Helping your staff in a world managing the pandemic

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 As we all try to learn to live with Covid and return to a ‘new normal’, our industry, which has borne the brunt of the lockdowns, restrictions and the ‘pingdemic,’ is emerging and adapting whilst still striving to deliver the highest of standards.

 Many of you have lost key staff members, gained new staff, or are struggling to fill all the key roles.  All of which puts additional pressure on every aspect of your organisation.

 Your clients are still seeking the quality experience you always gave them and many will be returning after a difficult eighteen months, expecting a truly memorable experience with that first celebratory meal out, or a meeting finally not hosted at home on Zoom. 

 Your AV systems may not be the first thing you are thinking about when juggling all of this, but if the staff who knew how to operate them have moved on, or if your AV has been neglected for the past 18 months, there may be some challenges ahead.  Whilst not life-threatening, if not addressed, these will all add to staff stress and customer dissatisfaction, instead of enhancing everyone’s experience.

 CGA Integration can help.  We offer a wide range of support solutions to help you effectively and efficiently manage your AV.  

 Did you know that most CGA installed AV systems are fully remotely supported? 

 A CGA engineer can connect and operate your system, in real-time, to support your team and to teach them how to operate and troubleshoot their AV issues whilst they are at work.

 CGA also offers support packages which include a time allowance to retrain new and existing staff members annually, ensuring that you are always getting the best from your AV systems.

 With us on board, we can help ‘smooth out the bumps’ that will follow new staffing appointments and current staff who need their knowledge refreshed after returning to the workplace.

 CGA can also help you to evolve your AV.  If you don't currently have remote support, this is something that we can add to your AV system and slowly integrate.  This will increase your uptime and reduce the amount of concessions needed when tech is not behaving as it should!  We can also help you to develop your ‘Video conferencing’ provision and ‘Hybrid meeting solutions’ in house to help you to maximise your event revenue.

 To find out how great AV support can make a difference in your venue, why not get in touch?  Call us today on 01344 456500 to give your staff one less thing to worry about tomorrow.

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

Let’s go outside …

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 As Hospitality gradually reopens, one area that will be key to success, at least in the short to medium term, will be ensuring that venues make the most of their outside spaces by really integrating the ‘outside in.’ 

We now know that good ventilation is key in reducing the spread of Covid, so eating or socialising outside with all the benefits of natural air flow, reduces the propensity of transmission. As a result, outdoor hospitality spaces are going to be key this summer and AV can be used to help enhance your guest’s experience whether they are inside or out.  

Used effectively, a soundscape can bring the ambience of your venue seamlessly from one area to another, to create a holistic experience.  In just the same way as you would use a multi zoned sound system to create continuity of sound, as a guest walks through a hotel from the lobby to the bar though to the restaurant, the right number and type of speakers placed in the correct location can create a seamless flow of sound into an outdoor dining or bar area.

Similarly, outdoor speakers don’t have to be ugly!  Discrete speakers can be installed outside and even matched to a RAL colour to seamlessly blend with your decor.  They can be linked to your existing sound system and controlled in the same way as any other room or zone in your venue, ensuring that the right ambience is created in that area, depending on the occasion or time of day.

So as we embark on the road map to recovery, ‘let’s go outside’ and welcome guests back to our hospitality venues.

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

What are Hybrid Meetings?

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Before the Coronavirus pandemic, BYOD was the ‘buzzword’ for meetings.  Hospitality venues wanted to ensure that their meeting and conference rooms allowed delegates to connect and collaborate on screen seamlessly and wirelessly from any device as part of an event, without the need for dedicated hardware, lots of messy cables or a lengthy setup process.

Then the pandemic hit, and with it came remote working, video conferencing and social distancing.  BYOD seemed a thing of the past.

With the goal posts on social contact continually shifting, the world of meetings has evolved.  Over the past year we have all become experts on Zoom Meetings and using Teams, with each of us operating from our own homes in whatever space is available.  But with this has come the frustrations of internet connections dropping out, distraction and noise from others working or learning in our households and the yearning for in person social interaction.    

As restrictions are gradually lifted and people are able to meet in person once more, although the need for BYOD hasn’t gone away, the primary need for meetings will be to link remote delegates with those who are able to meet in person, socially distanced, within the meeting room.  

Enter ‘The Hybrid Meeting’.                  

With everyone now capable of running video conferences and meetings via their own device at home, BYOD has evolved into BYOM (bring your own meeting).  BYOM systems enable you, with a few simple connections, to deliver your meeting on the infrastructure of a hospitality venue’s meeting room, with all the technological benefits that brings; a large screen, installed quality sound and microphone systems and surroundings more conducive to an effective working environment.  This inturn enables those colleagues who are present in person to join with remote colleagues dialing in, where everyone can see the same screen viewed in the room. The good BYOM systems have all the functionality of BYOD, but are delivered in the room as well as on the call or stream of remote colleagues.                                          

Large scale BYOMs can be set up at Hospitality venues to host presentations and conferences for larger numbers of delegates.  You can now run meetings in your larger spaces with a video call or stream going out to remote delegates, routing presenters, radio microphones and on screen presentations to a stream or call, as well as showing this on screen for the distanced delegates in the room.  This type of hybrid meeting is easily achievable in house, but when numbers of delegates are particularly large, you may want to get your events company involved to ensure that the event runs smoothly for all delegates, wherever they are, and to make the event as dynamic as possible.

To fully embrace Hybrid Meetings on whatever scale, you need to get the in-room AV infrastructure right.  

CGA is here to help you get the most from your meeting rooms.  If you would like to find out how your current AV system can be modified to address the issues we face in these current times, why not give us a call? 

Whatever type of meeting you are facilitating, and however technology evolves to meet the needs of our ever changing world, CGA can advise you.  Why not give us a call on 01344 456500 and see how you can unlock your hybrid meeting potential today.

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

Clean Shoes?

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How do you prepare when meeting a client for the first time or delivering that crucial presentation?

If you’d have asked me a year ago I’d have said; clean shoes, iron shirt, for the gents amongst us we’ll choose an appropriate tie, and I even have a set of cufflinks which my wife gave me that always create conversation...

All of this has now changed, as the pandemic means that we now don our “Zoom Suits” and only dress in business attire from the waist up, presenting from home in our slippers...

But as we move forward, things are likely to evolve again. Companies will want to get their people back together in person as soon as it's safe to do so, and with the UK vaccine programme picking up pace, this may be closer than we think. Nothing works better for the charismatic sales executive than being in a room and bouncing ideas off colleagues, even if the client is remote.

