population once a week by the end of next spring – further rapid testing at venues for parties, celebrations, and public events will provide an additional layer of biosecurity. With individuals knowing their COVID status on at least a weekly basis, the behaviours we’ve all avoided for so long such as being in close proximity to others can safely return, and we can begin to restore some form of normality in the wait for a viable vaccine.

As stated, these tests exist today. Now it’s merely a case of waiting for these rapid tests to reach the manufacturing capacity of several million per day. Once available on that scale, fans can return to music concerts, weddings can be restored to their former glory, and birthday parties can do away with limits on the number of guests in attendance.

So how are we preparing and investing for the future here at The Sound & Light hire Company? Well, we’re glad you asked.

The Sound & Light Hire Company Invests in the Future

As you can imagine, we’ve been planning for the future with our equipment hire services. We’ve made significant strides to adapt to the current situation, and will be launching several new products for 2021. But let’s start with the expansion of existing hire services we already offer.

Indoor and Outdoor LED Screens

LED screens and outdoor LED screens, in particular, are going to be hugely important going into 2021 and beyond with events increasingly being held outdoors. Outdoor cinemas, garden parties, movie nights, music festivals, and many more events will all benefit from the presence of LED video walls and screens.

We’ve started by expanding the number of LED HD TV screens we stock, before going all out on our range of LED video walls. Moving forwards, we can build outdoor LED screens from 2m x 1m right up to an enormous 8m x 6m! Screens this size would be absolutely perfect to hire for a drive-in cinema event or music festival.

We also have two options available concerning pixel pitch our indoor LED screens & outdoor LED screens both have a pixel pitch of 3.9mm. The our SmaRT#Tech screens offer a much crisper picture high-definition picture, especially for lower cap events where your attendees won’t be too far from the screen. By contrast, for larger events with viewers set to be positioned further away, 3.9mm pixel pitch video panels will just look even better ! And our LED screen hire prices offer a more cost-effective solution to any other outdoor LED screen system.

Embracing the Future of Gaming

Moving on to totally new equipment that we’ve never made available for hire before, will shortly have in stock two VR gaming PCs complete with HTC Vine Pro headsets. This otherworldly experience would be a great addition to any social occasion.

Imagine playing with your friends in a completely immersive game, with every movement you make reflected in what you see in front of you. The would also make an excellent focal point for birthday celebrations, as you laugh along at older family members getting to grips with the technology for the first time!

Towable Power Generators

As mentioned, even with enhanced testing in place, outdoor events are still going to be very much the order of the day for the majority of 2021, barring a minor miracle. That’s why we’ve invested in towable generators. From now on, any clients booking staging hire with us will have the option to for us to look after their power requirements too.

In fact, that offer is extended to all outdoor events requiring a power supply. By hiring one or a couple of generators with us, you needn’t worry about getting power to your outdoor speaker hire, stage hire, LED video wall hire, or lighting hire equipment.

New Wireless Lighting Options

Sticking with the theme of outdoor events, wireless, battery-powered lighting is going to play a pivotal role in many public and private events over the course of the next 12 months. We’re busy constructing a totally wireless lighting package that builds on our existing wireless LED uplighter hire options. These battery-powered options will be great for celebrations and events whereby power is not available, and a generator is not cost-effective.

Extending the Range of Battery-Powered Sound Options

On a similar note, we’ve invested heavily in increasing the number of battery-powered speakers for hire. These speakers have been popular since the onset of the pandemic, and we expect they’ll continue to be favoured well into next year and beyond. They are great pieces of kit and will comfortably last for 7-8 hours of playback at 75% volume.

We’re also crafting a completely wireless lighting and sound hire package, for those events held in more extensive gardens, fields, and other similar settings that may play host to an event over the next couple of years.

The Event Industry is Certainly Down, But By No Means Out

As we’ve stated, here at The Sound & Light Hire Company, we’re going nowhere. We know that this period has been challenging, regardless of industry. The events sector has been no different. Actually, we would argue that it’s very much been at the sharp end, considering the economic hardship caused by the cancellations of so many events, festivals, weddings, parties, and other celebrations.

However, we’re not ones to sit still. We’ve changed the way we operate, implemented all of the necessary additional health & safety protocols, and, as laid out above, we’ve invested heavily into our inventory to provide a broad spectrum of equipment hire options that cover almost every base.

Don’t forget we can provide all manner of event services too. Our event production teams have already designed, directed, and overseen some of the first-ever socially-distanced events with massive success. We can take care of everything, from setting up and mixing the sound for the live band you’ve booked, to rigging lighting fixtures to trusses and choreographing a dazzling lighting show for your wedding celebration. We can do it all.

Why Choose the Sound & Light Company for Your Equipment Hire Needs?

2020 has been a challenging year for all of us, so it’s only right that once we’ve got to grips with it as a society, you’ll want to celebrate and enjoy events and parties just as you did before lockdown was even a word. Here at The Sound & Light Hire Company, we are in the perfect position to help you out.

Whether you need to hire a small PA speaker system for your kid’s birthday party, or you need us to handle the entire event production of an extravagant wedding, we are just as committed to excellence in either arena. We have one of the biggest inventories in the whole country when it comes to sound and lighting equipment.

Better still, if you’re hiring from us, you’re receiving brand names that are widely regarded as the best in the business, we never, EVER, cheap out on equipment, even for small equipment hire packages. We’ve never had a piece of equipment let us down, which we think you’ll agree is incredible after being in business for over a decade.

Then there’s our friendly team. We are here, seven days a week giving on the spot training to dry-hire customers, mixing live music acts in front of thousands of fans as well as delivering and setting up equipment all over Surrey, London, and surrounding areas. We never stopped and have gone the extra mile this year to ensure our customers have hosted successful events.

So if you’ve got a corporate event lined up at a central London hotel, or you’ve got a wedding booked in the Surrey countryside, we can supply everything you could ever need. Just give us a call any day of the week on 0800 8611136 to have a chat with us. We can’t wait to hear what you’ve got planned!

Contact The Sound & Light Hire Company on the details below: