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Our events blog is our place for sharing some of the expertise from our extensive experience in the events industry. We hope that these articles help you in deciding what's best for your event, whether it's choosing the right lighting, audio visual equipment or staging to make your event perfect.

How Much Do Event Planners Charge In The UK? Event planners usually charge on a percentage basis. The industry average is 10% – 15% of your total event budget. However, the most experienced event planners often charge a minimum fee. Leading names in the wedding planning industry usually set minimum fees of between £5,000 and £10,000.

How Much Does it Cost to Hire Sound and Lighting Equipment? How much you pay for sound and lighting equipment hire will depend on various factors, such as venue size and event type. For small scale birthday celebrations requiring professional sound and lighting equipment hire, you can expect to pay £100-£300. For large-scale events such as weddings, you can expect to pay £1,000-£5,000 for your audio and visual event equipment hire services.

What Does Event Production Mean? Event production refers to the planning, coordination, and execution of an event's technical and infrastructural elements. It covers all aspects that relate to the look and feel of your event. Event producers utilise sound, lighting, video, design, and display technologies to influence the atmosphere of any given event space to deliver on a given event concept or vision.

What is an Event Production Company? Event production companies are responsible for transforming an event space or venue to reflect the vision or concept given to them by a client or event planner. They install technical and infrastructural elements (such as sound, lighting, and video technology), blending creative ideas with practical elements to create an event's desired mood and atmosphere.

What Are the Different Stages of Event Production? The 1st stage of any event is planning. You can't organise or coordinate anything without some kind of vision, concept, or plan for your event. It doesn't matter whether you are putting on a professional corporate conference (check out our conference event services here) or a milestone birthday party for your parents. An effective pre-production plan makes each subsequent stage infinitely easier.

What Does an Event Producer Do? An event producer is responsible for organising and overseeing the production aspects of an event to ensure its smooth running. They coordinate vital aspects such as sound, lighting, and video display technologies and ensure you have necessary event infrastructures such as stage furniture, tables and chairs, and power distribution.

Lighting for Outdoor Events in Sussex Event lighting for outdoor events is crucial. Not only do your outdoor lighting options have an impact on the look and feel of your venue, but they also play a critical role in ensuring everyone can see and safely navigate their way around.

How Much Does Lighting Cost for a Wedding? Lighting is an essential aspect of any wedding. But when it comes to hiring the lighting costs, you might well be thinking about how wedding lighting costs to hire. The truth is that your wedding lighting cost will come down to your specific choices. You could go all guns blazing and hire an extravagant lighting arrangement for your dance floor, or you could take a more pared-back approach in conjunction with your lighting designer.

Do I Need Dance Floor Lighting at My Wedding? With so many aspects of a wedding event production to consider, some happy couples wonder whether they can do without dance floor lighting both from a thematic and budgetary perspective. But the truth is that dance floor lighting isn't something you can do without.

How Much Is It to Hire Fairy Lights for an Event? Fairy lights are an important production element of many events. From creating a fairy light canopy over your outdoor wedding dance floor to wrapping them around the imposing wooden beams of your gala dinner venue, these lights can transform your venue by creating a "fairytale" or romantic atmosphere.

How Many Uplights Do You Need for a Wedding? The number of uplights you will need for your wedding will depend on many factors, such as the square footage of your venue, whether you plan to use them indoors or outside (or both), and the overall theme for your wedding venue decor. Small and intimate wedding receptions may only need 6-8 uplight fixtures, whereas larger celebrations with hundreds of guests may require 20+ devices.

What Kind of Lights Are Used for Uplighting? Uplighting traditionally relies upon dedicated LED lighting fixtures known as uplighters. These are wireless, battery-operated devices, making them ideal for outdoor landscape lighting or mood lighting indoors. Other popular choices for uplighting include halogen or LED floodlights, which are specifically designed for exterior landscape or building lighting.

How Do You Decorate a Wedding Venue with Lights? When it comes to wedding decoration ideas, lighting should always be at the forefront of your mind. From string lights to hanging lights, your wedding lighting choices will have a significant influence on your overall wedding reception decor. So, before we cover some creative wedding decoration ideas for you, let's start by covering what you need to bear in mind when incorporating your lighting into your overall wedding theme.

How Many String Lights Do I Need for a Wedding Reception? The meterage of string lights you hire will depend on the size and location of your venue as well as your overall wedding theme. Some intimate indoor wedding receptions may only require 100 metres or less, whereas more extravagant outdoor celebrations could require as much as 500 metres.

Top 10 Creative Party Themes for Adults Whether it's a 30th birthday party or a corporate end-of-year celebration (take a look at our corporate events section here), there's nothing better than a dress code or party theme to get everyone in the mood to party. The problem? You might have become a little tired of the same old tried and tested party themes and you want to get a little more creative with your upcoming event. With that in mind, we've put together this list of top 10 creative party themes for adults.

What Do Event Management Companies Do? An event management company is an outfit that oversees the coordination, planning, organisation, and execution of a large event. Events overseen by event management companies include but are not limited to weddings, corporate events, conferences, and festivals.

