SURREY, U.K. —Delta Sound announced plans to acquire Sound By Design. Both companies will operate from Delta’s current HQ near Hampton Court in Surrey, with Oct. 1 set as the target date for SBD’s relocation.
“Paul [Keating] and I have been talking about this for about 15 months now, since we met at a party in Dubai that neither of us were invited to,” said Andy Callin, managing director of SBD. “We’d already come to the conclusion that it was what we wanted to do before the market started to contract in some areas.
“There’s very little overlap in terms of client-base, we’ve had a good working relationship for many years at a professional level, we’ve cross-hired rental stock and we’re not strangers to each other. The idea ticked so many boxes that it made a lot of sense.”
Keating, managing director for Delta Sound, added, “We’ve been looking at market sectors away from our traditional ones and the venue market is something that has interested us over the last couple of years.”
SBD is accredited at a variety of London venues, an area of expansion on which it has concentrated. Its biggest venue is currently the Royal Albert Hall, where it has been an in-house supplier since 1993, in the same way that Delta has at Grosvenor House Hotel. It also lists Somerset House, Kew Gardens, Royal Naval College, Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the Natural History Museum and Royal Courts of Justice amongst its other regular venues.
The equipment inventory of the companies is also complementary, according to Delta Sound, noting that both have DiGiCo consoles, and combining Delta’s L-Acoustics and d&b cabinets with SBD’s Meyer and EM Acoustics stock will provide clients with a range of product choices.
“The move represents a considerable cost saving, there’s sufficient space at Delta’s premises to accommodate the whole of SBD and, since we were less than 15 miles apart, it’s not a real upheaval for our staff, so it makes sense,” said Callin.
“One of the great positives here is that both companies can share resources as well as a common culture, which was one of the key points in the deal,” added Keating. “The move also takes us beyond sound, since SBD also offers lighting and staging solutions within the London venue market.”
“Over the last 18 months, we have strategically developed and expanded our technical capabilities within the venue market”, said Callin. “This has been a major growth area for SBD and meeting our clients’ objectives is key.”
“This is an area that we have also been developing, and have done so successfully in the last couple of years, but on a much smaller scale,” says Paul. “It means that for some of our corporate clients, where budgets are tight, we are now able to step up and offer more than just specialised audio. Diversification is key at the moment and we’re all looking forward to being able to offer our clients so much more than we could before.”
For more information, please visit www.deltasound.co.uk.
