The Sound & Light Hire Company Discuss The Past, Present & Future In The Events Industry
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The Sound & Light Hire Company in the events industry as a event production hire company
The purpose of this article is to discuss & recap over the past 7 months in dealing with the Covid situation and how this has shifted a completely different change in the events industry.
We will also discuss some of the essential services we supply to the wedding, corporate and private event sectors. With this we will continue to improve each service and thus where we see our business heading in the future and some of the new hire products and services we will be offering moving forward.
Let’s go back to November, December 2019… our event diary was fully booked, we were finishing off some of our Christmas parties and we were getting ready to supply a production for The Novikov in London for New Years Eve. We were looking ahead to a stable, reliable fully booked 2020, with a happy customer base. January & February were booking up fast and we were already turning away work for May onwards. Then shit hit the fan!! If you are reading this thinking it is unprofessional to put it that bluntly then I apologize, but I think most people would agree that the events industry has been one of the worst hit with the Covid-19 saga. Within 12 weeks of the pandemic announcement our bookings had dropped nearly 80%. Most calls or emails were from clients asking about rescheduling or cancelling.
Let’s not dwell on what’s happened we need to be positive looking forward. It hasn’t been all doom and gloom. Once the government eased certain restrictions and regulations event promoters were keen to put on any form of event as this pandemic has not just hit suppliers but also the event planners & event organizers who have spent months planning events only to be held back and restricted whilst the world works out how to solve the crisis.
Now we have got the negative bit out the way let’s talk about the events we did work on this summer, what we have changed and new products we have brought into our hire stock as an outcome of the above.
What we have found as a company is anyone who was putting on an event quickly moved this to be an outdoors gathering, socially distanced of course but a huge shift to move events outside. This is where it comes in handy if you own a stage, outdoor screen and sound equipment…
Below we will talk about and explain the package we supplied to a local orchestral music event.
When Simon from Squarebox Events approached us with his idea of a socially distanced outdoor music festival, he was looking for a local event production company in Surrey who would be able to supply outdoor stage, sound, lighting and outdoor LED screen. Hence why he came to us!
”Surrey’s Leading Festival Stage Hire Company”
The events were to be spread across 10 weekends with the addition of 3 outdoor cinema nights across this time period as well. It was imperative to make sure that the artists were safely, socially distanced whilst on stage performing, so they opted for a 10m x 8m outdoor covered stage which gave them a minimum of 2m distance from one another, allowing licensing officers to sign the event off.
The event was capped at 350 per event where guests were to be separated and sectioned off into 3mx3m grass squares with the option of upgrading your ticket and hiring a raised stage platform for better viewing experience.
The events primarily took place in the daytime with all events finishing by the early evening. This meant that lighting acted more as eye candy rather than the need for a full-on lighting show. With this in mind we installed a comprehensive package of 24 B-eye moving head washes, 18 LED tourcans and a pair of 5m x 3m LED screens hung either side of the stage.
The screens allowed ticket holders to text and have their text displayed as digital signage on the large LED screens when artists were not performing, footage was not being played or they weren’t using the screens for the outdoor cinema.
The orchestral performances were stripped back so there was no need for lots of visuals as they are incredible talented people, gripping the attention of the audience with simple basic lighting and calming content displayed on the screens. The screens were really for interaction for the audience and for displaying the film.
When it came to the outdoor cinema events customers would be sectioned off into their area, lights would be turned off on the stage, sound system turned up and voila what do you have an incredibly sounding, amazing viewing experience.
It is at this point we must give you some more information about our LED video screen.
Previously event organisers would opt for a trailer style pop up mobile LED screen. These cheap inferior products don’t have the pixel density, the refresh rate or the overall quality to reproduce video content. Mobile screens are great for events where you need logos or signage put up or messages displayed but when it comes to showing live event footage or films there is a vast difference between that an a modular screen like we use. Also most of these screens have a pixel pitch of 8mm or even 10 or 12 mm and when your audience is only 10-15m back this isn’t acceptable these days and event organisers / planners are looking for a company that can supply LED screens with superior HD quality.
