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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

If you’re looking to hire LED furniture for your party, then The Sound & Light Hire Company has the answer

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The Sound & Light Hire Company Logo

Do You want To Hire LED Furniture For Your Party? The Sound & Light Hire Company Can Help !

With 2021 shaping up to be a year to celebrate the mass vaccination of the world’s population, slowly but surely it looks like we can get back to celebrating the old-fashioned way! Parties will hopefully return. Weddings can once again resume with the number of guests that brides and grooms had always envisioned. And we can all generally get our lives back on track!

Given the awful year that was 2020, we can’t wait to start 2021 on the front foot, and we’ve already seen an uptick in bookings for spring and summer party season. A lot of people have used this as an opportunity to try out new themes and reinvent their annual celebrations.

We’ve already noticed through multiple orders placed so far for LED furniture hire in Surrey, that this trend is going to play a big part of those new celebration ideas, and we couldn’t be better positioned to help you out as an event planner.

So let’s use this space to shed a little more light on what we can offer you in terms of LED furniture, starting with LED mobile bar hire.

LED Mobile Bar Hire in Surrey, London, Hampshire

Of course one of the central focal points of any party is the bar! It’s where everyone heads at least a few times during the event to get refreshments of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. So why not make it unique?

Our LED-illuminated mobile bar options are a perfect fit for all types of parties, including wedding receptions. For a start, we can provide you with what many people would term a “traditional” straight bar shape. We can supply the bar in a length of up to 8m, and it’s just as sturdy as traditional structures, capable of standing up to the rigorous demands of serving drinks to guests for hours on end. Speaking of hours, the battery life runs to eight hours, long enough for even the most extravagant of parties!

But wait, there’s more! We can also supply an LED mobile bar in either a semi, a full circle design. We’ve found this to be a really popular choice for outdoor parties in marquees that have less space to play with. As with the traditional bar, these quirky units will keep going for eight to ten hours. You can also choose from several static colours to fit in with the overall theme of your party, or you can use the included remote control have the bar cycle through a range of eye-catching alternatives dynamically.

Of course, these bars don’t just look great; they’re practical too. They come complete with under-the-counter storage, and you could choose to add a real touch of class by hiring complementary LED ice buckets! If you’re hosting some VIP guests, these little extras are a must!

But of course, the bar, while prominent, is only one feature of a party. You’re going to need plenty more furniture to complete your requirements. Let’s make a start by giving your guests somewhere very cool to sit!

Round LED Mobile Bar Hire

LED Cube Hire in London, Surrey, Hampshire

For many, the next place to visit after the bar is the dancefloor, drink in hand. But (despite your guests’ best efforts) energetic dancing in high heels and the finest dancing shoes is going to inevitably require some rest at some point. Enter your LED-lit seating options!

LED cube hire provides you with a funky seating option that will provide a talking point and help your party furniture to stand out. Don’t let their square shapes fool you; these are as comfortable as many other conventional seating options. They are topped with plush leather to ensure that your guests will be happy to sit on them for hours and chat the evening away.

Due to their smaller size, they boast improved battery performance too. These versatile cubes will last 10 hours, and once again, you have the option of several static or dynamic colour choices. Like our mobile LED-lit bar, these cube seats are just as happy indoors in a nightclub as they are at an outdoor garden party. The choice is yours!

Seating aside, there is still one crucial aspect of furniture that we haven’t yet tackled – tables. You need somewhere to put your drinks, of course! So let’s move on to LED poseur hire.

LED Poseur Hire in Surrey, London, Hampshire

Poseur tables have long been permanent fixtures in bars and nightclubs up and down the country. They offer a perfect focal point for small huddles of individuals who want to chat and have somewhere to place their drinks (and food if necessary). Their unique design also adds a touch of exclusivity and sophistication to your party, especially if you’re putting them in an unusual location such as your own home or a marquee.

But hiring LED-lit versions elevates them further still. Their bright colours make them an excellent addition to darker environments (such as at the edge of the dancefloor). Better yet, like our entire range of LED-lit furniture, they are battery-powered, so you don’t have the issue of having to run cables everywhere, potentially causing a trip hazard.

You can combine them with the LED cubes mentioned above, or you could decide to give them their own designated area at your venue. Perhaps the best feature of these tables is their versatility, they fit in anywhere, at pretty much any type of event!

But we aren’t done yet; there’s plenty more LED-lit furniture we can offer you here at the Sound & Light Hire Company!

