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!
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