Tag Archive for: AV

Media release – AVPartners has launched a new ultra-wide LED screen at Sofitel Gold Coast Broadbeach

Leading audiovisual company AVPartners has installed a permanent 10.5m LED screen in the ballroom of the Sofitel Gold Coast Broadbeach.

The state-of-the-art ultra-wide screen is over three times larger than a traditional projection screen and displays high resolution imagery, and 4K video accompanied by crystal clear sound.

The only permanent screen of its type in event spaces in the region, the LED screen offers Sofitel Gold Coast Broadbeach customers a very impressive, yet cost effective way to enhance their events at the venue.

To complement the technology, Sofitel Gold Coast Broadbeach has undergone a soft refurbishment.

AVPartners’ Partner at Sofitel Gold Coast Broadbeach, Mitch Tucker, said “The brand new ultra-wide LED screen opens up endless opportunities for us to create spectacular event experiences for our clients. The technology represents the future of corporate events, and we’re thrilled to be able to offer it at Sofitel Gold Coast Broadbeach.”

Director of Sales and Marketing at Sofitel Gold Coast Broadbeach, Christian Wachter, said “AVPartners has truly gone above and beyond to add value to our venue and clients. The new technology further bolsters Sofitel Gold Coast Broadbeach’s reputation as a premier luxury Queensland venue.”

To book an inspection contact Mitch Tucker on +61 (0) 438 160 429.

About AVPartners

AVPartners is a leading provider of audiovisual services to major venues. Combining state-of-the-art audiovisual technology, unrivalled expertise, and a highly-tailored approach, AVPartners delivers unique event experiences. AVPartners innovative business model not only enhances events through the provision of technical production, audio, visual, lighting, rigging, event design and styling, but also improves C&E revenues.

3.104.228.190

About Sofitel Gold Coast Broadbeach

Immerse yourself into Australia’s chic coastal lifestyle at one of the most perfectly situated hotels in Broadbeach. Created with the philosophy that authentic experiences and smart design are vital to today’s global nomad, Sofitel Gold Coast Broadbeach was designed so guests can personally connect with their surroundings and each other in locally inspired luxury, style and sophistication.

Merging a modern, beach-savvy aesthetic with European elegance, Sofitel Gold Coast Broadbeach features beautifully appointed ocean view accommodation and bright, spacious social areas that celebrate the Gold Coast’s brilliant surf and sun. The hotel also features a pair of stunning swimming pools and a Two Chef Hat restaurant, room81 that brings guests and stylish Broadbeach locals together for signature cocktails, cuisine and nightlife experiences.

www.sofitelgoldcoast.com.au

You’re engaged! Now what?

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Getting engaged is an exciting moment! It’s a time filled with joy, love and celebrations. But once the celebrations subside and the dust settles, it’s time to get into serious planning mode. So how can you plan your dream wedding and keep the process as stress-free as possible? The team at Novotel Twin Waters Resort share their tips.

Establish a timeline

The first and most important thing you’ll want to put in place is a timeline for planning your wedding. Your timeline will establish the different stages of planning. It will dictate when you organise different components of the day so that it doesn’t come to the month before the wedding and you still have a tonne of things to plan. Here’s a rough timeline that can help you get started with your wedding prep.

10 – 12 months to go

In the initial stages of planning, you’ll want to establish your budget, pick a date, develop your guest list and lock in your venue. Once you have a venue and guest list in place, send your save the dates.

6 – 8 months to go

Now’s the time to think of a theme for your wedding. Think of the decor, lighting, colours and floral arrangements that you want for the big day. Once you have decided on the style you would like for your wedding, find your vendors and communicate any necessary information they might need for the day. Find a caterer, book your photographer and select the right audiovisual team to create the perfect style for your wedding.

4 – 6 months to go

At the 4 month mark, you’ll want to have your transportation organised. Pick your celebrant and figure out arrangements with them. Book your music and entertainment, appoint an MC, start organising your invitations and choose your attire for the day.

2 – 4 months to go

Send your invitations, decide on the decorations you would like and prepare the logistics of your ceremony.

1 -2 months to go

Organise your marriage license, confirm your final guest count, prepare speeches and toasts. If it’s a sit down dinner, consider organising a seating plan. Don’t forget to try on your wedding garment to make sure it fits!

1 week to go

Finalise all your transport, guest list and seating plan. Confirm the speaking arrangements with your MC and celebrant and finalise arrangements with your vendors. You should have everything organised by this stage, so it’ll be a matter of finalising all your arrangements and making sure everything is ready for the day.

