Author: Darren Hughes
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Wedding sound system checklist: what to ask your hire company
When you hire sound for a wedding, the questions you ask up front decide whether the day runs smoothly or whether you spend the morning of the wedding fighting a microphone. The good news is that there are only a handful of questions that matter, and a decent hire company will answer all of them…
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Behind the scenes: AV production for the UEFA Under-19 Championship Finals Draw
A finals draw for a UEFA tournament is live, international, and unforgiving. There is no second take. It was one of the highest-profile pieces of event production Wrexham had seen, and the venue we were asked to do it in was a lecture theatre at Wrexham University, a room never designed for an event of…
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What we learned from delivering AV production for the UEFA Under-19 Finals Draw
Delivering the AV production for the UEFA Under-19 Championship Finals Draw was one of the proudest jobs we have done. It went out live, internationally, without a hitch. But the more useful thing to share is not the result, it is what the job confirmed about how good events actually get made. We told the…
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Sports presentation AV: what separates a great matchday atmosphere from a mediocre one
Two grounds can have the same crowd, the same fixture, and the same weather, and feel completely different. One crackles with energy from the moment the gates open. The other feels flat no matter what happens on the pitch. The difference is very often the sports presentation AV, and most of it comes down to…
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Sound system installation for pubs and bars: what to expect, what to budget, and what to avoid
By the time we get called into a lot of pub and bar jobs, the cabling is already in. And it is already too thin. That one detail, decided early by the wrong person, quietly limits everything that follows. So before we talk about what a good sound system installation in North Wales looks like,…
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Sound for a choir that sells out York Minster: what live choral AV actually involves
We do the sound for Johns’ Boys, who are probably the largest male voice choir in the UK right now. They were on Britain’s Got Talent a few years ago, and these days they sell out everywhere they go: York Minster, Chester Cathedral, St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, the Wexford Opera House, theatres in London,…
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What size PA system do you actually need for an outdoor festival?
The first question I ask any outdoor festival client is not about speakers at all. It is: what is your wet weather plan? That tends to surprise people. But choosing a PA system for an outdoor festival is never just about the size of the PA. It is about the field, the crowd, the power,…
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PA hire vs full event production: which do you need?
One of the most useful questions you can ask before an event comes down to PA hire vs event production: do I need to hire some kit, or do I need a production company? Get that right and you save money and stress. Get it wrong in either direction and you either overspend or end…
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Outdoor event production in North Wales: kit, power, and logistics
Outdoor event production in North Wales lives and dies by the things people do not see. The speakers get the attention, but it is the weather plan, the ground, the access, and the power that decide whether the day actually works. We do a lot of outdoor work across North Wales, from fields and fun…
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New vs used AV equipment: when to buy new and when second-hand makes sense
Let me start with a cautionary tale. Someone buys a smoke machine off eBay to save a few pounds. It fails. They bring it to a supplier, who asks the only question that matters: where did this come from? Nobody knows its history, so neither the supplier nor the manufacturer can easily help, and the…
More posts
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Wedding sound system checklist: what to ask your hire company
When you hire sound for a wedding, the questions you ask up front decide whether the day runs smoothly or whether you spend the morning of the wedding fighting a microphone. The good news is that there are only a handful of questions that matter, and a decent hire company will answer all of them…
-
Behind the scenes: AV production for the UEFA Under-19 Championship Finals Draw
A finals draw for a UEFA tournament is live, international, and unforgiving. There is no second take. It was one of the highest-profile pieces of event production Wrexham had seen, and the venue we were asked to do it in was a lecture theatre at Wrexham University, a room never designed for an event of…
-
What we learned from delivering AV production for the UEFA Under-19 Finals Draw
Delivering the AV production for the UEFA Under-19 Championship Finals Draw was one of the proudest jobs we have done. It went out live, internationally, without a hitch. But the more useful thing to share is not the result, it is what the job confirmed about how good events actually get made. We told the…