This February half term we provided an LED wall to Banbury Operatic Society, who performed their run of Ghost the Musical at Wykham Theatre, Banbury.

Making use of the video wall enabled quick scene changes, as well as dynamic environments – the train actually pulled in to the station during the scene – and adding slight movement to backgrounds, making the scenes feel more alive.

We’re very happy to supply lighting, video wall and screens, as well as radio mics to amateur and semi-professional theatrical and operatic groups, developing relationships with organisers to ensure cost-effective and relevant equipment hires and support.

The new year got off to a strong start, with events at The Museum Of English Rural Life (Reading), Horticulture House (Didcot) and Green Park (Reading) among the winter line-up.

MERL hosted Real-time Video (real-time.org.uk), our long time video partners, with the presentation of their project Digital Dig.

We also expanded our local conference venue engagement, supporting a national meeting at the local to us Horticulture House. Providing a PA system, as well as managing remote speakers, we were very happy to meet another great local venue.

Our new Sennheiser digital microphone rack has been in use near constantly – providing upto 5 lapel mics and 2 handheld radio mics for hire in a smart and self-contained rack. Making use of the new rechargeable battery packs helps to reduce our chemical battery wastage, as well as with the rest of the system providing a new level of control and quality to every event we support.

We’re very happy to kick off the new year returning to Green Park in Reading, providing support for a hybrid conference for NHS providers.

Making use of microphones on each table, two PTZ cameras, a Vmix rack and various laptops, we enabled a hybrid local/Teams meeting, allowing every delegate to contribute either remote or in person.

This week we were asked to add a streaming option for an over-subscribed event showcasing dance schools around Reading.

Making use of our NDI PTZ cameras, we quickly added a remote control camera behind the seating area, with control being run from the backstage area.

Playback to a remote audience of dance competitions always runs in to copyright issues with the music, so we opted for an embedded zoom meeting, which was hosted on av-events.co.uk.

This allowed guests to engage in a zoom meeting across platforms without needing to log in to zoom separately, while ensuring that streaming would not be copyright-struck. The event went well, with control via VMix and playback from QLab. The recording of the event was clipped and uploaded the following morning, before being made available on the customer’s website within 24 hours.

In between supporting our large screens all out for the World Cup, we also started supporting the conference centre and Green Park, Reading.

The day included speakers from Reading University, Reading Borough Council, Natwest and many more, all speaking on the impact and changes businesses can make with regards to climate change.

We were joined by our good colleagues at Real Time Video, who filmed the event throughout, including cutaways and interviews with the presenters and delegates.

This marks the first of our days supporting events at Green Park, with more many to come.

One of our regular bookings is to support a membership and CPD conference near Worcester. Providing a PA system, radio mics, projection and screen, as well as extra lighting for a dinner, this is one of our affordable packages we offer to a number of similar membership organisations.

We always work with customers, old and new, to provide competent and suitable support to events of any size, working within budgets as required.

We always enjoy working with some of the more diverse local groups, and last night’s Queer and Trans Cabaret show was no different. Making use of our NDI and PoE cameras, controlled via Vmix, we made short work of capturing and editing a three-camera shoot capturing all the glamour and talent on show.

Reading Rep theatre is a great space to work in, and one we are happy to return to time and again.

In September some our LED screen was sub-hired out for use at Kensington Palace, providing media playback for Save the Children. HRH The Princess Royal gave a speech in front of our backdrop, in her role as chair of the organisation.

Our outdoor LED screen had to be turned down to 8% brightness for use indoors, and it certainly was still bright enough!

This week we tested our LED uplighters at Forbury Gardens in Reading, ahead of supporting the Christmas Event to be run by Reading Central & Abbey Quarter BIDs.

We’ve been working away supporting customers across the country recently, however we’d like to present our top tips for presenting on a video call:

These tips were provided by us to Reading Culture Live – a local artist media platform we have been supporting throughout lockdown.

Pick your location –

A strong internet connection is vital. A desktop with a wired connection is preferable, but a laptop on wifi will work, however please don’t site yourself too far from the router.

Pick your backdrop –

You will be seen by hundreds of people live, and recorded to a website. The background of your webcam shot should be uncluttered, or relevant to the talk you are giving. Also please remove any private or personal items – again, this view of potentially your house will be made public for ever.

Height –

Try to get the webcam positioned on an even level with your eye line.

Lighting –

Ideally you should face a window, or face the middle of the room if you have a central light fitting. Being lit from behind or the side will cast your face in shadow.

Sound –

You should be able to be heard clearly. This is normally not a problem, but do try to speak loudly and clearly to the room, as though your audience were present.

Presentations –

Are you intending to share an image, website, audio, or powerpoint? Please inform your technical team so that this can be checked in advance. If you are the technical team, then organise a dummy run and make sure that when you share your screen, you don’t accidentally share your 90 day body coach images instead.

Panel sessions and Q&A –

You may be invited to a panel or Q&A session. If asked, please keep your mic muted during other people’s sessions. During a panel, it is likely that all panellists will have their microphones live. In which case, please turn your computer volume down, or use headphones, so that other speakers are not picked up in a loop through your microphone.

Video on/off –

Depending on the setup for a session, you may be asked to join a meeting and wait while someone else speaks first. In this circumstance, you may be asked to turn your video off, and then to restart it when you session begins. Please familiarise yourself with how to turn your video and microphone on and off.

If you think there is something we can do to help with your remote project, please do drop us an email or phone call and we would be happy to help.