On the day

Put a friend, family member or wedding planner in charge of keeping the day running smoothly so that you and your partner can spend it enjoying yourselves.

Looking for a stunning location to hold your wedding, with all your planning and styling taken care of? Check out Novotel Twin Waters Weddings & Events.

If you’re looking for an audiovisual team that can create the perfect experience for your wedding day, contact AVPartners today.

How poor sound quality can affect your event

What is an event without sound?

Whether it’s in the form of music, speeches, presentations or more, sound is a crucial part to any event. It’s what informs, educates, and entertains your guests; evoking emotion, cause and action. Without it, you would struggle to get your event message across clearly to your guests.

Microphone mishaps, audio delays, or broken sound are just a few of the sound issues that can occur, and have the ability to make or break your event.

So, how can poor sound quality affect your event?

Your guests

Your guests come to your event expecting to be impressed, so it’s a real let down when things like audio fail to meet their expectations. Poor audio can leave them feeling underwhelmed, and can also give them a negative impression of your business, brand, or event purpose.

Your business or brand

With poor audio, your event message may not have had the desired effect or cut-through with your guests, which can make the whole event feel like a waste of time and resources. It can make you appear under prepared and unprofessional which means that guests will be hesitant to do business with you in future.  

Your team

When people work with you at events – be that employees, volunteers, suppliers, sponsors or vendors – they are putting their faith in you and expect a good outcome. When that doesn’t happen, it can actually make them look bad and hurt their reputation, even if they had nothing to do with the issue.

Your future events

If people weren’t impressed at your last event, it’s unlikely they’ll return to the next one. They may even spread the word about how unimpressed they were which means other people may not attend who weren’t even directly affected by the last event!  

Bottom line is – the result of poor sound quality at your event can have lasting effects.

So, how can you ensure that the sound at your next event is without fault?

Hire a professional audiovisual (AV) team

Without the right expertise, things can and do go wrong. A knowledgeable and experienced AV technician knows how to get the balance right to ensure sound is clear, consistent and at the right volume. They’re also on hand to organise, manage, and control it throughout the entire event.

A great AV technician will make adjustments on their sound board to smooth out variations and distribute a more consistent level of sound from speaker to speaker, or song to song, as your event progresses. They can also tune the sound to combat any complications in the acoustics of the event space and amplify the output signal from the speaker to the loudspeakers at the right volume for your audience.

Hiring an in-house AV team, such as AVPartners, can be a fantastic option as in-house teams know their venues well, can offer you a wealth of knowledge and experience, and can tailor audio options to suit your event.

Contact us today to discuss the sound at your next event.

How to impress with a business dinner

Business dinners are a great way to combine relaxed fun and entertainment with professionalism and networking. They offer guests a chance to mingle, catch up, and learn more about each other in a more casual environment than the office or board meeting scene.  

A business dinner might be planned to celebrate milestones; to thank and recognise clients, customers or staff; to introduce new products, services, or ideas; or simply to continue with long-standing traditions. They offer guests a chance to let their hair down while also cementing your brand identity in their minds.

Some things to keep in mind when planning a business dinner to impress include:

Venue

First things first – a great venue will delight your guests as soon as they arrive. Perhaps the venue is in a gorgeous location, is modern, sleek or awe-inspiring. Ensure your guests enter your business dinner with a smile on their face.

Entertainment

For a business dinner, an engaging or classy choice of entertainment is best, such as a presentation by a motivational speaker, or a smooth and slow band to set the mood.

Catering

Impressive food doesn’t need to be oysters or caviar. Your chosen venue may offer dining specialties that can give your dinner a point of difference. Often, the most impressive options involve presenting tried and true favourites in new ways.

AV and styling

Advances in audiovisual technology mean there are endless ways to inspire guests at a business dinner. From lighting up the tables in your brand colours, to projecting your logo onto the walls – there are no shortage of ways to thrill. Add this to themed styling and decor, and your guests will be talking about this dinner for weeks to come!

Contact us today to start planning your next business dinner!

5 ways to manage your event staff for a successful event

With the many elements that go into the planning, coordination, and delivery of a successful event, it’s little wonder that success is often down to the staff behind the scenes.  

Your event team will be made up of event coordinators, AV technicians, stylists, chefs, hotel staff, food and beverage staff, servers, coat checkers, drivers, parking attendants, ticket-takers and many more – they are the backbone of any good event. The type and size of your event will determine the number and type of staff required, but big or small, all events rely on their staff to run smoothly.

