Tag: sound systems

Business conference event

Site visit for designing event production!

This blog outlines some key aspects that you should consider when doing a site visit for your next event. Choosing the right venue or site for your upcoming event is one of the most crucial steps of any event.

We are involved in event production and mostly liaise with organisers when the site has been confirmed. Most organizers are unaware of the venue constraints until we start looking into the production requirements.

Choosing a venue with a high number of constraints can easily blow out any production budget, we also acknowledge that nobody likes to go over budget!
If you wish to stay within the budget allowance, I outline some basic technical elements that you should consider on your next site visit.

Technical considerations during a site visit –

Power

Without sufficient power, there isn’t a suitable production! The term sufficient is dependent on the scale of your event, smaller events can possibly get by with few 240V circuits, medium to large events will require 3phase power and sometimes multiple 3phase outlets.

It is normal to hire generators for events; however, you can reduce the running costs of an event if a portion of the power (if not all) is provided by the venue/site itself.

 

Loading area’s and parking

One of the biggest drivers of cost to any production is labour.

If you put on your ‘Bump-In/out’ hat (crew’s POV) for this, you will quickly realise, the easier the access to the event area the less time it is to get the equipment from the truck to the event area. The closer the loading zone to the space, the shorter the distance.

Essentially as an event organiser, you can save big on labour costs when you think like this during the site visit.
Also consider obstacles such as stairs, lifts, no dedicated loading zones, and no car parking.

 

Production design vs Venue constraints 

This is a common challenge in galleries but it is definitely not limited to just galleries. Most AV aspects can be tweaked to suit the site, when we consider projection, there is very little wiggle room. There are set parameters to work within, if the space has not considered the guidelines during the planning stages.  It is unlikely that you will achieve the desired outcome.

These parameters are dependent on many variables and are based on your event requirements. If there is an element of projection in your event, general things to consider should be –

  1. Competing light in the room
  2. Distance (from the projector to screen)
  3. Projection size (size of the image)

 

Off course there are many other things your production company will need to consider once the production requirements have been locked down. However, considering the above during initial planning stages can leave you pretty close to your desired outcome and with some spare pocket change, they will end up being fairly deep pockets too!

I hope this post helps you get better prepared for the next site visit!
If you need further assistance feel free to call RTR Productions! We can provide technical advice, production design, audio production, staging designs, and temporary structures/Rigs services.

Before I end this blog, below are some general things event planners often forget to clarify upfront.

General considerations during a site visit –

  1. Venue operating times
    • Make sure the production company bump-in/out during the allocated times.
  2. Request for site floor plans
    • Forward this to your production company at the very start, helps us quote for things accurately.
  3. Storage areas
    • We need a place to store our road cases.
  4. Essential tools for your next site visit.
    •  Get yourself a laser tape. That’s what we used to measure up the very uneven floor at Fed Square, check out this link to see the structure    http://staging4.rtrproductions.com.au/pop-up-structures-for-events you can buy one here quite cheaply
    • https://www.totaltools.com.au/109223-leica-disto-d2-100m-laser-distance-measurer-lg837031

    • Leica D2 in action during our site visit for designing an event production .
Stage set up from the In-House AV company, RTR Productions at at Encore St Kilda

AV company In-house in a venue Pros and Cons

Benefits and disadvantages of using an  In-house av company in a venue

3 nights ago I bumped into my old friend Claudio in a restaurant in Hoi An, Vietnam. (Yes, I’m on holiday and I love Vietnam and the Vietnamese people!)

After all the standard catching up questions, “how is your mum”, “is your daughter going to school”, how old is your wife.. (what? Claudio said, she looks sooo much younger than you!!!.. Yes thanks Claudio!!) Claudio asked me a question about In-house AV companies in Venues.

Claudio owns a small AV production company in Milan, Italy.

So Cris, what do you think about the pros and cons of In-house AV companies in hotels, function centres and Wedding venues?

I had to think about it for a couple of minutes as I wasn’t 100% sure.

Here is more or less what I came up with.