Moving forward, it is my belief that there may always be someone outside the room, either because they are isolating, ill, or unable to travel due to company budgetary or environmental constraints. So the next generation meeting rooms need to be mindful of this and as such need to be a little different from the meeting rooms of old.

In the hospitality industry, we need to remember that we have so much more to offer than just the technology for meetings. However, to enable this new style of meetings to work effortlessly, getting the technology right will be vital.

Why bother to host meetings in Hospitality venues?

Hospitality venues offer so much more than being at home:

• People - welcoming, smiling, competent people who are there to help ensure your event runs smoothly and you have everything you need; no slamming doors or playing of loud music degrading your event!

• Space - where a team can meet either socially distanced, virtually or a mixture of both.

• Hospitality - food and drink on demand so that your time is spent with your team or customers doing business and networking with no trips to the kitchen required.

• A dedicated focused environment - with no doorbells ringing, homeschooling interruptions or pet distractions.

• Quality connectivity - generally hospitality has much better internet (bandwidth) than many of us have at home, ensuring the meeting or presentation goes without a glitch.

• Quality surrounding - rather than hanging a spare shower curtain behind you or worrying that the window cleaner will suddenly appear, Hospitality venues have well-appointed rooms with soft furnishings that give a much better sound & ambience to calls and discussions, whether they are on or offline.

So what tech can I add to enhance the meetings offered in my venue?

In order to offer the optimum environment for meetings at your venue, there are a few things you can ensure you have in your armoury:

• Well distributed sound - having a quality ceiling speaker system installed in your meeting rooms will ensure that the sound from a presenter or video call is heard by everyone in the room, without the need for a PA. Many sound systems hired by Events Companies are PA systems. PAs consist of a pile of speakers, they are normally in big black boxes and are either on stands, ground-stacked or hung and they blast out sound from where they are positioned, usually from the front of your room. The problem with this approach is that the first few rows of delegates can often become deafened, whereas those in the back of the room can struggle to be heard or hear. VR or vocal reinforcement does not use big black boxes, it is about lots of smaller speakers working gently across a room to evenly distribute the sound throughout the space. As the name suggests, VR reinforces the sound of the speaker’s voice via the multiple speakers positioned throughout a room. This in turn allows delegates to be spread out and still hear what is being said, without either being deafened or having to move forward and get closer to other delegates in order to hear. VR is a definite advantage in this time of social distancing.

• Large format projection and screens - making sure all of your delegates can clearly see what is being presented or discussed is important, especially with requirements for social distancing. This might mean looking at installing a ceiling-mounted or hung screen & projector to use the advantage of height available in your space. If you have limited ceiling height please see One to All & Webview below.

• BYOD - bring your own meeting is the evolution of BYOD. With everyone now capable of running video conferences and meetings via their own device at home, BYOM systems enable you to scale that meeting, with a few simple connections, to deliver the meeting on the room infrastructure: a large screen, sound system and microphone system. This enables those colleagues who are present in the room to join with remote colleagues dialing in, where everyone can see the same screen viewed in the room. The good BYOM systems have all the functionality of BYOD, but all delivered in the room as well as on the call or stream of remote colleagues.

• Whole room microphones - in order for effective BYOM and video conferencing to happen, coordination of devices is required through a centralised microphone system. If clients have an in-person meeting with remote colleagues at your venue and they want to present on one call using separate devices this will not work without coordination, as the individual devices will all interact and feedback, making it a worse experience than calling from individual kitchens or spare rooms! Discrete ceiling microphones can be installed to cover your whole meeting room and take the sound of the talking delegate onto your video call to ensure everyone is heard.

• One to All & Webview - many of the good BYOD & BYOM systems have the ability to share a presentation within a room enabling delegates to see slides on their own device and save them to their device. This is useful not only if you cannot get a big screen in place in your meeting room, but it also eliminates the need for delegates to keep disrupting the flow of the meeting by taking photographs of the projection screen.

What’s the future for larger-scale events and conferences?

How we address the need for larger-scale events and conferences in the short to medium term is a question that is topical for many businesses and one that may or may not be cost-effective to own, but it's something you may be asked to consider:

• Virtual events - these kinds of events do not need to be hosted by hospitality venues, they require a large dedicated space, a stage and a green screen background, which can enable you to present just about anything you want to a remote clientele. If this is something you want to explore you will need to talk to your Events Company. The equipment you will need may not be something you want to own, but instead hire in and then offer on to clients as another meeting option!

• Hybrid meetings - these are like large scale BYOMs for presentations and conferences for large numbers of delegates. You can now run meetings in your larger spaces with a video call or stream going out to remote delegates, routing presenters, radio microphones and on screen presentations to a stream or call as well as showing this on screen for the distanced delegates in the room. This type meeting is likely to be something you would want to get your events company involved with to ensure it runs smoothly for all delegates wherever they are and to make the event as dynamic as possible, but you need to get the in room AV infrastructure right to make it happen.

What can I do now?

Whatever type of meeting you are facilitating, and however technology evolves to meet the needs of our ever changing world, CGA are here to help you get the most from your meeting rooms.

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

Meeting Room & Events AV in restricted times

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This year the situation we find ourselves in is unprecedented.  We at CGA know that as a result, Hospitality venues have very little budget at present, so we thought that some ideas and tips on how to make the best of your current AV may be helpful. 

As the Covid situation changes, we all know that Government advice is constantly changing and varies throughout the UK.  Currently the general guidelines reflect the need for gatherings in small groups, (rule of six), no shouting or singing, and keeping your distance.  These rules pose challenges when it comes to delivering quality face to face meetings or important conference calls, but with carefully planned technology and AV, these difficulties are not insurmountable.

Facilitating better calls

Are your clients currently making business calls from their spare room, kitchen or lounge?  Do they feel their home is not delivering the correct ambience for meetings, or do they find themselves not in a ‘business state of mind,’ (as they still have their slippers on!)  Coming to your venue could help them to get into work mode, focus better and present the best version of themselves.  Wearing their business attire and presenting themselves in a meeting room that sounds great and has a better camera than their laptop, could increase their productivity.

All the design elements you have invested in; great decor, soft carpets, comfortable chairs and quality AV can come together to create an optimum environment for a video call.  The presence of soft furnishings helps to eliminate echo and reverberations, often too prevalent in kitchens and modern minimalist homes, which detract from the quality of sound in virtual meetings.

Ensuring delegates can be heard

To effectively get your message across in a room of socially distanced delegates, you need what is called a "Sound reinforcement system."  This is best done with multiple ceiling speakers spread through a room, as each speaker gently reinforces the sound of the delegate speaking and saves them from shouting, delivering even sound throughout a room without the aggression and front of room energy generated from a PA system. Many of your function rooms will already have ceiling speakers for background music, and with care, these can be retasked without decoration, to make a vocal reinforcement system to help your delegates deliver safe and effective presentations.

