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Choosing The Best Wedding Lighting Production Company & Why It Matters

The Sound & Light Hire Company Logo

The Sound & Light Hire Company Logo

There are tons of ways to light up your special day, from setting the mood, ambiance, tone, and telling your story towards the end. These varieties are essential elements in achieving that picture perfect moment and flattering event. There are a lot of wedding lighting advantages that you should know and why you should choose the best lighting production company that suits your taste and style. No matter what type of wedding you decide on, whether this is at the beach, a backyard setting, or indoors, your chosen event production company should be able to adjust and supply your desired theme and make sure they have years of experience in the business.  

The Sound & Light Hire Company is London, Surrey and Guildford’s most trusted sound and lighting hire company offering a full range of event equipment services that will surely meet your wedding requirements. 

We have listed down some reasons as to why a dependable and perfect lighting that will match your theme is essential and why you should choose a top-quality service lighting production company:

Lighting helps in setting the mood

Given that documenting your most special day is top priority, getting that vital touch for your wedding theme should also be written on top of your list! If you want a dramatic wedding scene, warmer tones may be used. If you want a bright yet cinematic mood, you can adjust up your lighting to your desired liking. But natural light alone won’t help you achieve and set up that ambiance. Adjusting these settings on the spot would still be possible with the help of a reliable team of technical lighting engineers.

 Note that some people may think that event lighting only matters on finished productions such as digital photos and videos. However, sometimes weddings get emotional or really bright and people’s emotions connect with what surrounds them and lighting surely brings out the desired mood and help touch people’s emotions. It makes a huge difference on the overall ambiance of your wedding. 

Lighting as a great story teller

Same-day-edits for wedding videos are common today. Your photographers and videographers would absolutely prefer on point lighting to capture the best moments. Lighting is a very crucial detail in taking good photos and videos. When you want your shot to speak and story-tell, lighting plays a subtle yet powerful role. Poor lighting can easily distract your audience by missing some important points and angles throughout your shots.

We take pride in the events we have produced over the years, not just on weddings  but on any type of event such as company conferences, music festivals, live streaming events and many more. Being in the business for more than 10 years now, The Sound & Light Hire Company is a trusted event equipment supplier with an in-house inventory of not just sound and lighting but acquires the latest white LED dance floor, AV projectors and even special effects equipment. Here are the detailed services we offer that will definitely add life to your next event https://www.truesoundhire.co.uk/event-production-services/

Technicalities with Lighting

Different terms have been going around within the lighting industry which you may or may not have heard of. Terms for LED lights such as beam lights and wash lights are common in wedding lighting production. Both types have different stroke emissions which give off a whole different vibe separately. A beam light will be more like a straight column of light that might appear sharper, while a wash will have more spread and is more subtle. Even these tiniest details have major impact in setting the tone of the outcome. There may be no rule as to which is best to use because it all depends on the setting you wish to achieve. Another technical aspect worth considering is water proof lighting. This is really important for outdoor settings. Don’t hire a company that can’t provide you with waterproof lighting. Sudden weather changes cannot be avoided that is why it is best to be prepared rather than scrambling down to gather the equipment to avoid possible disaster during your event. 

Lastly, you may also consider your hired event production company’s RGB LED. LEDs use red, blue and green in order to mix to millions of different colors. RGB LEDs work fine to mix too many colors, but do not have a lot of control over hue. Today, RGBW works better compared to RGB LEDs. With the addition of white LEDs, it gives far more color control, and makes achieving brilliant pastels a viable option. The white LEDs also help to bridge the spectrum gap between colors, making a far larger variety of colors possible. 

Furthermore, if you wish to make your wedding a little extra than usual, The Sound & Light Hire Company also offers not just LED uplighting but laser lights as well. And to top it all off, we also stock top of the line DJ equipment for DJ’s from Pioneer CDJ’s, Allen & Heath Mixers to Mackie monitors that will definitely make your wedding more memorable.

Choosing the best lighting production company

A list of considerable facts should be put into mind in choosing the best lighting production company for your wedding. Choose a company that is flexible and can meet any client’s request. Make sure they offer a variety of high-operating equipment and up-to-date technology. Convenience should be considered as well. You would want to hire those who can pick up, deliver and set up for you in no time. Ensure that they offer a reasonable and satisfactory rate. With the above given technicalities, be mindful of the specifics included and be ready to choose the production team that would willingly adjust to your taste!

You can find all these top-tier lighting production qualities from London and Surrey’s most trusted sound and lighting hire company. Here, we provide complete lighting and sound packages best for weddings and any other occasion. All you need to do is put your worries aside because we got you covered! Call us today and let’s make your dream wedding come to life.

The Sound & Light Hire Company Discuss The Past, Present & Future In The Events Industry

The Sound & Light Hire Company Logo

The Sound & Light Hire Company Logo

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!

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

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

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