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!

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!”

Design Led Sound Solutions from CGA Integration

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Holistic visual design
Have you ever been frustrated that your interior design is being compromised by the functional requirements of services? Do you have an eyesore of a white grill on a coloured ceiling, black boxes on white walls or maybe too many controls on the walls, with staff unable to get the consistency you planned and designed for?

If this sounds like an experience you are all too familiar with, CGA Integration can help you to address these aesthetic issues, whilst still enabling you to deliver the functional design that your client’s venue demands.

CGA can deliver speakers and grills resprayed to any RAL colour to ensure the integrity demands of your design, even after the services have been installed. With this available from CGA for all services, not just for sound equipment, we can help you to deliver a truly holistic visual design.

In addition, the control systems that CGA deploy not only deliver great sound but can also control; lighting, video, blinds, air conditioning and a whole range of other services. This enables you, the designer, to deliver a control platform for the whole environment, rather than creating a wall full of buttons to control varying parts of it!

So rather than planning how to layout a wall of switches, let us help you to change the conversation to talk about integration in the plant rooms and colours and fonts for the iPad control screens.

Addressing the soundscape
Taking things one step further, designs that encompass all the senses create a truly holistic guest experience. Although the visual design creates a wonderful first impression, hearing is one of our primary fight and flight senses; get the sound wrong in a venue and guests may never be comfortable in the space, no matter how wonderful it looks!

To generate the best sound, you need to ensure that the correct speakers and reproductive equipment are installed for the space. Not every sound system will deliver the right sound. How you hear sound in a space changes considerably with decorative finishes and also once it is occupied. CGA can help by creating the best sound system for your space, choosing and fitting the right equipment to deliver what your client needs it to do, throughout the day, every day.

Designed for the future 
Once you know that your design will both look and sound how you envisaged, how do you ensure that it stays that way, whilst still allowing flexibility and future proofing for your client?

Here at CGA we always plan for the future. With every sound system we create, we ensure spare cable runs to allow for changes to systems without the need for rewiring and we install digital control platforms which allow equipment to be monitored and tested by us remotely, (in real time), to ensure that all hardware is at it’s best at all times. These same digital control systems also allow systems to be reconfigured and reprogrammed easily with no hardware changes to repurpose or refresh a space for added peace of mind.

Why not talk to us about getting the sound system right for the space you are designing for. This might just add that final edge to your design; keeping your client’s guest’s spending and your client coming back to you for more great designs.

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

Audio Myths and Legends... busted!

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Over the years that I’ve worked in the Hospitality sector there are some statements that I hear time and time again, ‘myths and legends’ of AV that are passed on and often never questioned.  So I’ve decided to address a few of them, the ones that I hear most often, and hope that after you’ve read this you might look at your AV in a whole new light!

More speakers just =  louder sound

In the hospitality sector, our aim is to deliver a consistent guest experience, one which reflects your Brand and encourages repeat visits to your venue, or other venues within your group.  All your diners receive the same quality food & service, so all guests should receive the same quality audio. However, this is so often not the case.

If only a few speakers are fitted, this will lead to audio ‘hot and cold’ spots within a venue.  Taking the dining analogy, proximity to speakers will either make your guests dining experiences ‘loud’, if seated near to a speaker, or quiet for those seated further away.  You wouldn’t have areas of your dining room lit and areas in darkness, so why should this be the case for sound?  

If you install numerous speakers running at a low level, this can create an even and all encompassing sound.  It’s not that more speakers just mean a louder sound, it means that they can create a more consistent sound.  By installing a sound system in this way it will surround your guests, acting as an extension to your lighting and decor, to complement the food and service you offer.

Speakers are black and ugly

Speakers now come in a variety of sizes, colours and finishes.  Some speakers are even invisible and for those that are not, they can be sprayed in any RAL colour to exactly match your decor.  CGA like to get involved as early as possible in the design process to ensure that, where possible, speakers are integrated and hidden.  We can offer plaster in “invisible speakers” and have even installed these behind a gold leaf to deliver both a five star sound and aesthetic!

If the sound system requires visible speakers, these can be colour coordinated with your design scheme.  CGA can finish most speakers to any RAL colour.  If the grill or even the speaker cabinet is visible, this can be the same colour as your ceiling or wall, or if desired they can be finished in a coordinated colour to match other design elements, to give a fully coordinated appearance.  So although speakers are also available in black, if this isn’t the colour of choice it’s really not an issue!