When working with event teams, it’s important to keep your event outcome in mind and consider what each person can bring to the team.

With that in mind, we’ve got a few tips to help you manage your extended event team and ensure you’re all contributing to a seamless and successful event:

Meet them, brief them and designate tasks

Get to know your extended event team. Make sure they know their role, the event message and desired outcome, and what is expected of them.

Offer and accept feedback

Have an open policy for feedback, for you and them. Encourage them to provide suggestions or alert you to problems quickly, and offer them feedback on their tasks. It’s better to know about potential issues sooner rather than later!

Form processes

Create processes for tasks. This will make it so much easier to train or brief someone in that task, and enable them to complete it again and again successfully.

Encourage them to have fun

Events are fun, and just because they can also be a lot of hard work, doesn’t mean your team can’t enjoy themselves in the process. The higher their energy, the more the event atmosphere will benefit, creating a pleasant experience for event guests.

Enjoy yourself!

It is amazing the improved response you will receive if the event team get along with you and enjoy working with you. They will naturally be more inclined to go the extra mile. Which is a win-win for everyone.

At AVPartners, we know how valuable an experienced and reputable event team is to the success of your event. To find out how we can become a critical part of your extended event team, contact us.

Our top tips on lighting for your next event

Often overlooked, lighting is an integral  part of any event. Whether it’s a spotlight on a stage, intelligent pinspot lighting on tables at a gala dinner or your brand’s logo projected onto a feature wall – event lighting is extremely adaptable and impressive.

Not sure how to incorporate lighting into your events? We’ve put together some of our best lighting tips and tricks to help you thrill your event guests!




Lighting can make all the difference at any event

Creative use of the many available lighting technologies can transform the look and feel of an event by enhancing the space, creating a desired ambience in the room and supporting event themes.

There are so many ways in which lighting can be used to make any event feel extraordinary!

 


Colours help to create atmosphere at your event

When deciding on the lighting for your event, it’s important to consider the role that colours play in creating atmosphere.

The colours you choose, be it for your decor or your lighting, say a lot about your event message, brand, and theme.

 

 


Lighting can help you stay within your event budget

Add to the visual appeal of your event by making the most of lighting technology. Clever use of intelligent lighting can completely transform any event space, regardless of size, and make a huge impact.

 

Gobos can make a big difference

Gobos are one of the most striking, versatile yet affordable lighting options. A gobo is essentially a stencil cut out of glass or metal, that is then positioned between a spotlight and the area you want lit, creating a unique projected shape or image. The gobo can be made to project patterns, text, logos, and other special effects, which makes them a great option for promoting brands and products. Check out some of our favourite uses of gobos from our events.

Ready to light up your event? Contact us today!

How to use a social media wall at events

Creating excitement and engagement at events can sometimes be a little tricky, especially if people are burying their faces in their smartphones. So if everyone is using their phones anyway, why not make it part of the event?

A good idea to incorporate smartphones into your event is to have a social media wall, harnessing the power of social apps such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. This gives all attendees the opportunity to participate and be part of the conversation and fun.

What is a social media wall?

A social media wall is effectively a digital screen or screens which display different social media channels and feeds. You can opt to have your social media wall across multiple screens throughout your event, ensuring many people see it, or have one main one as a large feature wall.

How do they work?

Social media walls work by displaying one or more social media channels and feeds, in real time. You could have the Facebook feed of the speaker on there, the Twitter feed for the event hashtag, or the Instagram feed of the event sponsors. The options are endless!

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Make sure you #hashtag

You can create an event hashtag that gives your event attendees a way to be a part of the event, so that their posts, photos and updates appear on the social media wall. It fosters a lot of fun and engagement between attendees, and it won’t be long before they are grouped around the screens, excitedly waiting for their post to be shown!

For this to work effectively, you must have a simple and on brand event hashtag, that your attendees can use on their posts so they can easily be found on the various social media channels. Some examples of event hashtags are: #ANZgala2017 #NewtownFestival #JoandTomWedding

Make sure the hashtag is short enough that it doesn’t use up too many characters (especially for Twitter), and not too obscure that it doesn’t read easily or make sense.

Start conversations

You can utilise a social media wall to ask questions at the event, or spark light debate. All attendees can get involved and post their opinions, ideas or replies simply by using the event hashtag.

Update your attendees

You can also use the social media wall for event updates, keeping everyone in the loop and up to date. This is extremely helpful at large trade shows or festivals where information might change throughout the event.

