In today’s world, tech has evolved to the point where consumer standards are at an all-time high. A flat-screen TV used to be a huge deal. Now, nobody bats an eye at 4k. When people attend an event, those standards aren’t any lower. If you’re focused on taking care of your own business, family, or (not so) simply organizing the event at hand, you most likely will feel overwhelmed by the options and information thrown at you when searching for a screen.

Right off the bat, some obstacles you’ll face are:

Delivering the quality that people see on their TV’s at home.

Maintaining screen brightness to be visible in an extremely well-lit environment—as is typical at large events.

Making sure that the screen is large enough for people all the way in the back, while not being too overwhelming for those at the front.

Helping the client choose a screen that covers their basic needs while keeping it in the budget.

Most guides online are too complex and filled with unnecessary information. In this post, we’ll go over some of the basics of finding the perfect rental screen to help you figure out what’s best for your event, and we can handle the more complicated issues!

LED Screen Displays

Over the last decade, LEDs have taken over. They produce red, green, and blue light which are balanced to allow any color to be produced. This allows an LED to cover the full spectrum of visible light for us, creating extraordinary detailed and vivid images.

LED Benefits:

They are the brightest screens you can get.

Most are perfect for outdoor use.

They are thin, so they do a great job at preserving event space and neatness.

They are very power-efficient.

They are versatile in their setup. They can be mounted, placed, or transported nearly anywhere.

LED Downsides:

An LED’s pixel pitch is commonly 15mm—or 6mm if you have a huge budget—making it less than ideal for people sitting in close proximity to the screen.

While they are very thin and space efficient, they are also very heavy. This means that they often need large rigging systems.

Plasma/LCD Displays

These two options seem very similar and familiar to most people, as they are in most home/office settings. LCDs range from 17” to 60,” and plasmas can reach up to 110”.

Both options will be able to handle 1080p (High-Definition) and are ideal for small events when you need an inexpensive, light, and high-quality display.

Plasma/LCD Benefits:

They are very affordable.

They are very light, which makes for an easy setup.

They look great, and don’t need any masking or decorating.

They have great connectivity, with inputs for VGA, HDMI, DVI, S-Video, Composite and Component inputs.

Adequate brightness for all indoor use.

Plasma/LCD Downsides:

They aren’t very big. With 60” being the largest LCD display, they are best used for meetings in smaller rooms vs. large conferences.

Brightness is inadequate for a sunny outdoor setting.

Projection

Projection has been around for quite some time and is still one of the best ways to achieve a large display. Because of this there are many options to fit your criteria from size and price to brightness and resolution.

Projection is simple and often favored because it can be applied to a variety of flat surfaces. A white wall in your office, the outside of a building, your garage door, a bedsheet, or a professional projection screen (always ideal).

Certain projection screen materials allow for both front and rear projection, making it highly versatile to the specifics of your venue layout. As a general guideline—if you don’t have specific instructions—you’ll want to double the width of your screen to find the appropriate distance from projector to screen. Nevertheless, always be sure to consult the manual or an AV professional prior to an event.

An excellent resource for calculating viewable area, throw distance, and optimal seating distance can be found at ProjectorScreen.com.

What Is An Appropriate Screen Size For My Event?

Finding the right size for your display is a delicate balance, assuming your audience won’t all be the same distance from the screen.

Some factors to consider when choosing a screen size are:

Where is the closest person going to be sitting relative to the screen? The furthest person?

What content will you be showing? One large logo? Smaller text?

How will the lighting be? If it’s dark, the whole screen will be more visible.

These are all things that we can help figure out for you as well if provided some basic venue/event information.

Screen Resolution

Screen resolution is the number of pixels that make up your image.

Resolution is measured in either:

Total Pixels (1080p = 1080 rows of pixels)

Pixel Density: the # of pixels in a given area

Pixel Pitch: the distance between pixels

People become very caught up in the resolution of the screen but forget the most important fact: your screen resolution only matters if your content is up to par. A 1080p display won’t make a low-resolution image or video suddenly high-definition. If you want the best quality, the place to start is the quality of your content.

We hope that this guide will help you out when it’s time for you to choose the perfect screen for your event. Feel free to reach out with any questions - we’re always happy to do anything we can to make an event run as smoothly and successfully as possible!