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 3rd 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!