But the speakers in the restaurant next door are tiny!

The tiny domestic ‘design led’ speakers that you see dotted around in certain bars and restaurants are often favoured by designers, as they have minimum impact aesthetically, but these are actually only the visible part of a much bigger system. Their size might be attractive if you are trying to minimise any visual impact, but when you install small speakers such as these, they only reproduce mid and high-frequency sound.  To get a full range sound you will always need to add a complimentary larger cabinet, (or bass bin), to fill in the warm full bass and lower sound frequencies which these tiny speakers cannot reproduce.

These ‘bass bins’ as they are referred to are much harder to place in your venue, as they invariably create a bass ‘hot spot’. A salesman might state that “bass is Omni directional, you can put a bass bin anywhere.”  This is an accurate statement, bass sound does spread in all directions, but it spreads from the bass bin and similar to the example given above when we looked at speaker numbers, if you have a table next to the bass bin guests there will hear the bass much more than those at a table placed further away, resulting in each guest having a very different audio experience. There are ways to work with bass bins to try to mitigate this effect, but if you fitted slightly larger full range speakers instead, this will ensure that all of your guests receive the same audio experience and consistency of sound as they move through your venue.  As we have mentioned above, speakers now come in many different colours and finishes so their size really shouldn’t affect the aesthetics of your interior design!

Why have a music player, I can use my iPod or Spotify in the Bar

Whilst there are many legal pitfalls in this statement, even if you can address these, a portable music player or streamed music source will just offer inferior quality sound.

Many digital sound formats are very heavily compressed to allow sound files to be sent over the internet as fast and as easily as possible. Unfortunately, once compressed, much of the ‘dynamics’ and ‘excitement’ is lost from the music for ever, so even if you have the greatest sound system in the world, it will still sound flat and lifeless due to the poor quality of the source material.  Amplifiers do what their name suggests, they just amplify sound, what you put in is exactly what you get out, only louder! So if you use a poor quality music source, you just get loud, poor quality music.

In addition to this, if you do have a sound system which uses an iPod as a music source, there is always the concern over control.  You run the risk of staff using their iPods and playing music that they like to listen to, as opposed to playing the carefully selected music playlist that is right for your customers in your venue.

When choosing a music content provider, always talk to them about the file size and compression rates they use.  Ask them to explain and demonstrate the difference between the same track on a CD and on their music player to ensure that the music quality is right for you and your venue.  

There are some exciting new technologies now available such as the revolutionary new British technology MQA.  It is still a compressed music format, but MQA offers better time alignment which considerably improves the quality of the music output from compressed files.  Once it has passed through the MQA decoder in the sound system, the track is reproduced in the same quality as the sound recorded by the artist in the recording studio!  In a quality hospitality venue why would you settle for anything less?

I hope that I have succeeded in breaking down some long standing AV ‘myths and legends’.  Obviously, each venue and every room is different and each desires to create a unique experience for their clients. Here at CGA Integration we pride ourselves on understanding customer needs and striving to apply the best AV solution every time. Why not contact us to see how we can make your AV work better for you in your venue?

Come in, relax and make yourself at home …

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Sound; the missing link in the sensory jigsaw:
Come in, relax and make yourself at home … how would you like your guests to feel when they think about visiting your venue?

In the Hospitality Industry we are all searching to make people feel as welcome and relaxed as possible.  Venues invest in exquisite decor, beautifully designed lighting schemes and specially selected staff, carefully trained to deliver outstanding customer service, but do you still find that not everyone can truly relax?  Some guests can remain on edge throughout their stay and fail to immerse themselves in the wonderful environment created around them.

Maybe sound is the missing link in the sensory jigsaw, the subconscious trigger in helping all your guests to truly relax.

Our hearing is so often the sense we take for granted.  Sound tends to just happen around us.  Familiar noises such as aeroplanes flying overhead, phones ringing, vacuum cleaners whirring, birds singing, children playing or people walking by, just become background noise.  It's often not until you stop and really listen that you can pick out each of these individual sounds.