The benefit for the venue is that they deal with a company they know very well and because of that, they can trust that company to set up and meet all the venue standards and requirement without need of any of the venue staff to spend time answering questions and overlooking the setup.

Another benefit for the venue is that the In-house AV company has normally an account manager that deals with all the questions related to the event and knows the venue very well.

There could also be some financial benefit for the venue, but let’s overlook this point.

As per the final client, the benefits would be first of all to have one supplier to deal with (or at least 2 suppliers that are on the same page) instead of two suppliers with no affiliations to each other. Another benefit could be that the standard package set up meets the requirements for the client and that means less time spent organizing where projectors, stage and speakers would be best set up for the event.

As per the cons what I can think of, is that to achieve a great and flexible set up in a venue could be very costly for the In-house AV company and they will rely on the venue to “sell” their services to their clients. As per the venue they want to make sure that they choose a professional AV company that does not only do in-house event but also event productions so at any time they would be able to satisfy any request from the client for custom set-ups, extra last-minute gear or a totally different set up from what is on offer as a standard in-house package as they will have stock and knowledge on how to set up and run a successful event outside of that particular venue.

As per the client, the cons could be a more expensive option as the cost of labour will increase. (be aware that this may not be true in some venues, so do your own research).

Another downside could be that if the client hires a “Non-professional” company the venue could be very frustrated with issues like Test and Tag etc etc and the event could suffer, but this is also true for every event in and out from venues.

 

In conclusion, I think you have to do your research and weigh the pros and cons but one thing is clear, make sure you employ a professional AV company as your event depends on it…

 

By the way, this conversation with my friend Claudio was in Italian, so I may have missed or suggested something a little different to him but that’s ok I’m sure he got the idea.

 

Here is an example of RTR In-house AV venue, Encore St Kilda a premier venue on St Kilda Beach.

https://encorestkilda.com.au/

BMW launch
RTR Productions the In-House AV company at Encore St Kilda helps BMW launch the latest cars

And here is another read with regards to stage and sound systems, if you have a spare 5 minutes:

http://staging4.rtrproductions.com.au/speakers-facing-band

 

At RTR Productions we can help with your event or venue set up. For over 15 years we have supplied staging, audio, visual and lighting to the entertainment industry.

 

Claudio, thanks for dinner, was great seeing you again…. and BTW my wife is 1 year and 1 month older than me!!!

Smoke vs Haze:difference and which to use and where

Smoke vs haze: difference and which one to use where?

 

Haze and smoke over the years have been used in events to maximize the effects of lighting and lighting beams. In the old days with fix lighting fixture the haze or smoke created a nice effect and was somewhat important to create the atmosphere and improve the light effect. In recent years where moving lights are used throughout most events, the effect created by the smoke or haze is so much more pronounced and outstanding and the moving light beam can be much more visible.

 

I won’t go into too much detail on how from the technical point of view the fog machine is different from a hazer machine and how it vaporizes the fluid with heats rather than use a compression chamber as the hazer does, but if you want more technical explanation check out this link from the great Wiki…  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haze_machine

 

Hazer. These machines are quite common throughout the events and live productions / hire companies. There are entry-level units that normally are ok for small events / small rooms or small stages. Once you step up to bigger events you also would have the need to step up to professional, high output Haze machines. Sometimes we also use haze machines for big outdoor stages but we normally tend to use multiple units on the same stage as the wind is an enemy of haze.

 

Fog machine. These units have been around for a very long time and have been over the years cheaper and cheaper to buy, however, there are quite big differences between professional units and “ consumer” units. One major difference, in my opinion, is the warm-up time and the reheat time where the unit needs to go back to a certain temperature before it can pump out smoke again, which could cause issues when you have specific cues to follow in an event… can you imagine the main act coming out from backstage and you trying to pump out smoke and the machine is in re-heat mode!!!!  That’s one way to annoy the client and piss off the performer and you know what I think about keeping the performers happy… you can check my previous article, follow this link http://staging4.rtrproductions.com.au/speakers-facing-band

Using professional smoke machines, means you overcome this problem as most of them don’t have gaps in re-heat which means continuous smoke distribution and happier clients. Other differences are, more smoke, faster outputs, DMX control not only remote, self-cleaning cycle when the unit is turned off and overall peace of mind that the unit works when you want it to!