How to Become the Best Possible Event Planner Event planning is a rewarding career. Those already within the industry will undoubtedly tell you that when a large-scale event such as a wedding comes together perfectly, seeing the look on the happy couple's faces is incredibly fulfilling. Plus, it pays relatively well and helps you develop a wide range of transferable skills, particularly in the field of project management.

Why Become an Event Planner? While you will enjoy a healthy salary once you have enough experience under your belt, there's something else that you just don't get in many other lines of work. That look on your client's face when you nail an event. Many experienced event planners will tell you that the look of an amazed bride and groom at a wedding is almost worth the hard work alone

How Much Do Event Planners In The UK Make? Event planners can have a range of salary expectations dependent on experience and job location. Those entering the field with little experience can expect a base salary of £18,000-£22,000. Those with more experience operating in and around London can expect to command a base salary of £43,000 before any performance bonuses are considered.

How Much Do Event Planners Charge for Birthday Parties In The UK? Event planners often charge for their services based on a percentage of the total party budget. This can vary from as low as 10% to as high as 15%. Others charge a flat fee based on the services rendered. On average, you can expect to pay between £300 – £800 to have your birthday party planned by a professional.

Lighting for Events Choosing the right lighting for your event is critical. Choosing the wrong fixtures for the job could lead to an underwhelming experience for your event guests and harm your brand reputation (in the case of a corporate event).

What is Dance Floor Lighting? During planning your wedding or a birthday party, you will soon realise that you probably need dance floor lights to give your dance floor area a bit more life. Dance floor lighting plays a pivotal role in your wedding lighting lineup in particular, but parties and celebrations for all occasions benefit from this type of event lighting.

What Colour is Wedding Uplighting? There's no question that wedding uplighting play a crucial role in your wedding decor and your overall wedding lighting lineup. When scrolling through social media for inspiration during wedding planning, you will have likely seen uplighting in the background of many wedding photos and wondered what colours are available and whether they will be suitable for your wedding ceremony or wedding reception decor theme.

Is Uplighting Out of Style? When choosing the right lighting fixtures for your event, you may well be considering uplighting for your venue. But if you've been keeping an eye on lighting trends over the years, you'll know that uplighting hasn't always been in favour with event organisers. So what's the current view of uplighting? Has it gone out of style, or is it very much on-trend at the moment?

How Much Does it Cost to Rent Lighting for a Wedding in Sussex? Your overall wedding lighting cost will depend on several factors, such as the size of your venue and the length of the hire period. Costs for renting lighting for a small wedding with less than 100 guests would be in the region of £1,000-£2,000, whereas larger celebrations with 250+ guests could cost closer to £5,000.

How Much Does Event Lighting Cost in Sussex? Your event lighting costs will reflect the nature, size, and scale of your chosen event. For instance, a small corporate conference event lighting hire package may only come to £500. In contrast, a large-scale wedding reception could command a lighting budget of £5,000.

How Do You Light Up a Wedding Reception? Lighting is critical for any Sussex wedding reception, whether it's an indoor or outdoor wedding. However, outdoor weddings do extra planning as you rely on your chosen event lighting company for everyone to see properly and enjoy themselves safely. Regardless of your wedding venue, you need to understand from the outset that there is no right or wrong way to light up your wedding reception. You will make many of your choices based on personal preferences.

What Does Gobo Mean in Lighting? A gobo traditionally refers to a stencilled disc placed in front of a light source to create a pattern, image, or logo on a surface, such as snowflakes or leaves. There are many different types of gobos, including glass and metal gobos. It's also possible to have custom gobos made for your gobo lighting requirements.

What is Gobo Lighting for Weddings? A gobo is an object (usually a small stencilled circular disc) placed in front of a light source that controls the output of said lighting fixture. Most commonly, a gobo is a form of stencil that allows only specific sections of light to pass through, creating a pattern, logo, or well-known shape. For example, a winter wedding celebration may use gobos to project snowflakes across the wedding venue.

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Clients Say.

Really quick response from Kerry, updates given swiftly and staging reached us well ahead of the event. Great value too. Thanks!
I hired a pair of speakers for a DJ set I had to do in Sussex. My experience with Kerry was excellent, the pick up and drop off was smooth and the sound quality of the speakers were amazing. I’ll definitely be hiring from them again in the future.
Our wedding day was absolutely perfect in every way. It was beautiful, everything ran smoothly and was well timed and it was an unforgettable day. We, along with our guests, have not stopped talking about it since and some of our guests have commented on how it's the best wedding they've ever been to and one they will remember forever. Our wedding was postponed by a year due to covid and throughout all of this, qoko continued to be not only professional but extremely positive and reassuring & when the day came the lights, dance floor and equipment was perfect & more than I ever expected.
Good people to do business and a great place to hire lighting from.
Qoko and event team team are amazing! They cater to your every need. Amazing at what they do and honestly just such lovely easy people to work with xxx
Qoko were extremely professionally, and our event looked & sounded amazing, thank you.

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