Sound and lighting for a milestone birthday

One room, several audiences

A milestone birthday brings grandparents, work friends and a table of people who have known the birthday person since school. At seven they all want to talk; at ten they all want the songs they remember. The sound has to move between those two evenings, and the lighting has to keep the room feeling like a party rather than a function.

Speeches and the surprise

• Have a microphone ready before the speeches start, not carried in once the room has gone quiet.
• A wireless handheld is worth having if the speeches happen around the room rather than at one table.
• Keep the music low under the speeches and bring it back afterwards. The contrast does more than volume.
• If there is a surprise, tell us the cue and who gives it. The music stopping at the right moment is half the effect.
• Speeches work best early, before the playlist takes over and the room splits into groups.

The playlist

• A cable is the reliable option once the room fills and phones start competing for a wireless connection.
• Decide who holds the phone. A playlist managed by three people is a playlist nobody enjoys.
• A laptop or a tablet with the playlist downloaded beats a phone streaming on a weak signal.
• Ask for a second input if there is a video, a montage or a message from someone who could not be there.
• Have a backup: a downloaded playlist and a cable, in case the venue’s Wi-Fi disappears.

Lighting the room

• Warm uplighting through the meal keeps the room comfortable and photographs well for every age group.
• Colour can come later, once the tables are cleared and the dancing starts.
• Keep the food and the bar area lit. Nobody wants to eat in the dark, however good the dance floor looks.
• Battery fixtures avoid cables across a village hall floor or a function room carpet with guests moving about.
• Ten fixtures rather than six if the room is wide, has columns, or has a stage at one end that needs tying in.

Choosing the size

Sixty guests in a village hall are covered by two speakers on stands. A hundred and fifty in a marquee, with a dance floor at one end, want more coverage and usually a subwoofer. Tell us the guest count, the room and whether the party is a playlist or a band, and the quote will say which of the two setups fits. It is cheaper to add a second pair of speakers than to discover at ten o’clock that the far end of the room cannot hear the speeches.

What it costs

The plug-and-play party PA is £115 for three days, or £140 with local setup, and includes a small mixer and a wired microphone on a stand. Garden fill speakers for a second area are £65 and an 18-inch subwoofer is £45. Six wireless uplighters are £70 and ten are £100. If the birthday ends with a band, the live music atmosphere package is £460 including setup and programming for the band lighting and the front-of-house tops; the band brings its desk and monitors.