Massive Range of London LED Furniture Hire Available

Whether you’ve booked a swanky hotel function room, or you’ve “escaped to the country” for a wedding on a country estate, we have a full suite of LED furniture that is guaranteed to impress your guests. The list of items we have on our inventory is pretty extensive. While we don’t have the space to get into the nitty-gritty details of every single item, here is just a snapshot of what we have in stock when it comes to LED furniture available for hire:

Mobile bars
Cubes
Poseur tables
Benches
Curved seating
Bubble chairs
Champagne buckets
Stools
Conventional tables
Dancefloors
And much, much more!

If you’ve attended an event before with LED-lit furniture and want to know if we can supply the same thing to your party, the answer will invariably be yes. In short, we have one of the biggest selections in the country, so you’d be foolish to go anywhere else!

But whether you are planning an event for yourself, or on behalf of another individual or company, you’re going to be thinking about one important factor – price. So let’s quickly address the elephant in the room!

LED Poseur Table Hire

The short answer is not as much as you might have thought! If you’ve got this far through this article and still think that hiring this type of unique and exclusive furniture is something that only corporate companies or wealthy individuals can afford, then you’re wrong!

Our LED furniture hire packages start at less than £25. Yes, you read that correctly! Not too shabby, right? Especially when you evaluate those hire costs on an hourly basis! For a few hundred pounds, you can create a pretty spectacular setup. For a few hundred more, you can hire a mobile LED bar that is really going to steal the show!

If you’re planning a ticketed event, then it’s these kinds of touches that can pay themselves back in spades when word travels around at how unique and exclusive your event felt. With tickets selling out fast for your next organised party, you can afford to push the boat out even further fo the next one!

Speaking of hiring budgets, you aren’t going to want to stop at LED furniture. You’re going to need a whole host of hired equipment, including sound equipment, lighting fixtures, and maybe even some special effects packages! So let’s take a moment to remind you what we have available for those of planning a big celebration in the near future!

Hire Everything You Need for Your Party from the Sound & Light Hire Company!

We have a range of party equipment hire packages that are perfect for parties of all descriptions. Whether you’re hosting a milestone birthday party or a wedding reception party, we’ve got a hire package that includes everything you need to have a great time.

Just take our platinum wedding party hire package as an example. We’ve bundled everything you could possibly need together to secure you huge savings over hiring the equipment from separate outfits.

On the sound side, we’ve included two d&b audiotechnik PA speakers, two subwoofers, and an amp. Those impressive pieces of kit are matched on the lighting side by 20 (yes, 20!) wireless LED uplighters, eight R17 beams and eight metres of truss podium upon which to rig them.

Still not impressed? Good, we’re nowhere near done yet! In addition to that industry-leading sound and lighting hire setup, we will supply you with a 16ft x 16ft white LED-starlit dancefloor, an 8m x 4m LED-starlit backdrop, and an LED DJ booth! Can we just remind you this is all part of one hire package that costs less than £1500!

If that somehow wasn’t enough, we have a range of special effects hire packages including bubble machines, lasers, confetti canons, and flame machines starting at just £25 per item hire.

The best part? We can send our expert engineers and technicians down to your venue to both set everything up and take everything away for you should you wish. They can stick around during the event too if you need help overseeing tasks such as mixing the sound for your live band/DJ or running special effects machines and dazzling light shows for your guests!

We really are your one-stop party equipment hire solution.

Call Us Today to Secure Your Equipment for Spring/Summer 2021

If 2020 was the year of cancellations and postponements, then 2021 is shaping up to be the year of celebration and pure relief. The spring and summer party season is already set to be the biggest of the century thus far, which means you need to act now or face disappointment. As much as we’d like to help everyone out with our equipment hire and support services, the truth of the matter is we are booking up fast due to phenomenal demand.

We are currently benefitting from a perfect storm of rearranged hire orders from last year meeting a surge in new bookings for parties celebrating set to coincide the end of COVID restrictions on the horizon. So if you know you’ve got a big celebration planned for the spring or summer of 2021, don’t delay!

We’ve got sound, lighting, special effects, and LED furniture hire slots left on most spring and summer weekends, but they are fast disappearing. So act now to get yours booked in before somebody else beats you to your preferred dates!

You can call us on 0800 861 1136 seven days a week during the hours listed below to discuss your requirements. We can’t wait to hear all about your party ideas!

