Whether your wedding is going to be outdoors or in a lavish banquet hall, ensuring your guests are able to hear the goings-on of the evening is very important. Unless you have confirmed for yourself the acoustics of the venue, it’s strongly recommended that you consider hiring a PA system.

From the ceremony, with vows you painstakingly wrote yourselves to the speeches, to the DJ informing people “what’s next”, you’ll want to ensure that people can hear everything.

Imagine the stir you’ll cause if the DJ says, “And now it’s time for Mr. and Mrs. Paddington Bear to share their first dance as husband and wife” but what your guests hear is, “And now it’s time for Mr. and Mrs. Paddington Bear to remove his pants as husband and wife?”

If you are laughing or worse than that, you are gasping and feel anything from embarrassment to outrage, it’s sadly not a joke. Blunders such as this and others, which are far more risqué, have been the result of a bridal couple who’ve omitted the hiring of a PA system.

And this is not always due to your older guests whose hearing aids haven’t been checked in a while. This can happen whether your friends and family are 8 or 80, if you’ve not properly seen to their ability to hear things well.

There is such a simple solution, and thankfully, it’s neither expensive nor is it cumbersome to set up. Among the many items you’ll want to consider hiring for your big day is a PA system. For large and small events, both indoor and outdoor ones alike, you can get the appropriate size system for your wedding.

If you are uncomfortable deciding where to place the speakers, be it for inside or out, you can ask the sales consultant at the hire company where it’s best to do this. He or she will have a lot more experience, having set up dozens, if not hundreds of events and can advise you.

With relatively little effort, you can ensure that nobody will miss a single moment of your special day.

Fewer things are more frustrating than attending a wedding and being unable to hear everything from the vows being exchanged to the speeches being made. Indeed you don’t want to go so far as to interrupt the ceremony and get the attention of the bride and groom, who are apparently oblivious that their eloquent and personalized promises are completely inaudible.

However, you do find yourself asking the person next to you whether she can hear any better than you can. Having received confirmation that you will not have to make an appointment with the audiologist in the morning, you decide to take out your knitting and complete the sweater you started yesterday.

However, several others are now asking his or her neighbour the question, “Am I deaf or are they whispering?” Within minutes this is causing a bit of a “buzz”, as the guests who have come to witness the wedding, unable to hear the bridal couple or officiant, are now louder than the ceremony they came to be a part of.

This sounds like a nightmare, doesn’t it? Sadly, this is what happens when the happy couple have either overlooked or in an effort to save money, omitted the hiring of a PA system. This is a rather unfortunate but realistic consequence of what happens when this important detail is left off the planning list.

Think of how often you have been to an outdoor event or a service at your Church, Synagogue or Mosque and been unable to hear the religious leader giving his or her sermon. How are you supposed to nod in agreement, follow the wisdom and comment on it later if you have no idea what was said? Did you go to someone, anyone, and suggest they buy a PA system?

If you have any hope of your loved ones hearing and understanding the vows it took you months to write, and you can’t confirm the acoustics of your venue, it’s best to just hire a PA system.

This is neither costly nor difficult to set up. In fact, they’re so easy to assemble, that one no longer needs to be an audio engineer to do so.

Spare your family and friends the call to their doctor to set an appointment for a hearing test. They’ll appreciate it and hey, you just may find many guests complimenting the lovely prose you composed.

How often have you been to a wedding and sat glued to your seat? Maybe it was the music that was boring, the DJ’s inability to get people excited or the bandleader continually hit a sour note with his cheap lounge act. Perhaps one of the worst things, next to having a stray drunk relative in attendance, is entertainment that makes guests wish they’d stayed home.

There are some simple ways to avoid people using your wedding as a punch line to a very bad joke. If your goal is to ensure people have fun, dance a lot and talk about you with a big smile on their faces, fire the “lounge lizard” and hire a real band.

A dazzling band worth its weight in gold will have a huge repertoire from which to choose. Meet with a few them and hear samples of their music and also get a sense of the singer’s personality. If her delivery with jokes is well timed and makes you laugh, this is a band that will be able to provide a lot of fun. They can perhaps perform everything from the latest pop to the hottest groove-infused dance hall music to the 70s disco you remember hearing as a kid, but if they’re boring doing it, what’s the point?

Two things should help you make up your mind when considering between two or three bands. How busy is the band? If the band is booked solid every weekend and they’re waitlisted, just in case the couple cancels, this is a great sign. If they’re attending ping-pong tournaments every weekend, instead, you might wish to look elsewhere.