Our bodies are in a neutral state around sounds that we are use to hearing, but if we are placed in an unfamiliar environment or situation with noises that we are not use to, our sense of hearing becomes heightened and our body becomes generally more alert.  This biological reaction links back to our inbuilt “Fight or Flight” response, which is designed to keep us safe.  As cavemen, our ancestors faced the regular question “should we stay and ward off this prehistoric predator or run as fast as we can to get away from it?”  Thankfully, we no longer generally face this kind of dilemma on a daily basis, but the inbuilt “Fight or Flight” response remains hard wired into our psyche.

Silence and sudden loud noises can often affect us in a similar way.  If we consider the natural world for a moment, predators are often met with an ‘alarm’ call to warn others in their group of impending danger and potentially scare off the intruder, in much the same way as the modern equivalent of a smoke detector, house or car alarm.  Conversely, potential prey can often remain still and silent to conceal their presence from a predator, which in turn heightens their other senses and prepares their bodies for ‘flight’.  These inbuilt behaviours remain part of us even today, so getting sound right for your guests is a crucial part in helping them to truly relax, even though they might not be able to tell you why!

Getting it right:
So how do you get it right?  This is not just about sound for sound’s sake, but about using sound in the right way to help change your guest’s opinions, from liking your venue into really loving it.

By eliminating unwanted noises, choosing a soundtrack to complement your Brand and delivering this through a well designed, expertly installed, flexible sound system, you can address the missing link in the sensory jigsaw.  This removes areas of silence, helps to reduce the inbuilt “Fight or Flight” response in us all and joins together all the other sensory messages experienced by your guests enabling them to truly relax.

Eliminating unwanted noises and reduce noise reflection:
Before you start adding sound to a space you need to consider noises which already exist or which can be heard from within that space, which might have a detrimental effect on your guests, for example noise from; traffic, open kitchens, doors slamming or phones ringing.  Ideally all these noises need to be diminished.

Stand and clap your hands in the space, think about how every noise will or will not be reflected throughout that area, if necessary add some sound absorbing surfaces to deaden these reflections so that you have as blank an acoustic canvas as possible to start painting your soundscape on.  To help, you can engage an acoustic environment consultant to measure the existing noise within the space.  They will then advise you on how to minimise noise and ‘audio bleed’ from other areas.

Choosing a soundtrack to complement your Brand:
Work with a music provider to ensure that the music you are playing complements and enhances your Brand.  Who are your guests? Does your offer change throughout the day? Indeed does your customer demographic change throughout the day? Your music content choice needs to reflect all of these variables.

A well designed, expertly installed, flexible sound system:
To generate the best sound, you need to ensure that the correct speakers and reproductive equipment are installed for your space.  Not every sound system will deliver the right sound. How you hear sound in a space changes considerably with decorative finishes and also once it is occupied.  A specialist sound system designer and installer will create the best sound system for your space, choosing and fitting the right equipment to deliver what you need it to do throughout the day, every day.

Once you have worked through the issue of unwanted noise & sound reflection and chosen the right music content, you may well find that the amount of music you have to add to a space is vastly reduced, as you are no longer competing with or trying to mask other sounds.

To find out if sound really is the missing link in your venue’s sensory jigsaw why not contact CGA Integration today and arrange a full AV review.  Help your guests to immerse themselves in your hospitality experience and truly relax.

Creating the right soundtrack for weddings

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Weddings in the UK are big business, with couples and their parents spending thousands of pounds on their big day.  Organising a wedding is a very stressful event, in surveys it’s up there with death of a loved one, divorce and moving house!  What should be a very joyous occasion, is often overshadowed by all the little details the happy couple need to consider, coordinate and arrange.  

Choosing a venue for both the service and the reception is a key decision for every bride and groom.  Selecting somewhere which offers the right mix of facilities whilst creating the right atmosphere for their big day is paramount.  Music is one of the key strands to run throughout the day, from the arrival of the first guest, to the service, into the reception & wedding breakfast with speeches, to the first dance and into the evening entertainment.  Helping your guests by offering them all the AV facilities they need will make their lives easier and make them more likely to choose your venue over others.

Music is so important.  Helping your guests to create the soundtrack for their special day is a vital part of a successful wedding.  When we hear songs from the past they can stir up powerful emotions and transport us back in time. Like stepping into a time machine; you can feel everything as if you were actually there. The Bride and Groom might want to capture memories from special events at their wedding; music which reminds them of when and where they met, their first date or the proposal.  The relationship between music and memory is powerful, which is all the more reason to get the right associations for every wedding day.  Deliver this in the right way to ensure that wonderful memories of the wedding, at your venue, continue to be conjured up in the minds of the happy couple and their alike guests for many years to come.  

