How much does PA hire cost for an event in Belfast or Dublin?

Cost depends on room size, guest numbers, whether you need speech only or full live music, and whether you need an engineer on site. As a guide, a speech and presentation system for a conference of 200 to 300 people typically runs from GBP 1,200 to GBP 2,000, including delivery, installation, tuning and an engineer for the day. A band system for 800 people is a different job again. Send us the venue, the date and the running order and we will quote against the actual requirement rather than a package.

What do you need to know about our venue before quoting?

Three things, and they are the ones that decide what actually fits in the room. Power: what supply is available, where it is, and whether it is shared with catering or staging. Access: loading bay or front door, lift and doorway sizes, and what time we can get in. Rigging positions: whether the PA can be flown, or has to be ground stacked, and what the venue will allow. We check all three before quoting. If you tell us the venue, there is a good chance we have already worked in it. Send us the venue, the guest number and the seating layout and we will tell you what actually fits, including whether the room can take it.

Do I need a sound engineer, or can we run it ourselves?

For a straightforward meeting with one lectern microphone, you can usually run it yourself. For anything with multiple speakers, radio microphones, video playback or live music, we strongly recommend a technician. Most of the audio failures that get noticed at corporate events happen in the moments when nobody is watching the desk.

Can you supply sound for events in Dublin and the Republic of Ireland?

Yes. We deliver across the island of Ireland from our Belfast base and work regularly in Dublin venues including the Alex Hotel, the Gibson Hotel and City North Hotel. Travel and crew time are built into the quote up front.

What size PA system do I need?

It depends more on the shape and surfaces of the room than on the headcount. A long narrow room needs different coverage from a wide ballroom with the same number of people in it. As a rough guide, up to 100 people in a single meeting room is usually a pair of point source tops on sticks; 100 to 400 in a ballroom needs distributed point source or a compact line array with delay fills so the back tables are not chasing the front; and above 400, or anywhere with a balcony or an L shaped room, is line array territory. Tell us the venue and we will usually know the room already.

Can you provide microphones for a panel discussion or Q and A?

Yes. Panels normally need a mix of lectern, table and radio handheld microphones, plus roving handhelds or a radio microphone runner for audience questions. We plan the RF so the channels stay clean in busy venues.

Do you supply audio on its own, or only as part of a full production?

Both. Audio alone is common for smaller conferences and meetings. Most of our larger work combines audio with lighting, LED video and staging, delivered by one crew under one point of contact.

PA and sound system hire for events across Ireland

Speech that carries to the back of the room, music that fills it, and an engineer who stays for the whole show.

Talk to us about your event

AXL Audiovisual supplies professional PA systems, sound engineers and audio production for conferences, awards dinners, corporate events and live music across Belfast, Dublin and the island of Ireland. We deliver, install, tune and operate the system, then take it away again. We are not a dry hire counter. Every system we supply is specified for the room it is going into, and almost every one of them goes out with a technician.

A man smiling and working on assembling or repairing a black speaker or musical equipment in a workshop or industrial setting.

What wesupply

Black speaker on a stand with a cord, set against a wooden wall, with patterned carpet in the foreground and a seating area with chairs and curtains in the background.

Line array and point source PA for rooms from 50 to 2,000 people, lecterns, ceiling and floor coverage for long or awkward rooms, and enough headroom that a quiet speaker still lands at the back table.
Handheld and lapel radio systems, gooseneck and lectern mics, comms for the production team and coordinated RF planning so nothing drops out mid speech in a busy venue.
Full front of house and monitoring, digital consoles, playback and multitrack recording for concerts, festivals, band nights and showcase events.

Brands we supply

Red background with white stylized letters 'S' and 'E'.

We hire and supply audio from L-Acoustics, Midas, Sennheiser, Shure, Yamaha, Audio-Technica and Electro-Voice. We keep the same core brands across our stock so that consoles, radio mics and PA boxes are interchangeable between jobs, and so every engineer on our team already knows the gear they are handed.

Most audio problems at corporate events are not equipment problems.

A ballroom with 400 people eating dinner is one of the hardest rooms in live audio. Hard surfaces, a wide and shallow shape, a low ceiling and an audience making more noise than they realise. Put a large PA in that room and turn it up and you get volume without intelligibility, which is the failure people actually notice. They will not say the sound was bad. They will say they could not hear the speech.

What we do is specify for the room rather than the guest count, tune the system once the tables and drapes are in, and keep an engineer on it for the duration. If your CEO steps away from the lectern, someone rides the fader. If a radio mic starts to struggle, someone is already swapping it before you have noticed.