If you’re keen to maximise engagement and interaction at your next event using social media walls, contact us today!

3 creative ways to use a projector at your next event

Gone are the days when a projector’s main purpose was to light up a white wall in a meeting room and project onto it with boring words and graphs.

Projectors are now a huge part of the events industry, and it’s easy to see why! Projecting images, logos, graphics and information onto surfaces not only looks impressive, but also brightens event spaces and can complement your event theme. The options are endless when it comes to creatively planning your event projections.

Here are some of our favourite creative uses of projectors at events:

Creating digital visuals

One of the most common ways to use a projector is to simply project imagery or graphics onto the wall. An example below from our Sofitel Brisbane Central venue shows that this can be utilised in a large format, so it’s a great way to showcase a lot of images or make one stand out. Unlike traditional artwork on canvas, projected images can be changed continually throughout the event, thus changing and enhancing the mood, theme or event message.

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Enhancing your branding

Another one of our favourites is to project a business or brand’s logo onto a surface area. This is such a great way to give your brand extra exposure at the event, and can create a feeling of luxe exclusivity. Below is an example of this in the lobby at our Sofitel Brisbane Central venue.

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Video projection and projection mapping

The projection fun doesn’t stop at images – we can even project videos onto surfaces! This can be done by simply projecting a video onto a wall, or it can be a source of entertainment in and of itself by using projection mapping. Projection mapping essentially ‘maps’ out the surface area of where the video will go, usually over odd and irregular shapes, before a detailed projection is showcased on the object. It’s the same technology used in Sydney’s Vivid lights festival.

Our team at Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre (PCEC) recently did a fantastic job projection mapping a St John’s ambulance, and wowed guests at their conference. They positioned two ‘unbranded’ ambulances in the room on either side of the main stage and projected an animated “multi-stickered” ambulance image onto the vehicles.

projection-mapping-250w

To see it come to life, check out the video on PCEC’s site.

If you’re keen to include this technology at your next event, contact us today!

How the right AV team can be the difference between a good or bad event

Audiovisual technology can add a special something to your event. Whether you use lighting elements to create atmosphere in the room, or require a stage to be set up with microphones and speakers, a good AV team will have you covered.

That’s not to say that sometimes, things just happen that are out of anyone’s control, like a lightning strike resulting in a power outage. But for the majority of events, choosing the right AV team can make a world of difference to your event outcome.

So, how do you choose the right AV team?

Focus on your event goals

A good AV team doesn’t just run the audiovisual components smoothly. They help you add value and drive engagement to maximise your results and increase excitement for your next event.

Figure out the message you want to send out at your event, and the impression you want your guests to walk away with. Sit down with your AV team and discuss all ideas and options. A good AV team will be able to help you visualise the event and all elements.

Also ask your AV team any questions you may have, as this will give you a good indication as to their level of skills and passion. The right team will be able to explain the features and benefits for different audiovisual elements, and help you to make decisions. If you ask questions that they can’t or won’t answer, that might be a red flag for you.

Get techy

Ensure that your AV team have the right technology. For example, a lot of events now incorporate access for virtual attendees, or you may need multiple cameras on a stage. Make sure they are experienced to handle a variety of technologies.

Build trust

The relationship between you and your AV team is extremely valuable to your event. You want a professional team who has seen it all, who are experienced and who you can trust with your event.

Make sure that your AV team has a solid reputation and that they have your best interests in mind.

While all events are different, the overall theme of people coming together to share an experience is something to be celebrated. Contact us today to find out how we can make a difference at your next event.

What is a gobo?

Do you want to add that something special to your next event? Gobos are one of the most striking, versatile yet affordable lighting options.

A gobo is essentially a stencil cut out of glass or metal, that is then positioned between a spotlight and the area you want lit, creating a unique projected shape. The gobo can be made to project patterns, text, logos, and other special effects, which makes them a great option for promoting brands and products.

The projected imagery can be projected onto almost any surface, such as the dance floor, the stage or a prepared backdrop – instantly decorating and lighting the surface, transforming the space and promoting your event’s message.

Using gobos can help draw attention to an area of your event, highlight your brand, for sponsor recognition or to share a specific message. For example, gobos can be used at weddings to project bride and groom’s names or alternatively just their initials onto the dance floor or behind a bridal table.

However, they are more than just a decoration or improvement to the event setting. Because of the flexibility in design and impressive visual elements, they really help to set a mood and atmosphere at your event, which gives guests an even better experience and leaves them with a lasting impression of your message.

This article originally appeared at Business Events News.