Delivering Hybrid meetings

Even if we are only allowed to have a small number of delegates in our rooms and they have to be socially distanced, it is still possible to enable them to successfully meet with distanced colleagues via a ‘call’ if you get the AV in the meeting room right.  Current AV allows your existing radio microphones to be linked to a call, or for a dedicated ceiling microphone to be deployed to cover a whole room to more effectively bring together delegates who are both at the meeting in person with those dialling in remotely.

Enabling large scale virtual events

Although it is no longer possible to gather everyone together into one room for key presentations in an old-style company conference, did you know that your lectern or radio mics can be linked to a ‘call’ with an HD camera to make a live stream to remote delegates, at the same time as presenting in your function room?  A small group of individuals can reveal the big-ticket items and key corporate messages to everyone in the company, without geographical bias, from your venue.

Whatever type of meeting you are facilitating, we are here to help.  If you would like to find out how your current AV system can be modified to address the issues we face in these current times, please give us a call, we’d be happy to help.

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

Thank you for the Music

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Great News! English, Scottish and Northern Ireland hospitality venues are able to reopen their doors from July.  After three months of Lockdown this is brilliant news, but if you have a music system, didn't the government say that venues are no longer allowed to play music?

That’s not true!

You are not allowed to stage live music performances, open mic nights, comedy or drama, but music to create an atmosphere in your venue is still permissible and arguably now more important than ever.  

You can’t have incredibly loud music, as we still need to observe some level of social distancing and this would cause guests to have to shout to make themselves heard; Shouting, singing and chanting all increase the risk of aerosol transmission, which is how COVID -19 is spread, so you need to get the audio levels just right to aid the safe reopening of your venue.

If you are concerned about certain members of staff turning up the level of your sound system or even regulating your own passion for music, CGA can limit the power available on your system so that levels cannot go too high.

Now, more than ever, it is key to have your venue sounding great, opening with no sound or poor sound could further damage the ambience of your venue.  Some customers will be emerging from Lockdown very tentatively.  They have been safely cocooned in their homes with familiar sights, smells and sounds and when they return to the warmth of their favourite hospitality venue they will find it changed.  With venues only being able to operate at  ⅓ to ½ of their pre-COVID capacity, the atmosphere will be very different.  

So now is your chance to really show off your sound system!  Numerous small speakers carefully spread throughout a venue will create a lovely consistent, low level all surrounding sound, that will help to fill in the gaps generated by reduced capacity and make all your guests still feel right at home.

If you have any specific questions regarding how we can help with your sound system please get in touch.

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

Video conferencing, the saviour of meetings?

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Since the beginning of lockdown everyone is moving to video conferencing ... for meetings, study and religious services to staying in touch with family and friends we can no longer physically gather with or travel to see.

However much of a ‘life saver’ this technology has proved to be during the Covid-19 pandemic, it is still not the same as face to face interactions and can often feel very isolating.  All of our senses are engaged in creating an experience; sight, sound, taste and even smell all play a part.  A laptop, tablet or phone meeting cannot replace the loss of physical contact from a handshake or a hug.  It dampens down the sensory stimuli; it’s much more difficult to pick up on body language, it has a reduced audio capacity so vocal inflections are lost and olfaction is limited to where we are calling from.  The experience is better than nothing, but nowhere near the same as meeting in person.

That being said, moving forward I believe video conferencing is here to stay.  As we tentatively emerge from our current state of global lockdown, due to medical, travel, eco, financial or other reasons, there will always be someone who is ‘not in the room’ for most if not all future meetings and events.

The challenge for Hospitality venues is how can you add value to the video conferencing experience.  How can you connect people to people in a better way than a Zoom call from their spare bedroom? How can you make meetings and event experiences memorable for all the right reasons, whilst still in at least the short term observing social distancing and addressing remote workers and often disparate teams?

Once business starts coming back into your hotels, what shape will it take and what will you need to offer to support and attract it?

Will it be that every meeting and events space will always need the ability to support video conferencing to ensure that remote workers or people who cannot travel can always be included?

Do we need to offer dedicated Video Conferencing suites that offer a more immersive experience for that important call that really cannot be done at home from a home Internet connection, or which needs six people from the local distributed team, socially distanced yet on the same call to a key international client?

Some of how we address this is sensory.

Make the video call feel more personal through creating a more immersive experience.  By offering video conference spaces that are non-reverberant and fitted with high-quality microphones, speakers and cameras, you can help to ensure that callers can pick up on body language and vocal nuances that give real meaning to conversations.

Whilst some of the sound quality is reduced in the internet part of a conference call, much of it is lost due to the relatively low quality of laptop speakers and microphones.  With the correct microphones and digital processing, groups of people on video calls can be heard much more clearly, and background noise can be reduced or even eliminated.  A video call from a standard laptop can have a greatly enhanced audio on a call by using good quality wireless microphones or by installing quality in-room ceiling or desk-mounted microphones and speakers along with the correct interfaces.

Similarly, laptop cameras are relatively fixed and often give us a better idea of our colleague’s interior decor than their body language and demeanour. As with sound quality, cameras can be used in a room to allow for a better image of the caller or a group of callers and will have the additional benefit of being able to zoom in and out on a key presenter or product being demonstrated and discussed.

In addition to sensory improvements, hygiene also needs to be considered.

Did you know that you can use your large screen with your BYOD as a white board?  Although this can operate with or as a touch screen for direct interaction, to prevent having to touch the same surface as others you can annotate on the main screen using your ipad and an app.  Each delegate is able to draw on the screen from the comfort of their own chair and device, reducing the need to move around or cross-contaminate surfaces.  Also all installed CGA touch screens in meeting and function rooms have a ‘screen clean’ function.  This gives a time when the touch screen can be cleaned without changing any settings.

Or will video conferencing for business meetings continue to be done from home and will the Hospitality industry be offering spaces for remote and disparate workers to come together every so many weeks to bond as a team, to get real physical interaction and to socialise, albeit with social distancing?

Rather than ‘dress down Friday’ we might have ‘in-person’ Friday or ‘in the room’ Friday where people come together as a team in one space and the functionality of that space need not be a meeting room but this needs to be a social, bonding and entertainment space, now that work is at home and for some this will be their new escape.

Even so, there will still be some people who will be unable to attend these kinds of ‘gatherings’ which again raises the need for high spec, hygienic video conferencing in your venues.  Maybe video conferencing really is the saviour of meetings after all ...

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

What is Hospitality?

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Hospitality
The friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.

