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Let There Be Lighting, Part 2 of 2- CRE Rentals

January 21st, 2010

In Part 2 of “Let There Be Lighting” (read Part 1 here), we will give you some suggestions when setting up lighting for a presentation in a mid-size room (conference breakout, company meeting). Of course, if you don’t feel comfortable with lighting, CRE Rentals’ technical staff can assist to get you what you need for your particular situation.

Scouting locations and lighting needs

When movie makers scout locations, they check more than just “look and feel,” and immediately assess the place, inside or out, in terms of lighting. This is what light meters are for – a great all-purpose tool for checking light levels, and assisting in developing lighting setup plans.

Depending on the meeting type – screen presentation or speech, a dais up front or a podium – you will set up lights in a particular way. If you can’t hang lights from the ceiling to illuminate a podium, you can use freestanding spots from the sides. If the focus of the audience is a presentation on a large-screen, then you would keep that area dim and perhaps throw a small spotlight on the speaker.

Interactivity needs light

If you are using an Audience Response System rentals, your challenge is to keep lights low enough not to interfere with the screen image, and high enough for people to see their handheld response devices. This can be accomplished, somewhat counterintuitively, with more, not fewer, lights. With sideline lights every few rows, keep the rear lights a bit higher than the middle ones, the middle ones a bit brighter than the near-front ones and create a “lighting gradation” to achieve your goal.

Alternatively, you can use an indirect approach, such as illuminating the room walls with bottom-up spots, even colored ones (choice of color matters). All of these maneuvers, of course, will depend on what the built-in room lighting offers, but if they are not “dimmable,” it is better to leave them out of the equation entirely.

Speaking of control…

Today’s lighting components, from ceiling-mounted spots to colored ones on stands, all connect to central control panels that can also run the audiovisual equipment – including a high lumen projector rental if you need one.

The basic lesson is that more lights means more control, and greater flexibility in directionality, brightness, color and other variables. You don’t have to believe in Feng Shui to know that such room characteristics as size, paint and carpet color, seating arrangements and ceiling height affect your lighting plan – and mood, too.

Our expert Account Executives can put you in a good mood by helping you put together a great meeting, so give a call, send an e-mail or fill out the Quick Rental Quote right now. CRE is in the solutions business, and we have one for you, too.

Let There Be Lighting, Part 1 of 2 – CRE Rentals

January 19th, 2010

Whether it’s a presentation, seminar, conference or trade show exhibit – in small rooms, large halls or a stadium – good lighting can make or break an event. As a leader in trade show management and convention rentals, CRE knows the importance not only of good equipment, but good information. Here’s some on basic lighting.

Good lighting gives presenters a more dramatic, more impressive stage presence, and also ensures that video or film recordings are clear and usable. Armed with a PowerMac G5 with Kona card rental from CRE, an artist could adjust lighting and contrast “in post,” but you always want to capture the best possible original image.

Different strobes for different folks

Lighting Rental There are many leading specialty lighting makers offering a world of lighting products for every situation. Event lighting can include fluorescent, incandescent, strobe and LED lights, and are available in banks, spots, tubes and other shapes, in all sizes and wattages. No matter what type of lighting you need, there is a light that will meet your needs.

For large meeting halls or dinner events, theater-style lighting adds color and drama to the atmosphere, and can transform “the usual thing” into something truly memorable. Many of the new, smaller, integrated systems can be controlled by computers available to rent from CRE.

Let there be light

Consider these basic lighting tips as you plan your next event:

Color is proven to influence audience mood, and it’s fascinating how it works, so do a little research before your next big meeting.
Different colors and textures can attract or redirect people’s attention.
You can project graphics across the stage or wall using gobos, etched disks inside the light fixtures.
Make sure presenters suffer no distracting facial shadows. Do a dry run.
Stage “washes” keep presenters well lit as they walk the stage
Follow spots will pick out award winners or notables from an audience.
Powerful psychological effects can be achieved by lighting the entire room.
New, “intelligent lighting” can be programmed to sweep the room, create effects and change colors.

In Part 2, we will show how to set up lighting for a press conference or presentation in a mid-size room (think conference breakout or company meeting). In the meantime, if you’re planning an annual shareholder meeting or exhibiting at a trade show, CRE is the one-stop shop. Our experts can help you with everything from lighting to computers, audience response system rentals to kiosks– just request a Quick Rental Quote today. We can definitely throw some light on the subject for you.

Happy Holidays from ComputerRentals (CRE)

December 24th, 2009

A Turkey’s View of Thanksgiving

November 26th, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving from CRE Rentals

Build a Site, Build Your Business, with CRE Rental’s Help

November 19th, 2009

Whether your business involves manufacturing, distribution, a profession or a service, you can build it up by creating a plan to expand your online presence.

09_11_19_Site We recently ran a series on Web design tips (Part 1 and Part 2), so now it’s time to put your new knowledge to good use. Even if you don’t launch a state-of-the-art site, you can help your customer service staff out big time if you put up a site with FAQs, parts manuals, solutions to common problems and perhaps an online chat page.

Don’t worry about it!

Web sites can cost a lot in both time and money. If you don’t have a large monitor, consider renting a LCD monitor (or two) so you or your designer have plenty of screen real estate to handle all the pages, menus, art and tools that need to be right at hand. It might be easier to start with something a tad less complex than a full-blown site, too, since you can “scale up” gradually.