 

On a quick note, I suggest you use water base fluids for both machines as in my opinion they are better for the environment, people and equipment than oil-based fluids.

 

This is Paul, looking for the light beam, with some smoke he would have found it straight away.

 

Paul lighting

You can use a combination of each, the hazer to keep a continuous haze/mist of smoke over the stage or dance floor so the light beams look awesome and the smoke to accentuate some special situations like songs, part of songs, special light effects etc.

In short, I would say that I normally use Hazers to create atmosphere and smoke machines as a special effect….. And of course you can argue that you prefer dry ice special effect or the faze effect which is more cost-effective, but this is a discussion for next time… till then…. I see you later unless you just turned on your smoke machine at full blast and you can’t see past your nose…. Ciao

 

Photo of stage lights with smoke fx

stage band

 

Sound systems, Concerts and Ear Plugs.

Sound systems and ear plugs at a concert, a personal point of view.

A couple of weeks ago I went to The Prodigy (BTW I started writing this blog on the weekend and yesterday I got the news that Keith Flint died.. Really bloody sorry, he was an awesome performer!) concert in Melbourne, was awesome, brought back some memories… here a quick link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcE7ti-68mk

It really amazes me when I see people at a concert with those cheap foam ear plugs that you can buy at a service station. Those earplugs I think are designed to make the music/noise softer, (I guess that’s the result they want) but also muffled. Leave those for sleeping or for when you have a 2 months old crying baby.

I totally agree that hearing loss is something you want to avoid.

Here is a link to some very helpful notes from the Ear Science Institute of Australia. (I think they know a thing or two about it)

https://www.earscience.org.au/lions-hearing/hearing-loss

Music at a concert can reach above 110 decibels, I know, I’ve been to few in my life, also I’ve been setting up sound systems, Stages and lighting rigs for many years. Soundcheck sometimes can be worse than the actual concert. Some sound engineers, love to turn up the sound system to 11 (yes I’ve watched Spinal Tap once or twice) just to make sure that if the speakers, amplifiers or processors have any issues, it will show before the show….(see what I did there?).   At 110 decibels and over, hearing loss can happen after only a few minutes of exposure.

Here a link to a Decibel scale example

.http://www.industrialnoisecontrol.com/comparative-noise-examples.htm

The more time you are exposed to these kinds of levels the more chance you have to get permanent hearing loss.

So if you like to go to concerts like I do and you want to get the best sound possible but are concerned about hearing loss, invest a couple of bucks in some dissent earplugs.

Here is a cheap but ok Ear Plugs option

And here is a more expensive Ear Plugs option

 

High-Fidelity Electronic Musicians Earplugs

BTW, last but not least, it would be a shame for the Sound production company to invest so much money in better speakers, Amplifiers, Microphones, Lighting etc and for the sound engineer and the artist to spend so much time to make sure the sound is great if people turn up with foam ear plugs……..

Big sound systems, loud and clear… unfortunate if you use cheap foam ear plugs.   Setting up a stage lighting and sound equipment before the concert

A piece of RTR history available for sale

Rent the Rig (now operating as RTR Productions) are selling the “RIG” that started it all. This monster rig was built by Noise Control UK and bought out to Australia about 15 years ago. The system comprises of 4 x Double 15″ W-bins and 6 x MH cabinets 10″ with 3″ HF. The boxes come unloaded but the sales includes 6 x B&C DE 82-8 drivers with horn flares, 4 x 10″ RCF L10-750YK Drivers & 2 x 10″ JBL 2123H drivers. The bottoms include no drivers.

Available for inspection by appointment at RTR Productions, Brunswick East this system was used for years as a warehouse/outdoor rig and is looking for a new home.

Serious offers only. Contact RTR on 9381 0530.