Hospitality is all about people, experiences and a smattering of escapism.  It has always been about a change of scenery; somewhere special to show a client that you value their business, or your team that you value their work.  Somewhere to meet with family, friends or colleagues to celebrate, mark milestones and create memories, an escapism from our everyday workplace and surroundings.

As we tentatively emerge from a state of global lockdown, our thoughts turn to how we can establish a ‘new normal’, how we can deliver hospitality once again but in a very different environment.

I don’t believe that the need or desire for hospitality has gone away.  Now more than ever we need to offer that aspirational trip, adventure and experience, although the rules of engagement have now changed.

We all understand the need to be socially distant from others, travel less and maintain best practice hygiene, but now we need to find out how we can deliver hospitality whilst embracing these.

There are many questions to be addressed across the Hospitality Industry as we grapple with the confinements of social distancing, personal protective equipment for staff and intensified levels of hygiene:

How do we reassure guests that our restaurant is a safe place to eat?

How can we make our dining experience memorable for all the right reasons?

How can we make our spa experience as relaxing and as far from the stress of lockdown as possible?

How can our team create a great hygienic stay for our guests?

Fundamentally we have to reassure our guests that it is safe to re-engage with the Hospitality Industry and then we need to deliver an experience that makes their leap of faith worthwhile.  Some of how we address this is sensory.

Experience
An event or occurrence which leaves an impression on someone.

For the last few months many of us have been at home.  Historically home has been our safe place,  a place where we are surrounded by our own familiar sounds, smells and views, with our family or friends around us.  As the lockdown has drawn on, this once cherished space may now feel claustrophobic and less appealing than the sanctuary it once was.

Let’s consider dining.  How do we, if restaurants are to reduce consumer density, ensure that each diner does not feel disparate and isolated in the new restaurant environment? Could sound help to ‘soften’ the environment and create a dining experience that is better or different from that at home?

Sitting alone at a restaurant table may or may not appear more attractive as lockdown eases and hospitality venues begin to open up under strict social distancing, but it might become more attractive if we think about the use of space.

Historically ‘hip places’ had a buzz.  Their clientele, staff, music and service all created a noise that created a certain atmosphere and gave an energy to the space, but if all people or family groups now have to be two meters apart, the sound in that space will have significantly changed.  Just by reducing the number of people in a designated area it will leave you with much less sound absorbing mass, resulting in a boomy sounding space.  The slightest noise may reflect to become a meal disturbing sound for other diners. Remember your guests have just emerged from the cocoons of their homes, where the space they occupied was probably smaller and filled only with their own familiar soundscape, so sudden noises from others may well feel unsettling and be unwelcome.

Think about the soundscape in your venue.  Think about what music is playing, as it is much more likely that your staff and customers will hear this now.  Make sure that it is delivered well, as remember, your guests have all been at home with their stereos.  Think about your space.  You might need to fit some sound-absorbing panels to help your space sound less like an aircraft hanger and more like the warm welcoming space that you want to offer your guests at this time, where it is imperative that they feel safe.

Moving focus to your spa, as guests seek escapism and a time to relax, how can you change the soundscape to block out the everyday sounds of mobile phones, traffic and the noise of other people to create a truly aspirational air of calm?  Sound is a key factor in this.  Ensure that you cannot hear any external sound in your space and then gently add music. Music that reflects and enhances the mood of specific treatments, fully immersing the guest in that individual experience.  Sound can so often be overlooked, but during treatments when lights are dimmed and guests often close their eyes, other senses including hearing become heightened, so audio replaces colour and becomes a key factor in generating the most appropriate mood.

Personally I think the move away from hard surfaces, whilst harder to clean, will help with the whole Hospitality experience.  At home, the sound level is generally lower; you are often the one making the noise and there are many more soft finishes in a home environment to absorb and muffle sounds.  To go back to hard surfaces will create a harsh soundscape and will be an acoustic shock for guests and not necessarily a good one.  Warm quality sound will help to create quality Hospitality experiences; use sound to fill the space in your venue.

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

The changing face of worship; how the Covid -19 pandemic may help to expand church congregations

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The Covid-19 pandemic has had a far reaching impact on every aspect of society, and how we worship is no different.  Gathering every Sunday at church to share a service with other members of our congregation may no longer be possible, but this does not mean that communal worship has ceased.  Churches across the land have moved online.  The traditional weekly gathering has been replaced with online services, webstreams and Zoom calls.  Although this has happened through necessity, we must embrace the opportunity that this situation has presented us with and capitalise on the new technological proficiency that we have developed in our local church communities.

Moving forward, as we are permitted to open up our churches and buildings for worship, there will be hesitation from certain members of the parish.  Not everyone will be keen or able to rush back to a shared public space for their regular worship.  As such, there will still be a role for broadcasting weekly online services, to ensure that everyone in the community continues to be provided for.  But this should not be seen as a hindrance.  In fact, in addition to regular parishioners watching online, there is also a new group of people who have found the church during this pandemic.  A group of people who like the accessibility of ‘church at home’ and online services.  Some may well be watching on ‘catch up’ at a different time or even on a different day to the usual Sunday service.  Services online have actually grown the size of regular weekly congregations.

As we gradually move back into our churches, I think we need to develop a ‘new normal’ to include those people who for whatever reason are not with us for our weekly service in person. These may include people in care homes or elderly members of the parish who are no longer confident or able to travel to church.  Couples who do not feel comfortable bringing their baby or young child to church or leaving them in the creche or at Sunday school, who find it less stressful to enjoy the service at home.  Past members of the congregation who have moved away but appreciate the opportunity of familiar Sunday worship with old friends.  New online members who may be geographically distant but who are drawn to your style of worship or those who are local but just enjoy the flexibility of worship ‘on demand.’

Worship leaders need to think about how they can include this new remote congregation in their main services.  Laptop microphones are not good enough to pick up sound from the whole church.  A digital sound processor is needed to connect the existing sound system and microphones being used in the church service to ensure that sound can be clearly transmitted from both the spoken word; readings, prayers and sermons, through to musical worship; communal hymns, choirs and music groups. In addition, a motorised and zoomable digital camera will be needed to effectively record and transmit all aspects of the service for the remote congregation.

This might mean having a camera operator during the Sunday service, ensuring that the right image is shown at the right time or words for hymns are visible on screen.  Camera angles will need to be considered as we think about individuals' privacy as well as young and vulnerable members of the congregation who may attend a service, but who should not be broadcast on a web stream or call to unknown end-users.  These restrictions may dictate the need for prerecorded services rather than a live stream, giving you a chance to review and edit the service and send it out a few hours later.  Thought will also need to be given to communicating how members of the virtual congregation will be notified about and view the services and possibly who the link is sent to to enable a remote connection.

