FoggyLog

Tue May 25th 2004 00:36:31: Warning: SET Lighting and Sound

So you're thinking of hiring off SET Lighting and Sound (based near London in England)? Don't!! From our experience they are a bunch of unprofessional cowboys.

Here is what happened:

We were organising our biggest event of the year - the Imperial College Union Summerball at Alexandra Palace and decided to hire the intelligent lighting off SET. We placed an order for 10 Mac 2000 Profiles and 10 Mac 250 Entours. Guy at SET also said he could probably get us up to 4 Mac550's on demo from Martin on top of all that. All looked good - we were within budget and had lots of kit for our money.

On the day SET turned up on schedule and we started unloading the kit only to find there were not enough road boxes. The delivery person told us that there had been a problem with 4 of the Mac 2000's and that they would probably be delivered later. Then we opened the Mac250 flight cases to find they were Mac250+'s rather than Entours! That's not what we ordered. Also there was no sign of the demo Mac550's - that was simply a lie to make them sound reliable.

About an hour later we managed to get through to SET's office, only to be told that we weren't going to get the extra Mac 2000's we'd ordered (apparently they had come back at 6pm the night before with no bulbs, and they didn't have any spares) and that they didn't own any Entours and we'd have to make do with 250+'s! They were not even going to make any effort to sort out their problem, and just said sorry.

After a lot of phoning around we finally managed to get 6 Mac 250 Kryptons from Halo and 4 (+ a spare) Mac 2000 from Essential. The spare Mac 2000 from Essential also saved us, as one of SET's 2k's broke down just after we'd flown the trusses out.

So basically, if you want your event to run smoothly, don't trust SET Lighting and Sound to supply the kit

Update (05/06/04): SET have now sent us an invoice (dated two days before the ball happened!) for the full cost of the hire - including charging us for all the things they didn't actually deliver!! The union finance department has rung them up, and told them what to do with their invoice....

Update (11/12/05): I just noticed SET have now changed their name... seems they are now trading as "gh Lighting". Same company however with the same boss by the impression I get from their website

Update (17/07/06): Over the past week someone (who is posting under a pseudonym and claims to be unconnected with GH Lighting) has persistantly been adding threatening comments to this page. Unsuprisingly I have been deleting these comments as I do not see that they are constructive and I will not have people insulting me on my own website! If anyone has a problem with any of the facts that I have described above, feel free to drop me an email and explain your feelings.

Comments (16) | Permanent Link

I would like to tell a few home truths about 'Set Lighting Sound Ltd', who are now trading as 'GH Lighting Ltd'. I used to work for them when they traded as C2C Events. I was the Production Services Manager. Here are a few things from my time there:

[EDITED BY WEBSITE OWNER: I have decided that some of the comments posted here could upset some people. Therefore I've removed them. Basically the poster wasn't very pleased with SET / gh Lighting and their approach to running a business]

Comment by Matthew Herd at 19:35 on Sun 29 January 2006

I am a freelance lighting designer and I've recently used GH lighting for a number of corporate events without any problems. I have also got them to provide the moving lights for a well-known television program which has also been a great success.

In my experience, I have had no problems with the equipment or service provided by GH Lighting. I was quite surprised to read the comments on this site and I must admit it caused me concern about using GH lighting. However, I am pleased to report that they have provided good kit which has been well looked after and they do offer a good back up support should anything fail (and stuff does fail - lets face it).

I can't comment on "Set Lighting Sound Ltd" as I haven't dealt with this company as it has since ceased trading. I am aware that GH lighting is managed by the same people but my understanding is that they have restructured their operation and staffing.

When you read these comments please remember that people are very quick to complain and moan when things don't work out as expected. This is why I've decided to try and balance any impressions that may be made when reading comments on this site.

Comment by JJ at 12:35 on Mon 3 July 2006

I agree with the last post. I have used this company many times in the past and find the comments some what hard to believe.

There are often 2 sides to an argument and the comments above are harsh considering the owner of this site implies he got the kit for nothing! Is that not a fair settlement?

I have also noticed the owner of this site bragging on other pages about his opinions of GH Lighting. "wonder if he wishes he'd not tried to screw up our event yet?", I can't see anyone "TRYING" to screw anyone’s event up! More like unfortunate set of circumstances which the owner of this site (Gary Ewer) finds hard to comprehend. It does happen and you got your kit for nothing!

As for Matthew Hurd… A disgruntled ex employee of the company if I remember rightly. Once again 2 sides to every story me thinks!

Comment by kb at 0:15 on Tue 11 July 2006

Hehehehe... Now if I were honest I'd say I recon those last two posts come from someone connected with GH Lighting who is slightly annoyed about this. Especially as I never said that we didn't pay the invoice from SET, however "kb" seems to know that for a fact - "you got your kit for nothing".

Anyway - yes there are always two sides to a story and what you read above is my side. Sadly I can't tell the other side to the story as Guy never bothered to phone me up to apologise and explain what happened. Personally I would have rathered pay for the kit than have the stress of madly phoning every company we could think of to try and get hold of kit hours before the punters arrived for the ball.

Comment by Gary at 21:23 on Tue 11 July 2006

I used GH lighting last year.... hiring in a load of mac 2000's.... of which 4 all had error messages relating to bulbs, dmx, or in one case one just wasnt with us at all, and would just keep resetting itself.... luckly having dismantled a few in my time i was able to resolve many of these issues.... but it has to be said... as far as quality of service goes... sorry what? this has been the case both this year and last year... and so all can be assured... that even after giving the company a second chance to prove themselves... it was as disasterous as ever

i would advise anyone looking for a lighting event... to use network audio... though, request that they do not use any products from GH lighting!

