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Sound systems on floats come in all shapes and sizes with different sizes depending on it being a carnival, parade or pride event. From a roof mounted horn speakers, to a fully blown Stage size speaker system. It’s very easy to underestimate the noise in a carnival atmosphere, people shouting, blowing whistles and horns. You need something that’s going to cut over the top and make a wave of people bob as you go past!
We’ve been fortunate to have provided PA systems for London Pride. If you’ve never been it certainly is an experience seeing millions of people line and engulf public landmarks and streets. You soon appreciate that a system has to be well designed to playback music, and loud enough to be heard above the whistles, shouting and general noise.
Turn your computer volume up and watch the video further down this page! It gives you an example of how loud and the music is coming from the float we provided for.
For small village and town carnivals speaker placement isn’t too much of an issue. Most floats consist of a flatbed truck or tipper van which provides a suitable base for speakers and a power generator. For larger floats with custom design structures and decoration, consideration needs to be made to allow the speakers to have a clear throw without being obstructed, using printed gauze in place of solid vinyl banners is just one example. Using perforated banners allows the air to travel through without acting as a big sail.
Rarely for floats do we have an out the box solution as the design and purpose of the float varies so much. Lets talk and help you design a functional impressive system. For bigger floats get us onboard as soon as there is talk of a carnival or Pride and let us work with the production set designers to make your setup look as good as it sounds.
What about mains power on a lorry?
Extension leads and mains wall power are out the question here! We’ve got systems and generators to provide for most systems. We also have car battery powered mains inverters to give you a mains socket, and also a range of powerful battery PA speaker systems with long battery life and high power output.
You would be surprised what you can do with a lorry, a generator and some speakers! Our range of KV2 speaker systems enable us to stack and arrange speakers in a modular fashion. We can provide small systems that fit into the back of a car and are ideal for dance clubs to dance behind a car or small van, these systems are generally 300-600 Watts in power and cover directly behind for performers. For a bigger impact we can supply up to a 10,000 watt system with enhanced bass. This really packs a punch and provides great sound projection either side and spill front and back. This is the system to really identify your brand with! We can scale this KV2 system back to 5,000 watt for those impressive moments but a little more reserved! it’s important to point out that these systems are capable of producing sound pressures in excess of 139db and hearing protection advised for the driver and anybody working on the float!!!
For Smaller floats or vehicles needing speakers we would recommend our KV2 EX12 active speakers which are small enough to fit in a boot of a car, or on stands on a smaller flat bed truck.
For Larger floats and bigger carnivals such as a Pride float on a large lorry our larger festival type KV2 system would be best. It all depends on space and how loud you want to be heard!
2018 London Pride, PA system supplied for TFL working in partnership with Siemens
We provide the AV, sound system and generators for floats and lorries. We do not supply or hire trucks or floats,
If you require a truck, we advise that you look for somebody with a flat bed van, a curtain side lorry 7.5t through to 13t used by scaffolding companies or utility companies.
This will often come with the requirement of having a licensed driver as most people now only have a license up to car size.
Simple outdoor stage with a small PA system for making announcements for example for family fun days and school fetes
A full assembled stage for bands and larger scale carnival base locations up to 2000 people we can fully manage production, project management and full hire.