The good news is that a lot of these questions have already been broached during the pandemic and you already have a lot of the tools you need to make this happen.  The same processes which enable the interfacing to the web or Zoom stream which you are already using during lockdown can still be used.

The hardware required to link your sound system and connect your church to the recording stream is an investment and possibly more than had been planned and budgeted for at this time.  If you are not already active in this area, grants are available from church bodies to help you to set up online during this period of social distancing.

By taking the step to invest in a digital sound processor to enable the interfacing to the web or Zoom to effectively stream services will have the added benefit of improving the sound quality within the existing church sound system and through the induction loop, so the sound for all worshippers, wherever they are joining you from, will be the best that it can be.

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

CGA Integration Working Arrangements during the Covid-19 Pandemic

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In these unprecedented times we hope that you, your family and your teams are all safe.  I am pleased to say that all of us here at CGA Integration are currently fit and well.

CGA Integration is still operating during this Covid-19 Pandemic.  We have adapted our working practices to comply with Government requirements and are able to be on site with appropriate PPE and social distancing in place.

We are now working with our customers both to carry out on site installations and to plan how systems might need to be put in place or adapted after the country emerges from lockdown. 

If you have any AV requirements or want to discuss how your current provision may need to be adapted moving forward, please do not hesitate to call or email.

Trusting you are well and looking forward to working with you again when we can.

Chris Gunton

Managing Director
CGA Integration Ltd

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

Now is the time

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As we move into a new decade, 2020 has brought with it new challenges for the Hospitality sector.  International forces such as the growing awareness of Global warming; epitomised by the Australian bush fires, new personal and political eco priorities, the impact of Covid 19 and potentially even Brexit have led to, and will probably continue to impact upon public gatherings, meetings and events.

It is unlikely that we will witness the growth of this area at least in the short term, especially as companies and potentially in time more governments, impose travel bans or recommend limiting social contact.  So what can we, as venues, do to address this change in circumstance?  Has the requirement for meetings and social contact actually gone away, or do we just need to get smarter about how we think about addressing a need that is still very much a reality?

The position we currently find ourselves in shouldn’t be seen as a time to reposition our meeting spaces. As I see it, the meeting’s business will just evolve.  Good business is always best done face to face and with so many social and personal benefits associated with gathering together, I believe it will still be essential for certain people to travel to at least some events.  But as we all address both travel risks and our own carbon footprint, I think there will always be individuals who may not be able to be there in the room, but who certainly will need to be part of the meeting, presentation or event.  Our challenge is to ensure that they are included.

So what can you do?  Cramming everyone around a laptop is just not a valid option and putting individuals on the projector screen via an Internet call does not fully include them in the meeting.

CGA can deliver a range of integrated Hospitality meeting room solutions that makes the process as interactive as possible in the absence of everyone actually being there. Technical solutions with the connection of one or two cables, will allow the whole room to be present through both sound & video, on any call from a clients device through Webex, Zoom, Fuze, Skype or Jabber to name a few key platforms.

Ceiling-mounted microphone panels can be installed and finished to a RAL colour.  When connected to a call, these will enable the whole room (24 + people, subject to ceiling height), to be heard clearly, and they can quickly disappear when the space is in use for other purposes.  In addition, the same ceiling speakers that spread quality music across your room for dining events can also be used to relay the sound from the remote parties.  Spreading ceiling speakers across the room prevents the ‘loud at the front and quiet at the back’ effect of older conferencing systems.

For clarity visuals as well as sound, an HD camera mounted around the main screen can be manipulated to zoom and pan around the room to catch all delegates, or multiple cameras can be used to show physical resources brought into the meeting.

Can you just make a conference call?  Sometimes this is an option, as staff or delegates often just need to connect voices quickly to bring a manager, key team member or contractor together to make a decision and ensure the meeting concludes efficiently.

To help you with this, CGA can offer a fully rechargeable audio conferencing solution that is fully portable.  It can be stored in a charging case or on trays in communal areas so that this system is always ready to go. This solution can be deployed anywhere inside or even outside your hotel, as once charged, all it needs is a client with a device to make the call (e.g. phone, laptop, or pc), so you can make that conference call from the beach bar, roof terrace or even nineteenth Tee!  You can connect a single call by Bluetooth, (using NFC pairing if enabled on your phone), USB or just an audio cable to mobile devices.  This system can connect 24 people ‘around a table’ to a remote caller with great two-way audio.  Further functionality can also be gained by joining multiple calls, (up to a maximum of three), one on each of Bluetooth, USB and audio jack, to join the three remote locations with the other people in the room.

Ask for a demo today as you will be surprised at how ‘joined-up’ these systems are and how you can start showing both your staff and your clients options to manage both their travel and carbon footprints.

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

Is AV the missing sensory link?

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Listen … What can you hear?  The missing piece in the Brand experience puzzle is so often the audio.  It’s easy to see and touch the beautiful interiors our customers will observe and feel, you can assess the level of customer service they will experience and easily smell and taste the cuisine and wine they will order, but so very often, what they hear is just overlooked or added as an afterthought.  To deliver a truly memorable experience, audio has to be weaved seamlessly into this sensory mix to create a coherent, holistic result.

There is a growing body of evidence which supports the fact that audio affects your mood and emotions and as such can change the way in which you react and behave. Our brains receive so many subtle cues from what our ears pick up, that a great deal of our conscious and unconscious moods and behaviour are attributable to what we hear.  Audio is a critical strand in determining how guests will feel when they experience a venue, not just at the time, but for many years to come.  Music is a powerful tool in evoking memories.  When we hear songs from the past they can stir powerful emotions and transport us back in time. Like stepping into a time machine; you can feel everything as if you were actually there.

It’s not just about what is played, but also the way in which we hear it which can affect us emotionally. When we listen to a warm rich sound with depth and clarity, it can envelop you with feelings of opulence and quality, like sinking into a big comfortable chair from which you don’t want to get up. Conversely, a sound that is thin, scratchy and sharp is irritating and something you wish to shut out and move away from as quickly as possible.  So getting the delivery of the soundtrack right in a venue is just as crucial as getting the soundtrack itself right.

As the relationship between music and memory is so powerful, and the quality of the sound we hear affects how we react to it, it’s all the more reason to get the right audio associations for your client’s venue and to deliver these in the right way.  This will help to ensure that wonderful memories are created and will continue to be conjured up in the minds of their guests for years to come.

CGA Integration is a leading AV systems integrator in the Hospitality sector.  We design, specify and install quality sound systems to deliver flexible AV solutions.  At CGA we are keen to empower designers to understand what is possible with AV so that you, in turn, can plan and fully integrate AV into your designs, giving your customers a truly holistic sensory design solution for their guests to experience.