This light up LED Light Up Cube is part of our LED furniture hire stock

13th December 2020/by Tim Maysh

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

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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:

https://www.truesoundhire.co.uk/

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

28th October 2020/by Tim Maysh

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

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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:

https://www.truesoundhire.co.uk/

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

6th October 2020/by Tim Maysh

The Sound & Light Hire Company Talks Festival Stage Hire & What Other Event Equipment You Might Need to Hire

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Despite the cancellations across the board in 2020, the music festival industry is still in a strong position for next year’s summer season. In fact, we are a nation of revellers with over a quarter of all UK adults attending a music festival last year.

As a festival or music event organiser, you should know that the stage is the cornerstone of any successful musical event. It focuses the attention of your attendees, provides an elevated platform for your performers to look out over their adoring fans, and it houses of all the technical production equipment required for artists to sound their best.

Get your festival stage hire wrong though, and both fans and performers will be quick to notice that you’ve missed the mark. So if you’re organising a music festival or event for the spring or summer of 2021, what are the factors that you need to be thinking about now for your event to be a rip-roaring success?

Let’s take a look with a little help from our sister company Outdoor Stages, the arm of our operation dedicated to providing all manner of festival and music event stages.

Determine Your Requirements Based on the Scale of Your Event

It may sound obvious, but you’ve got to start with the scale of your event to make sure you’re choosing the right size of stage to hire. Hire a stage too small, and the performances can look awkward and cramped. By contrast, go way too big, and your attendees will think you have suffered from delusions of grandeur and you’ll likely lose money given the costs involved with hiring a much larger stage.

If this is something you’re initially struggling with, it’s often helpful to determine your needs based on the size of the audience. Generally, the larger your anticipated attendance, the larger your stage hire requirements will be. But this is not always the case. For instance, you may prefer to hire several compact stages to accommodate multiple performances in one central festival site location.

Once again, the larger the number of attendees, the more likely you are to invest in a large stage that provides a central focal point, an unobstructed viewing experience, and that can accommodate the technical event equipment hire required for clear sound and visuals for audience members hundreds of yards away from the stage.

Consider the Needs of Your Performers

Next, you’ve got to factor in the requirements of the performers. If you’re hosting a classical orchestra, then obviously they are going to require a stage with a larger surface area than a local rock band, for example.

But it goes beyond merely space requirements, think about the technical specifications of your performers. While the acts scheduled to perform earlier in the day may not require much in the way of technical support, headline acts will often demand all kinds of additional technical support such as special effects, lighting shows, and superior sound equipment hire.

That’s without mentioning the offstage and backstage demands of top musical performers. Many will require at least a changing area. Some will specify a specific stage monitor mixing area or a musical instrument changeover zone. You might also need to put on a hospitality area and a side-on viewing platform for esteemed guests. By contrast, if you’ve booked an orchestra or a dance troupe, you’re going to need a sizeable backstage area to accommodate the sheer number of performers and their warm-up routines.

As the event organiser, it’s crucial that you receive each musical act’s rider in advance of booking in your festival stage hire so that you can make the necessary accommodations without any hassle.

Nature of Your Event Will Influence Your Event Equipment Hire Choices

Of course, you’ll also have to consider the nature of your event. For instance, are you running a festival with 12 local bands spread throughout the day? If so, it may be the case that you can have the artists share much of the technical equipment, saving on space and auxiliary event equipment hire requirements.

On the other hand, if you’re planning more of a one-night musical concert with two or three well-known national performers, each may demand their own specific technical setup. That means you’ll have to budget extra space for equipment storage in the wings ready for changeover between performances, even if the acts in question are solo performers.

Next, think about your preferred setup, which was briefly referred to previously. Are you going to out for one large stage for all performances, or are you going to over a couple of smaller breakout stages for solo performers? If so, you may want to spread you hire budget over several stages, rather than investing everything in your allocation on just the one.

Are There Any Venue/Location Restrictions?

One of the biggest mistakes we see from new festival organisers is not considering the limitations or restrictions of the venue. Erecting a stage requires significant engineering and logistical planning.

One of the first considerations you should make before you hire an outdoor stage is the ground. You need to consider the advantages and disadvantages of concrete and grass. If it’s going to be grass, is it even? Very rarely is the location proposed for a stage exactly flat in the case of those erected on lawn areas. But if it’s smooth and even, then it’s usually a suitable location for a stage.

Next, make sure that the area is free of any trees and human-made obstacles which might not necessarily be visible. Think underground pipes or wiring, as well as drainage systems. You can investigate the location of underground obstacles by obtaining ground surveys for your local council.

Lastly, turn your attention to logistics, even in their component parts, outdoor stages are not small. That means you’re going to need space for several HGVs to gain access and unload. Without sufficient access, your stage may never make it to the intended location, so don’t overlook this critical factor!