For clients we work with repeatedly, we hold the previous event's settings and stage plan, so the second and third events start from a known position rather than from scratch.

Venues we know inside out

Learn more

A large banquet hall filled with round tables and many seated guests attending a formal event. The hall has a high, decorated ceiling with colorful lighting effects and is equipped with multiple screens displaying logos and event information.

NI Chamber of Commerce Annual Lunch, Titanic Belfast

A conference room set up for a presentation with a large blue digital screen displaying 'fenengo leadership summit' and the tagline 'Empowering organizations to stop financial crime and create a safer world.' The room has ornate ceiling detail, chandeliers, and concert lighting with green accent lights.

Predictive Aircraft Maintenance, Gibson Hotel, Dublin

A conference or seminar in a spacious, elegant room with high arched windows and white walls. Attendees are seated at round tables, listening to a speaker standing in front of a large screen displaying a presentation titled "What if You Had More Energy, More Success, and More Time?".

Fenergo Leadership Summit, Galgorm Resort, Ballymena

Total Performance Summit, Titanic Hotel Belfast

A speaker in a plaid suit stands on stage holding papers while addressing an audience at a conference or festival, with large screens behind her displaying graphics and text, and decorative banners hanging from the ceiling.

PortmanDentex Connected Event, Alex Hotel, Dublin

NI Chamber Festival of Business, St George's Market, Belfast

We work regularly in most major conference and hotel venues in Belfast and Dublin, which means we usually arrive already knowing the room's power, access and rigging positions.

In Belfast we work regularly at Titanic Belfast, ICC Belfast, Titanic Hotel Belfast, St George's Market, the Europa Hotel and Whitla Hall at Queen's, and across Northern Ireland at Galgorm Resort in Ballymena and Kingfisher Estate in Templepatrick. In Dublin and the Republic we work at The Alex Hotel, The Gibson Hotel and City North Hotel. If your venue is not on that list, it is usually one we can get into and survey before the day.

“I can’t recommend Andy, Joel and the AXL team highly enough! They are absolutely superb at what they do. Every event they have worked on for us has been seamless and they’re always making the process so easy. Whether it’s a small meeting or a large-scale event they consistently deliver flawless results.”

— Susan Cummings, Event Manager, NI Chamber of Commerce

Frequently Asked Questions

Straight answers on cost, engineers, room size, Dublin coverage and what we need to know about your venue.

Cost depends on room size, guest numbers, whether you need speech only or full live music, and whether you need an engineer on site. As a guide, a speech and presentation system for a conference of 200 to 300 people typically runs from £1,200 to £2,000, including delivery, installation, tuning and an engineer for the day. A band system for 800 people is a different job again. Send us the venue, the date and the running order and we will quote against the actual requirement rather than a package.
For a straightforward meeting with one lectern mic, you can usually run it yourself. For anything with multiple speakers, radio microphones, video playback or live music, we strongly recommend a technician. Most of the audio failures that get noticed at corporate events happen in the moments when nobody is watching the desk.
Yes. We deliver across the island of Ireland from our Belfast base and work regularly in Dublin venues including the Alex Hotel, the Gibson Hotel and City North Hotel. Travel and crew time are built into the quote up front.
It depends more on the shape and surfaces of the room than on the headcount. A long narrow room needs different coverage from a wide ballroom with the same number of people in it. As a rough guide, up to 100 people in a single meeting room is usually a pair of point source tops on sticks; 100 to 400 in a ballroom needs distributed point source or a compact line array with delay fills so the back tables are not chasing the front; and above 400, or anywhere with a balcony or an L shaped room, is line array territory. Tell us the venue and we will usually know the room already.
Yes. Panels normally need a mix of lectern, table and radio handheld microphones, plus roving handhelds or a radio mic runner for audience questions. We plan the RF so the channels stay clean in busy venues.
Both. Audio alone is common for smaller conferences and meetings. Most of our larger work combines audio with lighting, LED video and staging, delivered by one crew under one point of contact.
Three things, and they are the ones that decide what actually fits in the room. Power: what supply is available, where it is, and whether it is shared with catering or staging. Access: loading bay or front door, lift and doorway sizes, and what time we can get in. Rigging positions: whether the PA can be flown, or has to be ground stacked, and what the venue will allow. We check all three before quoting. If you tell us the venue, there is a good chance we have already worked in it. Send us the venue, the guest number and the seating layout and we will tell you what actually fits, including whether the room can take it.