Audio is such a powerful tool, whether you are delivering brand continuity between venues, rejuvenating a spa or creating conference facilities to delight tech savvy millennials, AV is a crucial piece of the sensory jigsaw.

Here at CGA we can work with you in a number of different ways to best fit your project:

Project Specific - We can attend formal meetings with you, and your client if prefered, to address specific AV challenges presented by a defined project.
AV possibilities -  Alternatively we can meet with you at your offices to present to you and your team, speaking more generally about the possibilities of AV; including both the latest technological developments and the opportunity for troubleshooting.

Enabling your team to discuss AV opportunities or difficulties with us, either generically or more specifically for projects that they are working on or tendering for, will help to give them the insights they need to create totally integrated sensory design solutions.

To speak to us about how CGA Integration can best work with you please call us on +44 1344 456500 or email us on info@cga-integration.co.uk to see how you can start to fully unlock the power of AV.

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

Do you hear what I hear?

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Now we are fully immersed in the festive season and Christmas Day is fast approaching, I have been pondering; What is the sound of Christmas?

No-one wants it associated with sounds that conjure up feelings of anxiety, fear or disappointment, such as emergency services sirens blaring or bleeps sounding when you are on call.  I’m sure Retailers want it to be cash registers ringing and ‘chip & pin’ machines beeping, local churches might like it to be carols being sung or congregations celebrating the messages of the Christmas story and clearly some radio stations believe it should be back to back Christmas music from the beginning of November.  In contrast, you may prefer the magic of a snowy day where all sound is muffled and quiet, when the world takes on an unnatural eerie silence, except for maybe the crunch of snow underfoot or occasional bird song.

For me there are certain songs and sounds that are intrinsically linked Christmas; Paul Young’s ‘Love of the common people’ always reminds me of a certain Christmas school disco and the intro to the Pretenders ‘2000 miles’ transports me into the festive season within a few bars.  These are very personal prompts associated with my own memories and they will mean little or something very different to someone else.  The truth is that each one of us will have a different idea of what their perfect Christmas would be and as such the sound of Christmas will be different for everyone.  What can be agreed upon is that music and sounds evoke powerful memories and feelings in us all, and audio plays a key role in creating your own magical Christmas experience, whatever that may be.

In fact, as with every celebration large or small, Christmas is a truly multi-sensory event.  All the sensations; sights, smells, sounds and tastes add together with our imagination, memories and emotions to create our own personal Christmas experience, missing any one element out would detract from the feeling as a whole.  The sound and experience of Christmas is a very personal thing and what we all often seek is the warmth and security of familiarity whether through a song, film, place or just being with family or people who know you best and with whom you can relax.

We at CGA wish you all a safe, warm and happy Christmas, whatever that means to you.  We hope that the New Year sound as good, if not better than this year!

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

Don’t forget your most important resource… your Team!

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Motivating your team through their working environment is a key way to help drive your customer’s guest experience. In the hospitality industry, it is always vital that we deliver exceptional customer service to reinforce our Brand values and hopefully ensure repeat business. Obviously the look, ambience and technology infrastructure of a venue is key in delivering this, but it is the staff that work at the venue that are paramount in ensuring that your guests stay is a memorable one, for all the right reasons! Valuing and motivating staff comes in many guises; pay, benefits, empowerment, promotional prospects, but working conditions are also key. Ensuring that care is taken over the environment for your staff areas, as well as those for your guests, will help your staff to feel valued and in turn help them to ‘live your Brand’. Improving Back of House Areas using AV Increasingly CGA Integration is seeing savvy employers investing in their staff areas; using AV technology to enhance ‘Back of House.’ Over the years, CGA has installed sound systems and digital signage in staff areas at venues such as The Dorchester, Park Lane and the staff canteen at Hyatt Regency London - The Churchill. We have also worked with partners to install digital signage back of house in hotels, to ensure that their staff arrive and leave work in a pleasant environment and are kept up to speed with staff news and current affairs. Back of House Sound Systems Installing sound systems throughout staff changing areas and back of house areas will help staff to feel relaxed when starting and leaving work. Some venues use soothing music, while others choose local radio stations with news, to ensure that the staff are up to speed with what is happening locally, benefiting both them and in turn your guests. Back of House Digital Signage Gone are the days of paper bulletins to inform staff of important news and key staff events, email has taken over, but at times where your staff might not have access to their mobile phone or computer, digital signage, (a generic term for information disseminated through electronic screens), can be used in staff areas to keep them up to speed. Venues are using this to inform staff of; important corporate news, key employee information and more crucially staff social events and activities, even to wish employees a Happy Birthday! Many employers are very conscientious in differentiating between corporate and staff information to ensure that members of staff feel their events are social occasions. The way digital signage is presented can help with this differentiation. Help your team to live your Brand Creating a back of house environment that is synonymous with your Brand, one which is inclusive to the longest serving and newest arrival alike, will help your staff in turn better deliver your Brand to your customers, selling and upselling products much more effectively than brochures or websites alone. If you think this is an area that your hotel could benefit from then please do get in touch to discuss how AV can be used to empower your most important resource … your team. I look forward to hearing from you. Chris Gunton Managing Director CGA Integration

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

Delivering truly integrated control

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Walls covered in knobs and buttons, we’ve all seen them and not only do they look unsightly but does anyone really know what they all do?!  How with so many controls and variables can you offer any level of consistent guest experience?  When you spend so much time and money on brand experience and getting the look and ambience of a room just right, the last thing you want is for that to be blighted with a visual cacophony of controls which are not aligned to offer a consistent guest experience.

So, how can you get rid of that unsightly wall and keep the control panels to a minimum whilst still maintaining maximum flexibility for your staff and guests? And equally importantly how do you know who to call if the touch panel you have installed doesn’t make all elements of your room respond?

Firstly identify what you want to integrate
Be clear about what ‘elements’ of the room you want to control from your panel, this may include: Lights, Sound, Video, Projection, Air conditioning (A/C), Blinds & curtains, Room combining or Staff calling, but it's by no means an exhaustive list.

Secondly brief suppliers collectively
Once you’ve identified what you want to control from the panel you need to ensure that your suppliers of all of the different elements work together collectively to make it happen.  The best approach is to brief them together to aid discussion and iron out any potential conflicts with proposed solutions; they will all want to have their control visible in the room but this is not necessary.

Finding a master control that has a two-way protocol with other systems will ensure that the touch panel is always showing the status of the subsystem and not just sending commands and hoping for the best!  If you identify some common protocols then one system can offer a touch screen to control all of the other elements.