What music and technology do I need to offer my guest?

AV requirements for a wedding will vary throughout the day and will depend on if your venue is licenced to conduct the wedding service as well as hold the reception.  To help you to make sure that nothing gets missed, here is a helpful checklist to ensure that you, and any events companies or DJ’s you may employ, have everything you need to make your guest’s big day sound just how they want it to.

(i) Ceremony music

Many of your Brides and Grooms may choose to bring their own music for their service.  As such you need to let them know what format this needs to be in and ensure that you have a connection point in the main ceremony room to enable them to play pre, post and during ceremony music.  This either needs to be accessible and easily operated by someone in the wedding party, such as an usher, or by a member of your staff if necessary.  If the Bride and Groom opt for live music during the ceremony, you will also need to ensure that you have got microphones or power for instruments available.

In larger rooms a microphone and possibly an induction loop might also be needed to ensure that the registrar can be heard by all the guests.

(ii) Before and after the ceremony

Your Bride and Groom may request that you play their own background music either before or after the ceremony, during any reception drinks and possibly in the dining area where the wedding breakfast is served.  Ideally all these rooms, if there are more than one, should be linked to enable the same music to be played throughout.  This creates the same mood for all the guests, allowing them to all feel part of the same event.

It is possible that the Bride and Groom may request live music to be played after the service during the drinks reception, maybe a piano with or without a vocalist or even a saxophone or string quartet, so again microphones and power for certain instruments might be required in another area. Whatever the music choice, it's important that guests don’t mingle in silence, as it can make people feel uncomfortable, equally the music that they hear needs to be appropriate, and played at a suitable volume, to ensure that it doesn’t overpower their conversation.  

(iii) The Wedding Breakfast

From the toastmaster through to the speeches after dinner, it is key that everyone in the wedding party can hear what is happening during this equally important part of the day.  A good speaker system in your main dining or events space is key to this, you deliver the same quality food & service to all your guests and they should also expect to receive the same quality audio.  

Considering the all important speeches, make sure that everyone can be heard by ensuring that microphones are available if necessary.  Some guests may be hard of hearing or some speakers might be too embarrassed or emotional to really deliver clearly throughout the whole of their speech.  To help everyone, It is always best to have a microphone and suitable speakers on hand so that every guest can hear all of the proceedings and really feel involved in the day.  The best and most aesthetic delivery of sound will always be from an installed ceiling speaker system that is specifically designed to cover that room.   If you do not yet have this facility at your venue and the DJ is to be in the dining room after the wedding breakfast, it might be possible to use the DJ’s speakers for the speeches.  It's worth remembering however that these might not fit with the decor and ambience of the wedding breakfast and the sound will not be best balanced this way.

With the rise of multimedia, do you have a projector and screen to allow the speakers to show the guests any photographs?  From baby photos to selected images from the stag and hen parties, your speakers may want some visual cues to help them deliver their speeches, (and jokes), sharing images and memories.  This may be something that you use an external events company or the DJ for, as many DJs now use video screens to show video clips and pictures, but either way it may well be something that you are asked if you can provide.

Using digital signage can help to direct guests around your function spaces and signpost what is occurring in different areas as well as helping to personalise the event to help to celebrate the day.

(iv) After dinner entertainment

Although a playlist can be very personal and work to create a mood as background music during the drinks reception or the meal, it is very difficult to predict which songs will work well at what times during a party.

As an ex-DJ, I would urge you to encourage your Brides and Grooms to hire a professional DJ or entertainer.  For a DJ, a wedding reception can be one of the hardest gigs, as the audience you have to engage with is truly diverse: from grandchildren to grandparents, ballroom dancers to ravers and everyone in between!  Pleasing everyone and keeping the dancefloor full can be a real challenge, but  when you get it right it's very rewarding.  

A good DJ will be more than someone who just plays a compiled playlist, they should read the crowd and respond to their mood and dancing preferences, cracking appropriate jokes and creating a memorable party atmosphere along the way, which a predefined playlist just cannot achieve. A real professional will mix selected tracks in with the dancing so that it means something to the Bride and Groom and yet the rest of the crowd, who may be too young or too old to remember your special tracks, can still have a great night.

