Projection engineering (Jan-Dec 1931)

Page 12 Selling public-address equipment and service WRITING in the Broadcaster and Wireless Retailer, London, James Deers puts forward excellent suggestions which if acted upon should result in furthering the sale of public-address systems and rental of service. Mr. Deers says: "Your first step to secure p-a. work should be to circularize the secretaries of all local clubs and the potential users of equipment. "For this purpose you will require a mailing list. The nucleus of this can be obtained from the 'clubs' section of local directories. "It can be further added to by watching the small advertisements in the local newspapers and extracting addresses of clubs advertising for new members, usually under the 'Sports' section. "A big percentage of your work, however, should ultimately come from recommendations and from bookings made on the spot by potential users present at functions where a public-address system is used. "Here is a suggestion for the letter to small sports clubs : " 'Dear Mr. Secretary : — It must be quite a problem to you at times to know what to do about the music for your occasional informal dances. The cost of an orchestra is often hardly justified, while a phonograph makes itself heard only over a small area. " 'What is really needed for this sort of function is our sound reproducer service (described in the enclosed leaflet). " 'The expense ? Very low indeed. For instance, you can have equipment on loan for an evening capable of covering up to two hundred people dancing for $00. " 'If you would like to hear the equipment we should be glad to arrange for you to visit a function where it is in use, or to demonstrate in your own clubhouse— of course, without charge or obligation.' "After allowing a week or so to elapse, your next step should be to follow up with a personal call. This is very advisable, as it enables one to weed out the unlikely 'prospects' at once and also to get into personal touch with the secretary. "In the directory, each club may seem an equally likely prospect, but a visit will show which can immediately be struck off the mailing list. "In many cases your application to the secretary has to be referred to the committee for a decision. For this reason, where possible, a demonstration should be arranged in the actual club premises with the committee present, as many people are still surprisingly skep ▲ A A PROJECTION ENGINEERING tical of the capabilities of modern p-a. equipment. "It is difficult to give definite figures for charging. Apart from the capital cost of the equipment there are a number of variables. These include operators' wages, transport and installation costs. Also tube and record replacements have to be covered before profit can be shown. "For a function where amplified speech for announcements as well as music is provided, anything from twenty to fifty dollars might be charged, depending on the size of the crowd and the financial position of the club. "For dancing only you will have to compete in price invariably with the 'semi-professional' dance band, of which there are now some thousands, consisting mostly of youths employed regularly in other directions who turn to dance-band work as a spare-time moneymaking hobby, and who can afford, therefore, to play for very little remun ' eration. "Particular care should be taken in the compilation and use of record libraries. "Discrimination in the use of suitable types of orchestration also will pay. For instance, a young crowd of tennis-club people will appreciate a program of 'hot' or rhythmic style dance records, whereas a social club with members of maturer age would prefer more melody rendition and will invariably also call for a good percentage of waltzes. "Handle the business side with the same care and consideration you give the technical details of p-a. work and you will find your clientele growing with each successive function satisfactorily carried out." The skating rink music problem THERE are hundreds of roller and ice skating rinks in the country whose managers would like to install modern sound equipment for furnishing music to take the place of other mechanical devices they now use and which do not furnish the quality of music that is desirable. Many of them employ bands or orchestras to furnish music, but this is an expense many rinks would like to get away from. Many rinks throughout the country have already installed sound equipment to furnish music from phonograph records. They obtain records made by the leading manufacturers suitable for skating. This is not always satisfactory, for it does not give them the full benefit of the economy of a sound system, nor does it allow them a system which By R. O. Elmgren needs practically no attention. They have to purchase records with suitable music and time, which are few; and often the reverse side of these are entirely unsuitable. Usually some one must attend to the equipment to see that records with the proper cadence are played. I have obtained a goodly number of the records recommended by several of the foremost manufacturers as being suitable for skating. I find this : First, very few of them have the exact time required, which is 56 beats to the minute. Some are slower and some are faster. Individually they could be played and the speed regulated so that the resulting music would have the same cadence constantly, but this will not do, for the proper thing to use is an auto matic changer to change these records, and this cannot be done if the time is not alike on all the records. Second, all of these records are band or orchestra numbers, recorded for entertainment as good music and delightful selections. If they all had the same time, they could get by, but they still lack something that is required for proper skating music, and that is an accentuation of the tempo ; the swing, the time is not emphasized ! Here, then, is the solution to the problem, which would mean increased sales for the sound equipment industry and would provide a new and wide outlet for the product of record manufacturers and would prove a rich field for the first to go into it. This would be {Concluded on page 25)