CGA Integration already offers integrated control systems and we’d be happy to talk to you about what would work best for your requirements. 

Designing a system that is integrated yet discrete
From experience, insist that each system can run stand-alone as well as part of the integrated system.  This has two benefits; not only does it act as a means to identify who you need to call if a specific element isn’t working, but if the master control interface fails you always have a method of control.  To achieve this it will mean putting individual element control panels somewhere out of sight, often in a service cupboard.  But, as a result, if for example the main touch panel will not control the lights but the lights can be operated from the panel in the service cupboard, then you know that you have a control system issue and not a light system failure and you are not plunged into darkness as the lights can still be operated stand-alone.

The result will leave you with individual systems for added control but only one visible control panel on the wall.  This one panel will allow you to set up the whole room, possibly from presets and you will not be left with a wall full of knobs and buttons that staff need three years service to fully understand!

In fact, often these systems offer advanced functionality.  Once you have an integrated control system in place then you may be able to further enhance an area’s function through alternative control screens or wireless iPad control for floor managers, which improves the management of your room set-up without any further unsightly controls.

Further benefits of integrated control systems
As well as controlling all chosen elements of a room from one panel, the additional benefit of integrated control systems is often network and remote support.  When CGA install an integrated control system, the main processor reports to us remotely and tells us how all the different elements of a system are performing.  In turn we can enable email alerts to engineers or the venue to automatically inform them of any errors. It really does work.  In a CGA installation a few years ago the hotel engineering team were amazed when they started getting fault emails about their air conditioners!  As a result they were able to identify the problem and fix it in a timely way with minimal disruption.

In a CGA installed integrated control system, our team here at CGA can also see the status of all the connected systems.  So if something is not working as it should be and you call us out of hours, we can very quickly connect into your system and send commands to different elements in the system to try to fix things remotely.  If this is unsuccessful,  we are able to determine what the issue is before we make a site visit, making the path to a solution much faster for all concerned and managing the carbon footprint of excessive site visits to diagnose the problem.

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

‘Carbon Neutral’ by 2050, what does it mean for AV?

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As the Government reveals plans to be ‘net zero’ in the near future, how do we, the Hospitality industry, help our guests and delegates to achieve this?  More specifically for this blog, how does AV play a part in helping to achieve this goal.

Cancel all meetings that require travel
We could argue that all meetings that require travel should be cancelled and we should all collaborate via conference call, Skype and Webex.  That’s possible, but meetings can be more successful with effective human interaction.  Can we therefore use technology to create local hubs and then join them to other local and national hubs with video conferencing? This in turn will still link up our teams whilst eliminating the big travelling piece of the puzzle, which will certainly have an impact when long distance car and especially air travel is removed from the equation.

Why are we not doing this already?
Historically, video conferencing always needed the same technology at every connecting venue.  If your local business centre or hotel technology did not match the venue you were trying to connect with, it was just not feasible to conduct the meeting in this way.

However, with the advent of Skype and hosted services such as Zoom, Jabber & Webex, the ability to connect and make a call is now available at our fingertips.  There is however still an issue to overcome.  If there are six or more people in a room, it is not practical to gather around a single laptop or phone for a meeting in this way, and having multiple devices on the call in one room also makes no sense.

What we need to offer as Hospitality venues, is the ability for teams to come together in comfortable surroundings and then to simply be able to connect to a device which allows a big screen conference, with clear audio and multiple cameras, enabling them to connect with other teams and remote workers in different locations.  This kind of facility allows everyone to feel fully involved and share team spirit without impacting in a detrimental way on the planet.

CGA Integration can deliver AV systems now that allow this to happen.  Delegates own devices running hosted services such as Skype, Jabber and Webex have the ability to connect and share calls on their device with a room of colleagues, via big screens, built-in microphones, cameras and speakers.

Ensuring Energy Efficient AV
So once the technology to enable video conference calling and BYOD (bring your own device) is in place, what can be done to further improve your venues carbon footprint?

AV Racks
Historically, each area in a Hospitality venue had a little AV rack with an amp and a CD player so each area, be it the bar, the restaurant or the lobby, could control its own sound.  Each of these racks not only took up lots of ‘back of house’ space, but as the units ran, they became hot and required fans to cool them.  These fans, in turn became clogged, got hotter and needed to run more to achieve the same cooling power.  All of this resulted in climbing energy consumption and costs.

Now most sound systems are centralised, or if not, they have the opportunity to be so.  Placing the AV hardware in your main IT racks in a sealed environment well away from both customers and staff works on a number of levels.  An out of the way location means less interaction, resulting in more consistent sound quality delivery.  In addition, there will be less airborne dust and probably cooler air which lets your AV hardware run less hard.  This means cooling fans need to run less, and as a result they become less clogged and are cheaper and more energy efficient to run.  To further improve on this efficiency, modern systems also have timers in them so that hardware can be placed into a low energy or ‘sleep’ mode when not in use and woken at the touch of a button or when music is sensed.  If your AV system isn’t quite there yet, making a few changes can help you to maintain or improve your AV standards, saving you both energy and money in the long term.

LED lighting
We all know that if well deployed, moving to LED lighting can save you money.  However, it needs to be done by a professional, otherwise it can create challenges to your electrical installation and actually become more costly.

Start by thinking outside the box.  For example, if you are fitting new exterior lights or even perimeter lights around and inside your events spaces, why not fit them with RGBW heads in?  This will enable you to change the colour of these lights to reflect the corporate colour of any delegates hiring out your events space, or you can add to the atmosphere by flooding a room with colour that lends itself to a particular occasion.  With this planning, you not only gain the extra benefit of a more flexible event space, but the carbon footprint of any events company being employed will be reduced, as additional lighting will not need to be shipped in and out of your venue.

In fact, this approach can be taken one step further and be a strong argument for investing in installed, Eco-friendly AV systems.  By moving to this, you can considerably reduce the carbon footprint of ‘third party’ hire companies driving AV hardware to and from your venue, either for your own use or for use during external hire events.  Having said this, it should be noted that it is unlikely that you will completely eliminate the need for third party AV.  There will always be corporate clients who have to use their own approved events company, and whilst their technology may be older and less flexible than yours, it is an area where events company make their money and so might not be fully avoided!

Projection
This area has also moved forward environmentally with the dawn of laser phosphor light sources.  No longer should you need to call out engineers to change projector lamps every 1,000 - 2,000 hours and energy should not be wasted by projectors which emit enough heat energy to boil water for the after meeting coffees and teas! Laser phosphor light sources, which are now the standard for projection, not only run cooler and quieter, but they have a light source life with 20,000 - 50,000 hours of life (to half brightness).  This hugely reduces the need for an engineer call out to change a lamp which in turn reduces both carbon footprint and disruption to meeting room spaces.