Ask if you can attend one or two of their weddings. Provided the bride and groom have no problem with the band’s “audition”, assuming you stand off to the side, and promise not to mingle, you can make up your mind within half an hour, once the music gets going. Then you can slip out the back, unless the bride asks you to stay and have a good time.

Once you’ve determined which band you want to hire, be sure to be specific about the songs you want to hear. By all means, if you aren’t as savvy about today’s hits but know more about the “latest” from Beethoven, you might wish to enlist your cousin, brother or best friend for his or her assistance during this process.

If it’s not already obvious, providing entertainment that’s well, not entertaining, is worse than not providing any at all.

Quite frankly, part of the draw for many people to attend your wedding will be the entertainment you provide them. While it’s true that guests love hearing people exchange vows and promise to love and honour from this day forward, that’s a small part of the day. Given that ceremonies tend to last anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour and a half, and the reception can last into the wee hours, providing fun is very important.

Part of ensuring that everyone will have a great time, which they’ll be talking about around the cooler the following Monday, is up to you. Even if your wedding is going to be traditional in nature, meaning that you’re following the customs of your culture, you can still make it pop and stand out.

A Band or a DJ?

This is a very difficult question to answer. The question really is, who is more exciting, the bandleader or the DJ whom you’re considering? If the band and the singer think they’ve been hired just to perform the latest “top 40 hits” without regard for being witty or leading the day’s events, forget it! You’d be better served paying your 4-year old nephew a lifetime supply of lollipops and letting him emcee.

A band, and its leader are supposed to be as funny and fun as they are musically inclined. Before hiring one, ask for references and query them closely about their “wow” factor. If clients say, “Well, apart from the music they played, which was fun and relevant, they were boring”, you’ll want to reconsider your nephew’s virtues.

If however, if people rave and say, “They were fantastic! Everybody was dancing and when they weren’t, they were laughing or running to the singer to suggest songs”, well, now you’ve got a band who can give your nephew a run for his lollipops.

When weighing the decision to hire a DJ, the criteria ought to be the same. Can he or she keep your guests “pumped” and running to the dance floor or glued to their seats? The personality of a DJ can run from monotone and ho hum to one you swear you’ve heard in your favourite comedy club.

Unless you’re hiring a wedding planner who will have a “script” to follow essentially, your DJ should be able to perform the same job. He will have spun records at many a wedding and be able to, with eyes closed and hands tied behind his back, direct the order of events.

If getting people to sit around the cooler and talk about your wedding and use words like, “fun”, “great music”, “exciting”, “the best wedding I’ve been to in years”, providing the right wedding entertainment will “score” you big points!

Have your fiancé and you decided to have an outdoor wedding rather than one in an all-inclusive banquet hall? Indeed, weather permitting, this is a lovely way to express your personalities as you commit to becoming partners for life.

When considering this option, depending how rustic your chosen venue is, you’ll indeed want to consider hiring a stage for your big day.

Floors Aren’t Just For Dancing

Although many people hire a stage to serve as their dance floor, there are many uses for one. Perhaps the two of you have chosen your parents’ estate to get married. Beautiful as this may be, you don’t want to hold your ceremony whilst standing on the lawn.

This is impractical for several reasons. It can be uncomfortable when standing in a pair of 2-3” heels on grass, which can by nature be uneven. You are creating a potentially hazardous situation as you could lose your balance just as you are about to say, “I do”. If said shoes can sink into the ground, even if you manage to avoid harming yourself, your groom and maid of honour, your shoes will have grass stains that will be impossible to launder.

If your ceremony is small enough or if you’ve hired a stage that’s quite large, you can spare your guests the embarrassment of creating the same blunder you wish to avoid, by putting their seats on the stage during your ceremony.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, because you have had the forethought to hire a few coordinators to now arrange the chairs around tables for people to eat their meal on, your stage has gone from being part of the theme to now part of the dining room.

As David Bowie Said, “Let’s Dance!”

Once your best man, father-of-the-bride and slightly tipsy uncle have all toasted the newly married couple with speeches that you wished you’d prepared in advance, your coordinators can now move the tables and chairs and make room for the real party. Now having joined your uncle in forgetting the words of his unintelligible send off, get out the ballet slippers your feet have been begging to slide into all day and kick up your heels!

As you can see, hiring a stage can serve many purposes and turn your outdoor ceremony into a party you’ll remember for years to come – uncle not withstanding, of course!

