HOSPITALITY HOPES

Dylan Thompson, Technical Project Manager at Penguin Media Solutions, specialists in commercially focused AV systems, assesses the recent past, present and potential future for the sector.

It’s been a difficult year for the commercial side of AV, if you deal with entertainment and leisure. At the time of writing, it’s pretty much a year to the day that we noticed bookings in the diary and enquiries drop off like a stone. It was expected that we would be back on our feet relatively quickly – ‘12 weeks and we’ll be ok again’ – but that wasn’t to be the case.

Some companies mothballed, shrunk their overheads and hibernated, others diversified; live streaming became the latest thing for everyone to offer and those companies with corporate AV experience wisely moved into the VC and UC market – with businesses all over the world moving quickly to working from home, there was a need for collaboration solutions to keep things moving.

There was a brief time where ‘socially distanced events’ were trialled, nightclubs and bars opened at reduced capacity, sanctions were imposed on audio levels. The customer experience and atmosphere were severely diminished – but some people were happy to take anything they could get!

Fast forward to present day, and lots has changed. A large proportion of the UK population have been vaccinated, and our roadmap to ‘normal’ has been announced. From our point of view, the government announcing some dates and some loose guidelines as to what may be, has changed business dramatically – confidence in spending has resumed, plans are being drawn up and works are starting again, which is great news! However, the impact Covid-19 has had on our industry and the way we do things, will be felt for many years to come.

CONTINUED IMPACT

There are a number of products that have emerged recently that integrators can offer new or existing clients, which may assist, either now or in the future. Being prepared for another set of restrictions, to enable businesses to continue trading, is going to be key. Thermal imaging cameras such as the range offered by Hikvision are one such product – on their own their effectiveness could be questioned, but as part of your Covid-19 risk management plan, become another tool in the box. Outdoor areas are now more than just a smoking area, and can be the difference between the venue opening, or not! Martin Audio has recently updated their CDD-WR range (weather resistant) to include marine rated variants ideal for those seafront venues, as well as 100v line options for larger distributed systems. Venues that enhance the experience for their outdoor patrons will reap the benefits.

When venues could open, albeit with a reduced SPL level - the focus was not on volume, but quality and intelligibility. Venue owners began to spot the weaknesses in their system design. Acoustic room treatment, the choice of materials in the room, the coverage of the room to give every audience member the same experience, dispersion patterns of speakers, the quality of the products in the signal chain, as well as the speakers themselves – all of this becomes very apparent when you are limited to 85dBA and every decibel counts.

Some pro-audio brands are pushing their experience to the home market – for fans who can afford it and for those with sympathetic neighbours, the likes of L’Acoustics, Funktion One and Void have variants of their commercial speakers which lend themselves to home party use. Confidence in ‘going out-out’ may not be where it needs to be for some people just yet, but their need for music, entertainment and socialising on their terms remains.

Lock-down has begun a reassessment of the use of space and equipment across the hospitality and entertainment sectors