Remote support
Finally, it's worth remembering the advances in remote support.  New AV systems are now fully accessible remotely.  Just like with your IT system, AV engineers should be able to connect and look at most hardware and diagnose the vast majority of problems from their offices, without the need to travel.  So if there is a problem that they need to fix, when they do visit your venue they should have the correct hardware or spare parts with them.  They will not need to make a journey just to investigate the problem you were experiencing and then a further journey to repair it! This reduces the number of callouts required and halves the carbon footprint.

So being smart with your AV can help the move towards being carbon neutral and save you money, so why not make that change today for a better tomorrow.

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

Why? What’s the point of fitting sound systems in hospitality venues?

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I get very absorbed in speakers; choosing the right speakers, in the right number, placing them in the right location and even making them the right colour.  Speakers are important.
 
But let’s go back a step further and consider; what’s the point of fitting sound systems in hospitality venues?

Long before the written word was widespread, communication was aural as well as oral.  Our prehistoric ancestors used sound and rhythm to communicate and over time this communication evolved into songs and stories.  Although there has been a shift towards written communication, (albeit more recently via email, text and social media), aural communication is still an intrinsic part of our everyday soundscape.  Research has even shown that music is a huge influence on both our mood and our mental state.  Sound is important.

We humans make noise.  Sometimes we want music to disguise the sound of the other humans around us, to help us to feel that our experience is more pleasant or personal to us; reducing the impact or presence of others.  Just look at the number of people wearing headphones as they move around in crowded areas or sit on a busy bus or train.  We often choose sound to relax, and in a Spa environment for example, music can be utilised to replace the everyday noise of life, giving guests a completely contrasting soundscape to create relaxation and escapism.

Conversely if you have no background music at all, eating or functioning in silence or with just ambient human noise around you can feel quite unnatural, especially for the generations who have grown up with continuous music and noise as the backdrop to their lives.  Silence can create a ‘library effect,’ which can make individuals feel ill at ease, scared to make a noise, and as such failing to relax or express themselves.  So fitting a quality flexible sound system can enable you to create the right audio background, helping your guests to feel how you want them to feel in your hospitality spaces. 

Creating the right playlist for your Brand and playing this in the right format through a well designed and installed quality sound system, reinforces a venue’s Brand and its Brand values.  From relaxed to energised to engaged, different hospitality spaces may require a different soundscape; sound and especially music have an important part to play in creating the right environment for restaurants, lobbys, spas, meeting rooms and bars alike.  Like a well crafted marketing campaign, creative interior design or superior customer service, quality sound can work together with the other elements of your venue to help you to stand out for all the right reasons. 

Now more than ever getting sound right is key.  Guests are now exposed to good quality sound in many aspects of their everyday lives; surround sound, THX & Dolby cinemas, great sounding car stereos and certain mobile devices. They will notice if the sound systems in your venue do not come up to the standards they now take for granted.  To create a great sound in your venue you need to consider all aspects of audio; volume, hardware and music quality, what you are playing where and when (as this may vary by time of day), coverage (and ensuring that this is even as guests move throughout a space and between spaces) and balance between sound frequencies (bass & treble). 

Considering our prehistoric ancestors again, audio is a sense that very much wired into our body’s ‘fight or flight’ response.  Get the sound in a venue wrong and your customers will not be able to relax.  They might not be able to tell you that sound is the issue, but they will not stay for long or return very quickly. Get it right and all the elements of your venue will fit together like a well crafted sensory jigsaw, helping your guests to immerse themselves in your hospitality experience and truly relax.

Chris Gunton
Managing Director CGA Integration

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

Size is not everything!

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“Wow look at that speaker! We’re not a nightclub!!!”

I have heard this and similar comments time and again when designing a sound

system for a client for the first time.  A regular misconception is that the physical

size of a speaker is directly proportional to the volume or loudness of the sound

system, but that is generally not the case.

It’s true that you will need larger speakers to produce sound for a live concert

than you would need to install in a restaurant, but as sound gets quieter, there

is a minimum speaker size that you will reach, after which you start

compromising on sound quality.

Sound reproduction is all about moving air particles or vibrations.  In a

loudspeaker an electromagnet is attached to a cone which amplifies these

vibrations as it moves forwards and backwards, making sound waves in the

surrounding air and pumping them towards your ears.

So how do we hear music which is made up of lots of different sounds? Without

going too deeply into the science behind this, the frequency of the vibrations

(the number of sound waves that go past a fixed point say every second)

governs the pitch of the sound produced.  To faithfully reproduce all the

different frequencies of sound in a piece of music, good quality speakers use

different sized cones dedicated to high, medium and low frequencies, hence

the need for a minimum sized speaker to accommodate these. Generally in

each speaker cabinet there will be a bass driver (for low frequency sound

waves) and tweeter (for high frequency sound waves) and these will ensure

that sound from all frequencies is covered.

High frequency sound waves generate small movements of a small loudspeaker

surface area (the smaller tweeter cone) and lower frequency sound generate

large movements of a large surface area (the larger bass driver cone).  Basically

the lower the pitch of the sounds you want to replicate, the larger the surface

area of the cone and the larger the cubic volume of the speaker box you will need.

Sound volume (measured in decibels) is actually down to the amplitude of the

sound waves.  The amplitude of a sound wave (or the maximum distance moved),

is a reflection of how much energy it carries, the more energy it has the more air

particles that are moved for longer and the greater the sound we hear.

So, if you want a warm and full sound system throughout all the areas of your

venue, then you will need to have enough surface area of loudspeakers to excite

the air in the space and enough cubic volume of speaker cabinets to enable a

warm and comfortable sound to be generated in all areas.  This will be delivered

through a combination of; the right number of speakers of the right size installed

in the right locations.

Here at CGA Integration we generally use the smallest speaker cabinet required

to deliver a good full range sound in the required space, often in many multiples

to ensure that the distance from the customer to the speakers remains as

constant as possible as they move around the space.  This is explained in

"why so many speakers?!" on the CGA Blog.

Here you will find lots of articles dealing with speaker solutions including

“design led sound solutions” where we explain how to minimise the visual impact

of speakers whilst still generating superior sound & “speaker location; a sound delivery”

which considers the different types of speakers available and where they can be

installed for maximum audio effect.

To sum everything up, if speakers are too small or too few are used, this can

lead to issues in sound reproduction and quality, which will affect the

ambience of your venue.  Just remember, your AV design is created that way

or a reason, as “you cannot change the laws of physics!”