Planning a wedding is no small feat is it? There are so many details, both large and small, to consider before the two of you can say, “I do” before all of your friends and family.

Having now resolved the bigger planning issues with respect to your upcoming nuptials, including the venue, the food, the entertainment, your dress, the dresses of the bridesmaids and your wedding theme, you can now safely begin concentrating your efforts on some of the smaller but equally important details.

For several reasons, one item you won’t want to leave off the list is a stage. Whether your intention is to have a theme wedding – for example a fusion of both your fiancé and your cultures or religions – or you just want to “dance till the break of dawn”, a stage will convey both class and prevent you from ruining your new bridal shoes.

Hiring a stage is not only easy, but it’s far less expensive than you might imagine. Measured by the square foot, if your space allocated is 20×20 or smaller, no problem. Buying in 12” squares allows you to determine the size of your stage and adhere to your budget at the same time.

Are you having concerns that the parquet dance floor at your cousin’s wedding last month won’t compliment your Choupah or the bright pastel theme you’ve chosen? From stark white to ecru to antique grey to black and beyond, most rental companies offer a variety of colours, including parquet, to choose from.

Often included in the price to hire a stage is the cost to assemble and dissemble after you’ve kicked up your heels one last time as husband and wife.

How do you know a rental company is reputable? When you’ve located a floor that you’d like to hire for your wedding, one easy way to determine the legitimacy of a company is to browse their site and see if they have photos of actual weddings they’ve supplied stages for. Indeed another way to calm any concerns you might have is to see if they offer testimonials. Brides, like other shoppers, if they’re satisfied with a company’s product or service, are happy to share their experience with anyone who is considering the company for a future purchase or hire.

With the advent of summer, it can only mean one thing. The season just opened up for concerts in your local park or amphitheatre. If you are someone who is producing a concert or a series of concerts for the first time, with less effort that you might imagine, you can have a hit on your hands.

There are some basic elements to follow to ensure your audience is bopping their heads, tapping their feet and even dancing to the rhythms.

Bands that will Draw a Crowd

You’ll indeed want to do your homework to determine what style of music works best in your hometown. Assuming that you’re not looking into hiring a 40-piece orchestra to play Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, hiring several local bands will be a fairly easy coup for you.

Lighting

If your event is taking place during the day, there’s an expense you’ve saved yourself. There’s certainly nothing more powerful or that offers more natural lighting the Sun in all her glory

If however, your concert runs into the wee hours, you’ll want to invest in either hiring or owning a lighting system. Yours will want to include at least front, spotlights, floodlights and rear lighting.

The floodlights help bring life to your stage, while the front lights give definition to the band and the spotlights accentuate a particular member, usually the lead singer. Although you can do without the rear lighting, they help add effects to the stage and its performers.

If your budget allows it, adding coloured lights will give you drama that you might not otherwise achieve with white lights.

There’s no one way to use lighting. Indeed a lighting engineer might argue this point, but, as an amateur, by all means, mix it up. The audience is no more expecting a Broadway production of Phantom of the Opera then they are Lady Gaga.

Sound

Acoustics are as important to your concert as lighting is. Why bother going to all the trouble of making something that’s visually spectacular but falls flat because only the first two rows of people can hear it?

Whether your concert is meant to be heard by 50 or 500, adding a PA system will ensure that everyone is bopping, tapping and dancing to the music.

Oh, Yes, People!

There’s no worse feeling than getting the right bands, the perfect lighting and ensuring that everyone in the audience can hear it and you have but five people listening.

Advertising is the best way to spread the word. If you have a local newspaper that you know people read, this is one way. Another way is to produce a commercial to be broadcast on the radio. However this is quite costly.

Alternatively, you can post the date(s) on your website and use search engine optimization to draw traffic to it.

Whatever method(s) you employ, with all the effort you are putting into your concert, it will surely be a success!

There are many components that go into organizing an outdoor concert. To make the most of your event, you’ll not want to miss a single step.

If you think you can plan a concert in August and June is nearly over, you may be quite challenged to pull it off. Summer is “prime time” for venues, be they outdoor or indoor. They book months in advance. In some cases, as a company is closing last year’s event, they’re already putting a deposit down for the following year.

Assuming you have been successful at booking the park or arena you desire, now the real work begins.

You’ll need a plenty of money to have a successful concert. If you lack the funds necessary, you can always raise it by soliciting local businesses or offer to barter services. It’s better to have raised too much rather than falling short just before your event.

