On Tour Events (OTE) is a well-known provider of event production services. They are currently based in London, Manchester and Surrey. Jack Woodhouse is a key member of the team at OTE and knows a lot about how OTE has helped thousands of people across England with their event hire support services.
With coronavirus restrictions across the world being relaxed, tour events have been able to start back up again (with ongoing requirements, of course).
Jack was able to take some time away from his work at OTE and answer a few questions we had about his business and the industry.
How was OTE started and what is the primary goal of the organization?
On Tour Events became what it is today through knowledge, passion and experience of a collective group of people having spent many years within the events industry coming together to create a turnkey solution for events.
Our primary goal is to supply and deliver an impressive technical production for bespoke events, weddings and corporate events throughout the UK and Europe. Offering clients either an all in one solution for their event requirements or a more bespoke approach to certain aspects for their production.
The goal is to be able to walk away proud of the overall end result of what has been supplied, and the client more than satisfied and impressed with the service from start to finish.
In your view, why is OTE one of the best event hire companies in the industry and how has your business derived this competitive advantage?
On Tour Events differs from other production companies due to what we offer in terms of our level of production, our capabilities and the knowledge and experience collectively we can supply for our clients. Not only can we offer turnkey solutions for events whereby companies just come to us for all their technical, production and set requirements but we also offer a more bespoke option for parts of production needs, so there is versatility there.
All the production equipment we supply are owned by On Tour Events so therefore everything is in house which tends to mean clients save money as there are no premium charges applied which happens when bringing in third party companies.
We are also proud to offer 3d renders for clients at quote stage so they can get an idea as to the overall look of their event before committing to anything. This is a really popular choice for most clients and definitely something which sets us apart to other companies.
On Tour Events has been built up over the years after providing services for many different events and gathering knowledge on what works best for our collective client base. Acquiring the knowledge and expertise within the events industry allows us to offer the service we do.
What are the core services that OTE provides and how specifically do they help your clients?
The main services we offer are for sound, lighting, staging and LED video screen requirements.
The sound systems we stock are high end, high quality, reliable and renowned brands worldwide so we are confident that we are able to compliment the majority of our clients sound requests in house without the need to sub hire in from third parties. The infrastructure we have is not just supplying the speakers themselves but also additions which are needed for live music/ DJs /artists such as monitors, mixing consoles, DJ equipment and microphones to name a few. So, this covers quite a lot of aspects for most clients artists.
Lighting can be vast, and you never seem to have enough lights because of the diversity in events that we cover! Having said that we do stock a modest amount of lighting fixtures all of which offer different effects. We have wireless options, outside lighting, mood lighting (popular specifically for weddings) rotating lights, static lights, spot lighting and special effect lighting.
Again, the variety we have in house seems to cover the majority of jobs we do, being able to offer clients options of different textures, colours, movement or just static lighting suitable for the type of event they are having. As mentioned with the sound it is not just the lighting fixtures, we stock we also have lighting desks, rigging and multiple back up options should a plan b need to come into play. This gives the client reassurance and confidence the event will run without a blip, with back up options in place should they be required.
On Tour Events can supply fully covered outdoor stages suitable for festivals, fetes, charitable events, fun days, light switch ons and whatever other events clients are putting on! The stages range from small to cover audiences of 300 people to a huge stage which covers audiences of 10,000 people.
Not only do we supply outdoor stages we can also just supply staging deck for use inside. So we cover both eventualities. The staging panels can be set at different heights, and different sizes dependant on the client’s specification.
Tiered staging is another popular thing our clients ask us about and we are happy to be able to offer this option as well. You would imagine this is most popular for elaborate weddings, but to be honest we get more enquiries into this for the corporate market for conferences and award shows, where extravagance prevails!
Our last core service we provide would be for LED video screen, this can be either inside or outside. The panels are extremely small in pixel pitch which gives the intense, clear visual you see on the screen when content is played. This is something which can be used outside in daylight, in all weathers or it can be used inside, which covers most possible events!
We also supply the rigging for the screen, as well as assistance with content, advice on aspect ratio with content and free logo demonstrations set up on the screen before any booking is made to give clients a true feel for what they are getting before moving forward.
Within our team we have experienced and passionate technicians who are able to assist on the day of the event, they specialise in lighting or sound and are there to either support the client on their event as reassurance or to be an AV, lighting or sound technician covering bands/ showcasing lighting productions or running content on the LED screen. Most clients find this very helpful!
All elements above are offered to clients as a package, turnkey solution for their event as well as the option for picking and choosing what they may/ may not need. So there are options for the clients, from small, medium to large events we can cover all types of productions to a very high standard. This helps the client massively by just liaising with one company to pull off their requirements in one go!
You offer 3D production renders. How does this help your clients and what are the benefits of this?
3d renders are an asset to our company, this is one of our unique selling points because it is so popular amongst our clients.
How do you know what the production will look like on the day/ evening when you have never set up an event before, or you are using a different venue for example? Well most of the time it is based on using someone’s expertise or advise based on previous events. That is absolutely fine, and we still advocate this, but it is very beneficial for the customer to visually see on a screen what their anticipated setup would look like before the event takes place.
This gives time for adjustments and alterations which they may require to tweak it to be exactly what they want. This cannot be done on the day of the event, there would be no time and the stress for the client would be of an all-time high. This is eliminated with a render!
Of course, a production always looks different on screen to in person, but all the essentials are put into place giving the client maximum control in what they do/ don’t like.
What exactly is a “turnkey” event production package? What will clients receive with this deal?
Turnkey is being able to offer multiple services combined but from one company, which is exactly what On Tour Events do. All the production elements we have mentioned above, sound, lighting, LED screen, staging etc are all provided in house which means we do not sub hire in from outside event production companies.
When this is offered within a package this becomes a much more cost effective way of putting on an event, very appealing to most people!
Some companies do not realise that it is possible to get sound, lighting, staging, mics, LED screens etc from company alone, and are normally delighted when we inform them we can cover the whole production for them so they only have to deal with one company.
How significantly has the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic affected your industry and what changes have you had to make to remain in business?
There is no getting away from the fact that COVID-19 has affected the events industry and we are no exception. Most of the events we do are corporate, weddings, bespoke one off events and festivals so we definitely have experienced a knock on effect from the world shutting down for a few months!
We could have caved to the pandemic and admitted defeat but we were not open to doing that so instead we have been keeping busy via a computer screen working remotely from one another in our team but still in communication via the internet.
The team have been coming up with new ideas, initiatives, ways of improving and what we can offer our clients for 2021. So there will be aspirational videos posted, new content for our website and offers / advise to try and help people wanting to put on an event but limited to what they can do with the current social distancing implementation. We will also be running offers for 2021 when hopefully the world slowly resumes to some level of normality there will be proactive options in place for clients wanting to carefully slip back into running events at very competitive prices.
Thank you Jack for your time!
You can follow up with Jack Woodhouse at www.ontourevents.co.uk you can also follow the newest trends, news and events at their blog here.