Outdoor LED screen has a pixel pitch of 3.9mm with a refresh rate of over 4000hz and a maximum brightness of 5000 nitts. You can watch your film outside even in direct sunlight and with such a small pixel pitch you can stand just 2.5m back and watch a seamless video in incredible quality.
To accompany the LED screen they needed a decent sound system. Without a well-designed sound system the event would be nothing! As with any event it is nothing without good sound.
Hire Outdoor Screen Hire From The Sound & Light Hire Company
What did we provide for this orchestral music event…
The client wanted a flown PA system with the addition of distributed PA speakers around the site as the clientele at this event would be of a slightly older generation and to meet the regulations of the licensing a flown array of cardioid subs was put forward by the licensing officer. As well as this to minimize offsite noise a CSA sub array across the front helped with this.
Due to the restrictions on how many artists could be on stage at one time, any act that played were relatively small and compact. We opted to use the trusted Midas M32 digital mixing console for front of house with the smaller Midas M32r on stage monitor duty.
Shure, Sennheiser and DP mics were used on the production giving us a vast and professional choice for these incredibly talented musicians.
Stage monitoring was taken care of by an 8-way mix using the proven and reliable formula (the d&b Audiotechnik M4 stage wedge) while processing and system delay was the job of our XTA digital sound processors.
Lighting control was via the Chamsys MQ60 and although not supplied by us we instructed production company On Tour Events to install 1500m of festoon across the site lighting up walkways, entrances and exits and public toilets across the site. There were also some large trees that the client wanted lit up so outdoor lights were supplied by On Tour Event as we generally don’t deal with architectural lighting.
The events were highly successful with lots of positive feedback from audience goers. People were delighted they were able to get out and enjoy themselves again in a slightly different way to before. This allowed further events to be planned for summer 2021 in a socially distanced organized format, complying with the current state of affairs.
The next section to this blog leads us onto the future of our company and where we see our events going, We don’t see events going anywhere, but we foresee most event organisers planning on outdoor productions just like the above.
Although we have discussed stage, sound, screen and lighting nothing happens without one thing…..
Power!
When Simon first contacted us, it was made noticeably clear whoever the production company was they had to supply everything, under one contract and power was included in this. As we all know in this industry finding a reliable generator company can be tricky and it is common knowledge that unless you are hiring a lot of generators you are left with a very small number of suppliers.
With this in mind it was to be that we would invest in a brand-new state of the art road towable generator. So, what are the specs or skip this part if you are not into reading the technical jargon!
We invested in a 70KVA road towable generator, UK manufactured and UK built this generator has an overspecd alternator, deep sea control panel for power and load monitoring and we stock a vast and extensive range of rubber box power distribution enabling us to safely distribute power across your stage.
It must be noted we don’t currently, nor do we plan to offer full site power for festivals or catering power at events. We would rather leave that side of the industry to power companies who specialize in site power. A lot of our events are for 1 / 2 stages and the event organisers are looking for a company to supply everything within a package.
One of the reasons we invested in a road towable generator is even if you don’t need to hire a stage for your outdoor event most events for the next year or so are most likely going to be outside. Outdoor cinemas will become more popular and the want and need for showing content outside on large screens is becoming ever more popular. As with most locations or fields, or larger outdoor spaces there is no power on site. So before organisers can plan anything they need to source where the power is coming from.
If you are an event planner it is a lot easier when one production company can supply everything, If you are using that company because they have a very good reputation for delivering an exceptional sound & lighting production it makes sense they would need the power to come from the same company so although we aren’t the biggest power company in Surrey or London we plan on being one of the most reliable power companies.
If you are planning a festival or event outside, that requires lighting, sound, stage, LED screen or power you know you can turn to that long and well established sound & lighting hire company that started 15 years ago and that company morphed from True Sound Hire rebranded into the Sound & Light Hire company.
For more information on our event services / hire stock we would love to talk to you to understand more about what you are trying to achieve and in turn give you a competitive & comprehensive quote.
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, and here is to a happy, malleable 2021!
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