As a venue owner you need to see how you can make the DJ look like part of your venue for the day to come together seamlessly.

In an ideal world you would have the DJ set up prior to the ceremony and reception drinks so that the set up is not seen, although with some venues resetting rooms for dancing after dinner this can be harder to accomplish.  If this is not possible, think about hiding the DJ equipment behind a curtain or screen or even under table cloths so that the turnaround is faster and boxes do not have to be carried through the venue, breaking the mood of the day which everyone has tried so hard to create.

(v) What is better, owning or hiring?

There are certain items, which as a quality venue you should own, to ensure that they are available to offer your guests at all times, but other equipment you may wish to just consider hiring.  The table below should help you to prioritise your choices.

Items	Use	Own?	Facilitate?	Hire?
Speakers in dining & events spaces	Speeches & background music	Yes, this should be a minimum requirement	N/a	N/a
Radio Microphone	Enabling speeches in any location within events spaces	Yes if demand is high enough		If you find the use of this is infrequent then hiring makes sense
Music player socket, input in function space	Play ceremony or pre and post ceremony music	Yes, this socket should be located in a logical place for guests and or staff to connect and play back music	Yes	N/a
DJ equipment or Band equipment	Wedding evening party	No	Yes, allow for the use of power sockets, set up space, limiters, etc	Yes, hire in a professional from an agency or from the Bride and Groom’s personal experience
Screens	Best man's speech, memory images, etc	Yes, if you have enough storage space and regular use of these.  They can also be used as meeting screens.	Yes, allow for power sockets around the venue	Yes, hire from local events or AV providers as and when the need arises.  This allows you to hire a screen appropriate to the size of the event.

(vi) Managing music volume

If wedding guests are also staying at your venue make sure that where possible you place the guests most likely to be disturbed by a noisy DJ at the other end of your venue, put the best man and bridesmaids in the bedrooms over the dancefloor, as they are most likely to need to change or freshen up and are most likely the last to bed! If this is not possible, try to work with the DJ to maintain a sensible noise level.  Limiters can be fitted and the Environmental Health Officer may insist on these, but try to avoid this route if you can as they can create a poor guest experience, causing the sound to cut out just as the party gets going which equally may mean that the DJ will not want to play your venue again! Some sound limiters have a traffic light system, which if managed correctly enable the venue manager and or DJ to see when the music is getting too loud and to take action to address this gradually and in a controlled way without actually killing the ambience of the evening.

By considering all of this you really should be well on the way to helping your prospective Brides and Grooms create the perfect soundtrack to their wedding.  With music being so closely linked to evoking memories, getting it right through for your guests will mean that you can create the very best memories of their special day at your venue.

For further information about AV equipment and installations for weddings and all other events please call CGA Integration to discuss how to make the most of your venue.

Is that music to their ears?

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The missing piece in the Brand experience puzzle is so often the audio.  It’s easy to see the beautiful interiors our customers will observe and feel, assess the level of customer service they will experience, taste and smell 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 the sensory mix to create a coherent, holistic result.

Whether you are targeting millennials or any other key market sector, it is becoming more and more important to deliver a coherent and quality soundtrack to each and every experience.  But getting the audio right is not just about delivering the right soundtrack but it's also about using the correct hardware for your space.  Great music delivered through the wrong speakers will always sound bad, however carefully picked the playlist is.  A sound system which has been expertly designed specifically for your requirements and space, using carefully chosen hardware, will always show off the music you have chosen to its very best.

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 our customers will feel when they experience a venue, not just at the time, but for many years to come, as music is also a powerful tool in evoking memories.

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 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, 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 in your venue right is just as crucial as getting the soundtrack itself right.

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. The relationship between music and memory is powerful, all the more reason to get the right associations for your venue, delivered in the right way, to ensure that wonderful memories continue to to be conjured up in the minds of your customers for years to come.

As you seek to differentiate yourself and the experiences you offer, ask yourself; how are we delivering the soundtrack to our guest’s experience?  The greatest interior design, lighting scheme and legendary customer service, whilst crucial, cannot counteract the bad memories created or the negative, uncomfortable feelings generated from a poor soundscape.

Make sure that the audio experience you offer your guests really is music to their ears.