Pearce Hire has seen a substantial growth in the demand for their technical production skills and teams to work on running events
UK - Over the past year, Pearce Hire has witnessed a substantial growth in the demand for their technical production skills and teams to work on a range of running events. During 2016 Pearce Hire supplied up to 20 different running events around the UK, including the Plusnet Yorkshire Half Marathon (Sheffield) and Marathon (York), almost a dozen 10K runs, the Great Birmingham Run and the Great Bristol Half Marathon.
“Sporting events provide a different dynamic and set of challenges from the outdoor events and festivals Pearce Hire might be better known for”, observes John Huson, project manager. “But in fact we have considerable experience providing distributed sound systems for sports events where the PA system needs to cover several hundred metres to provide the necessary information to the competitors, as well as keeping the spectators and supporters fully updated throughout the event.”
These specific audio requirements can be installed by Pearce Hire in conjunction with the necessary event staging infrastructure and temporary power distribution for which Pearce Hire has an award-winning reputation. The temporary power infrastructures ensure the substructure underpinning sporting events such as event timing, first aid, race control and any event village all have a stable and reliable source of power, alongside the staging structures for start/finish lines, the podiums and warm up platforms and stages along the route.
Another challenge for these events is the management and delivery of smooth and efficient set up and de-rig schedules within very tight timescales – these urban events are often held on busy public roads and so rapid deployment and removal of equipment is necessary to meet the demands of the local community and in order to minimize disruption. With Pearce Hire’s credentials as production and rental company the entire production solution for these events can all be supplied by Pearce Hire.
The equipment utilised by Pearce Hire for these sporting events are taken from the extensive rental inventory held by Pearce Hire including an extensive stock of L-Acoustics speakers with the KARA line source elements and SB18 sub bass enclosures.
Commenting further, Huson says, “The events are a mixture of 10K’s, half marathons and marathons and we supply a range of services including audio, power, structures & staging. Our ability to supply all of these technical requirements from in-house makes Pearce Hire a very compelling choice for sporting event organisers as they only need to deal with one supplier rather than three or four. This approach provides an ease of dealing with only one technical supplier, alongside associated cost-efficiencies which is always appealing to our clients.”
Early April sees the 2017 sporting events season taking off for Pearce Hire, with a new event for existing client Run For All. For the new Lincoln 10k, Pearce Hire will be supplying audio for the start and finish lines, as well as the temporary power distribution for the start, finish and event village area.
As Spring turns to Summer, the next few months look likely to see a growth of technical production for sporting events with 14 events already contracted to Pearce Hire and a steady stream of enquiries on a weekly basis.
(Jim Evans)

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