Local bands want nothing more than to be featured in your concert. You’ll have no shortage of talented musicians to choose from. The difficult part will be weeding them out. Many will be happy to do this for free, knowing that they’re gaining exposure and others may require a nominal fee, perhaps expenses getting to and from.

If your concert is during the day, you can forgo the lighting, however sound will be important regardless what time your band starts playing. Both lighting and sound systems can be hired by a local company, or if you’ve been considering doing this for a while, you may already own one. If you “go cheap” in other areas, be sure not to skimp on your sound. Audiences are very forgiving if the lead singer’s face was pink the entire concert, but if he or she can’t be heard or there’s a lot of reverberation, you’ll be run out town quickly!

Check with your local government office which permits are required to put on your event. They may also be able to advise you whether insurance is appropriate or if the city covers it.

You needn’t go to the fuss of booking professional vendors unless you desire to do so. Instead, ensure that at the very least, you’re providing water and refreshments. If the concert is booked for 6 hours or more, if you haven’t got food available, people will meander in and out as their stomachs direct them to do so.

It’s never a bad idea to hire security for an outdoor event. Even if all you’ve done is ask your cousin, uncle, next door neighbour and the local bouncer at your favourite nightclub, it’s something.

As the saying goes, “build it and they will come!” If you promote your concert, people will show up. Placing adverts in your local paper, posting flyers and word of mouth are all excellent ways to get the word out.

Last but surely not least is:

Enjoy yourself!

Things to Consider As You Speaker Hire

Speakers are an essential part of any sound system, and you may need to hire them separately to complete your sound equipment collection. There are different kinds of speakers for hire which have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Active speakers, Advantages and Disadvantages

The first type of speaker is active speakers, which refer to those which have built-in amplifiers. These speakers are quite pricey for hire because they are usually of the latest technology and brands. Active speakers have several benefits.

You will have less speaker cables to deal with because the amp is built in, so setting up is a bit easier. Another advantage is that the speaker and amp are from the same manufacturer, which matches the quality of the sound. There is less work needed to use active speakers because all you need to know is the frequency that the speakers can handle.

Active speakers have a few demerits, one of which is that they are heavier than other types of speakers. The inbuilt amplifier makes the speaker bulky, and you will need to take special care when transporting and mounting them.

Passive speakers, Advantages and Disadvantages

The other type of speaker available for hire is passive speakers. These do not have the amplifier built in, so you will need to include the amp in the hiring package. Passive speakers are cheaper to hire as compared to active speakers.

Since the speaker and amp are separate, passive speakers are lighter to handle. They are also more flexible because you do not need an amp for every speaker, which gives you more room to alter the speaker arrangements.

However, this is also a great disadvantage because you will need to look for matching amplifiers for your speakers. You need to find amps from the same manufacturer, RMS rating and power output. This requires you to have more extensive knowledge about speakers, amps and manufacturers in order to get the right combination.

These are the basic types of speakers that you will encounter when looking to hire. Different manufacturers will provide their own unique features, and the more high-tech the speakers are, the more expensive they will be to hire. Keep these tips in mind as you choose speakers for hire.

When you want to hire a sound system for your event, there are a number of things you need to check. The following is a basic checklist that you can use to get the best value for your money, and the best sound system to suit your needs.

1. Check the terms of hire

Before hiring a sound system from any provider, make sure that you understand and agree with the terms of hiring the equipment. This includes the specific equipment included in the package, the time you will be hiring it for, how much it will cost and who takes care of any damages to the sound system. If you agree with all these terms, you will get exactly what you paid for and avoid any losses.

2. Insurance for the sound system company

Depending on the venue at which your event will take place, you will need insurance for the sound system. It is important because the insurance will protect not only the equipment but also the audience and the venue. Make sure that the insurance coverage is suitable to the type of event you are planning.

3. Electrical safety

Sound systems are electrical equipment that require to be checked for safety standards. You should always check for a certificate that shows that the sound system has been tested and approved to operate without putting you at risk. You will need to present this certificate to the owners of the venue for your event, as they will need to verify the safety standards of the equipment.

4. Setting up is done by professionals

Your sound system should only be set up and uninstalled by qualified people who know how to handle the electrical equipment. The sound system hire company should provide personnel that are experienced in setting up sound systems to save you time and risks involved.

These 4 things are essential to sound system hire, so you should always check on them every time you have an event that requires hiring equipment. Should anything go wrong in your event, the above precautions will have you covered, so you will get the best equipment for your party.