Glamorous corporate Web sites can cost a lot to develop. Do you really have to have a site in the first place? Probably. Does it need to cost a lot? No. Web presence is going to be important to your customers, but start out easy. You can get budget hosting plans for as little as $5 a month, and most of the offers today include everything you need, including shopping carts.

If you are considering getting new software and embarking on a Web project, you might consider a computer rental (Mac and/or PC) so you can dedicate a workstation or two to the job without interfering with other work. If you anticipate having a lot of photos, audio or video material, consider some extra storage like a Xserve RAID rental. You can never have too much storage—ever!

Now go get the customers

Now, you need to drive traffic (customers) to your Web site. Let’s face it, if customers don’t know you’re there, you won’t have a business, no matter how nice your site or how great your product or service. You need to invest what you can, which will mostly be time plus whatever money you can allocate, in promoting your site and your business.

You should devise an e-mail campaign, send press releases to print publications and online services, get trade links, create a Facebook Page, use twitter, post comments on online forums and generally sing a “one note song” about what you are doing. If you need wireless laptops for a “mobile campaign,” or plasma screen rental for a digital signage program, CRE rents all sorts of technology equipment.

Whatever you need, our expert Account Executives are here to help you. You can call us, send an e-mail or fill out our Quick Rental Quote form, and the solutions you need will be on the way. That’s what we do, after all—provide the solutions that keep you going and growing.

Your PowerPoint PhD Curriculum Starts With Presentations 101

August 4th, 2009

Tips to Enhance Your Presentation For many professionals, making an effective presentation is a real challenge, and the many tools that have been developed to make presentations easier—particularly PowerPoint and its Mac counterpart, Keynote—haven’t solved the underlying problems. “Desktop publishing” programs didn’t create great newsletter designers in the 1980s, FrontPage didn’t birth great web developers in the 1990s and no razzmatazz software will make you a slick presenter now.

Still, you don’t have to burden your audiences with 94 slides filled with bullets, sub-bullets and big chunks of illegible text. Just learn some important basics about presentations in general and PowerPoint/Keynote in particular. You will soon stand out from the innumerable “presentation pros” who don’t give the slightest nod to basic layout, typography, color schemes or design fundamentals.

The presentation tips, tricks, techniques and tools are divided into three sections: (1) Planning & Preparation, (2) Layout & Copy and (3) In the Spotlight.

(1) Planning & Preparation

Get the right hardware for showing off your software. For a department meeting you may decide to rent a LCD monitor, giving you 40 inches of crisp, clear imagery that everyone in your office can see.
For a larger meeting or small conference session, CRE recommends a projector rental to clearly convey your message. You will need to consider lighting, line of sight and a few other aesthetic factors for maximum effectiveness.
For a large event you may need CRE’s comprehensive general session rentals package. Besides a projector and screen, you may need a sound system, cordless pointer and other technology (like the audience response system rentals for polling your audience) to ensure success. CRE’s experts can help you with equipment placement, lighting, seating arrangements and so forth.

(2) Layout & Copy

Your slides should all be based on a single “template.” You can find these online for free, design one yourself or modify one of the templates that came with your software.
Don’t overdo your slide template with unnecessary visual “bling.” Your template’s job is to frame your content, not distract from it. A solid, unobtrusive background with contrasting text and your company logo in the corner will probably do it. Use your template consistently, in this presentation and in the future.
Remember this math: 1 slide = 1 point. If you are making two key points at a certain point, then you need two slides. This may be a big change for you, but it is very important.
The title should be 36 points and on one line. Use 24 to 32 points for bullet lines. Keep it simple, too—don’t mix typefaces, colors, point sizes or bullet types.
Limit each slide to a maximum of six bullets, preferably fewer, and use a single line of copy per bullet. Eschew sub-bullets entirely, if possible.
Animation, whether Flash or something else, can be a nice touch, but “less is more” applies here in spades. Animation is cool, but often distracting, even irritating.
Mix up the graphics. Use a chart, then for the next graphic use an illustration, then a photo and so on. The audience needs a break from repetitive slides of bulleted text.
Keep your copywriting short, informative and free of “presentation clichés”. Avoid being verbose or repetitive. You want to seem knowledgeable and focused, not longwinded and vague.
Bullets are better as phrases than complete sentences (no matter what’s underlined in green by MS-Word’s grammar checker). Omit final periods and unnecessary words. Example: “We need to forecast the most likely wholesale and retail prices in the future” becomes “Forecast likely wholesale/retail prices.”

(3) In the Spotlight

You will do better if you know your audience. If you don’t, then you need to know something about them. The amount of technical detail you’d give to engineers would certainly exceed what you would share with marketing managers.
A first-rate cordless presenter, like the Logitech model that CRE rents, does triple duty as a cordless optical mouse, a laser pointer for accentuating key points and an LCD timer that vibrates at five and two minutes remaining.
Do not read the slide copy to the audience. This point cannot be stressed enough. Include the key word(s) of the topic as you speak to the slide’s point. Reading the slides shows that you are unprepared, lacking in confidence or not the expert the audience expected.
Finally, be natural, upbeat and even a bit quirky—in a nice way, of course. Be the presenter that people thank afterward and want to see again.

Presentations can be stressful, awkward and scary—and that’s just for the audience! Seriously, presenters face myriad challenges. CRE’s Account Executives have the expertise to navigate these choppy waters so you can make all the right moves. Fill out the CRE web form for a one-click quote, call us toll-free at (877) 266-7725 or send an e-mail for a response within 4 hours.