Comment by TSLH at 13:45 on Wed 26 July 2006

Gary - I have no connection to GH Lighting other than I'm a client who hasn't had any problems. I'm certainly not "annoyed" about the results that can be found in Google as it doesn't really effect me.

As I said before, things do go wrong, especially given the nature of our work. I try to deal with any issues directly and when things don't go to plan I make sure I get explinations and find the people responsible and deal with the matter there and then. Thats just my style, and I must admit these message boards aren't usually my type of thing. I just felt that a balanced view should be given, in fairness to the company.

So enough of this from me. Time to move on and do some work!

Comment by JJ at 10:10 on Sat 29 July 2006

now to add my 2P. I run a hire conpany and Gh/ Set whatever you want to call them are rubbish, always dodgy kit and terrible service. i completely aggree with the owner of this site!

Comment by Stuart Jsl at 21:18 on Thu 4 January 2007

COMMENTS POSTED ON THIS SITE JAN 4-07 HAVE NOT BEEN POSTED BY ME, STUART CAMPBELL OWNER OF JSL.

WHO EVER POSTED THIS COMMENT IN NO WAY HAS ANY INVOLEMENT WITH JSL.

I HAVE USED GUY @ GH LIGHTING / SET LIGHTING FOR YEARS AND HAVE HAD NO PROBLEMS WITH HIM, HIS EQUIPMENT OR SERVICE.

Comment by STUART CAMPBELL JSL at 20:59 on Tue 30 January 2007

GH lighting is a top company and Guy is a top bloke. Don't listen to the BS above, posted by cowards using other people names.

Comment by Global Lighting at 11:49 on Wed 31 January 2007

I've dealt with Guy at GH Lighting via eBay.

I found him to be a decent and honest bloke.

Comment by John Robinson at 23:44 on Sat 9 June 2007

never heard of them, but all i can say is try a couple of good companys

1.www.vikingstagelighting.co.uk (very good guys and very helpful)

2. www.csrlighting.co.uk (a personal contact so i do get moving lights for cheaper than anywhere else)

enjoy

Comment by Patrick Cleaver at 16:07 on Mon 11 June 2007

Guy is a very profesional and capable person who runs his company comeptently and with consideration for the customer. I have been very privilaged to work with him in the past and have found his mehtods and equipment no less than perfect every single time. He's a great bloke and I would reccommend him to anybody and everybody.

Comment by Robert Kendall at 19:10 on Mon 25 June 2007

Gary,

A few things:

1) You moan that lights don't work, but you ordered 10 Mac 250 Entours and 10 Mac 2000s. Anyone with any sense would order 11 of each, if your gig is as big and important as you make out.

2) You claim that someone obviously connected wit GH posted on the website, but you deleted the comments, and clearly, have no wish to publish further comments . Surely this isn't fair to publish comments like that calling people 'cowboys' and 'rubbish' without enabling the concerned to provide their own opinions/defense of the situation.

3) You seem to have some major issues here, in fact, I only found this page from another website, which has this link in your signature. This is ONE show, and you clearly haven't dealt with them before, or after - so how you can write these comments, calling people 'cowboys' if you have used them ONCE.

It looks to me like you have had ONE bad one-off experience and you have been niggled by this for 18 months. I really, really don't understand what you are trying to achieve by this, as obviously, people aren't just going to take you word for it - especially as you have disabled GH from posting further comments. You have written a whole page of website calling a company' rubbish' and 'cowboys', so its clear you have issues, but I WOULDN'T rely on this info as a 'reference'. I would go to a few more people first - and get a few more opinions - especially from people who don't have so much time to spare that they can do this kind of thing.

I have no connection with GH, other than I have found their kit to be reasonably reliable (well, as reliable as a Mac gets), therefore will watch this page with interest, to see what your reply is.

Comment by N at 22:23 on Wed 28 November 2007

Hi "N",

1) Why should I pay for spare kit? If I hire N lights, then I expect to have N working lights. On big hires from other companies such as Stage LX, Whitelight, Essential etc they have always sent spare equipment in case of failure.

2) I have no problem with sensible comments such as yours, however I'm not going to allow people to post rude and insulting comments on my website.

3) Not quite sure what you mean by "which has this link in your signature". As far as I see, you found this page by googling for "SET Lighting and Sound". The joy of the internet is that companies can no longer get away with providing bad service - if they do then the internet allows other people to find out about it and make their decision based upon this knowledge. All I have done is tell people about the service I recieved. Personally I would never use SET / GH lighting again, following the service I recieved the first time I used them. Why should I risk a second event by using them again??

Comment by Gary at 15:01 on Thu 29 November 2007

Gary,

I cant see how doing one small event makes you able to judge such a company?

Maybe if you had any knoledge of pro kit, you could sort out the problems?!

It might make sence to work out how to use it before you hire next time?? you wouldnt drive a car before you'v passed your test???...or maybe you would!

I owned the following macs..

48 mac250s

32 mac300s

60 mac500s

12 mac550s

60 mac600s

18 mac2000s

all the above would sevices each week (14 units a week)

by GH, never had a unit go down in 3 years!!

Our kit went out so much that we only had storage for a third of the above!

Febuary 08 - I sold all the kit and now live off the profits :)

Comment by David Entadal at 9:45 on Thu 4 September 2008

Hi David,

I'm so glad to see you can write such a considered response to my article. Your spelling was exemplary and you sentences made perfect sense.

You may be surprised to hear that students do actually know how to use pro kit. In fact some of the people who worked at that event are in the industry designing pro kit for people like you to use.

Hope you are enjoying the profits... don't blow it all at once ;-)

Comment by Gary at 14:49 on Fri 5 September 2008

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