Other Considerations for Stage Hire That Are Often Forgotten

Perhaps the most underestimated factors of stage hire by festival organisers are the factors that are outside of their control, namely the weather. We don’t have to tell you that we live in one of the most unpredictable climates on the planet, and it’s par for the course to experience four seasons in one day, even in the middle of summer!

The important takeaway for you as the organiser to realise is that poor weather causes issues with building an outdoor stage. Firstly, it can cause access issues (particularly for grass setups). Secondly, poor weather means slow-going on the building of a stage. That’s why you must budget enough time for the building phase. You don’t want to find yourself on the morning of the event still having little bits and pieces to finish off on stage construction.

Speaking of time, don’t underestimate how long stages take to build regardless of weather conditions. While we can erect our smallest mobile outdoor covered stages in a matter of hours, our large 12m x 9m arc roof stage can take well in excess of a day to build and set up with the necessary technical rigging.

For allocating time allowances for stage set up, we say plan for the worst, hope for the best. That way you’ve got plenty of slack in your schedule should the weather, or any other unforeseen issues, cause any snags.

On a similar note, don’t wait to book in your stage hire once you know what you need. Most stage hire companies need advanced notice to build you into their schedules. While we don’t need as much as half a year, we do ask for at least three months to give us enough time to make the necessary adjustments to our inventory and works schedule. We can work off less in emergencies, but we can’t promise anything.

Stage Hire is Just the Beginning

For the less experienced among you, it’s important to point out the stage hire itself is only just the beginning. The structure is not going to achieve much for you without the help of professional lighting, sound equipment, and all other aspects of event production.

We believe it’s crucial to source these items from the same company that’s building the stage. It’s a better arrangement for several reasons. For a start, it’s fewer contractors to deal with on-site, all of which would turn up with lorries and several staff members. But it also eliminates any confusion between contractors.

By instructing one company to look after the stage, lighting, sound, and event production, every single team member is singing from the same hymn sheet. The stage builders erect the trusses the way the lighting team are used to working with, and the sound production team are using PA speaker systems and mixing desks they know like the back of their hand.

Given that you could have dozens of suppliers to work with on a musical festival, including caterers, performer booking agents, ticketing websites, wristband suppliers, and merchandisers to name but a few, it makes sense to hire just one company to handle all aspects of event production. We can handle all elements including staging, lighting, sound equipment as well as extras such as LED screens and special effects.

Why Choose Outdoor Stages for Your UK Music Festival?

The Outdoor Stages arm of the Sound and Light Hire Company has been providing stage hire and associated event production services festivals right across London, Surrey and Hampshire for over a decade.

We’ve taken a fresh approach to the festival stage hire industry by combining all required aspects of live musical performance and providing them bundled together as part of all in one stage hire packages. We genuinely offer an end-to-end solution for event organisers.

Take our biggest stage hire package as an example. Not only does it include an arc roof stage of 12m x 9m with a maximum roof height of 6.5m and a payload of 3500kg, but it also comes complete with a full-touring-spec sound and lighting system. We’re talking about the best in the sound business with the d&b audiotechnik PA systems used by the likes of Coldplay and Rhianna paired with over 70 lighting fixtures from 17R beams, moving heads washes, pixel battens and stage blinders!

When you also add in our highly-skilled and experienced crews and technicians who love what they do, you’ll receive an all-in-one event production package capable of amazing up to 10,000 music fans! Not bad for one easy-to-understand price, right?

We’re also on hand to help you through every step of the process should you need our consultation. We can assess venues, make recommendations, and provide bespoke quotes that match the specific challenges of either your site or the nature of the event in question.

In short, we are your one-stop shop when it comes to event production for your music festival or event. We have expert technicians, engineers and crew members, we offer top-of-the-range event equipment hire, and our stage hire options can cater for over and above 10,000 attendees giving us one of the largest capacities in the South East.

So if you’re putting together a music festival in the Spring or Summer of 2021, don’t hesitate to get in contact with a member of the Outdoor Stages team to arrange an initial consultation.

2nd August 2020/by Tim Maysh

Surrey & London’s Number One Rated Sound, Lighting and Stage Hire Company

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Here at the Sounds & Light Hire Company, we have decades of experience when it comes to providing first-class sound and lighting hire across Surrey, London and Hampshire. Whether you need a stage hire in London or sound hire in Guildford, our reliable team are always on hand to provide you with exemplary customer service and support. Read more

15th July 2020/by Tim Maysh

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