If you have been handed a sustainability brief for an event, three things decide whether it means anything: how the event is powered, how far everything travels to reach it, and how much kit gets bought for one day and binned after. DB Entertainment works on all three from a 25,000 sq ft warehouse in Rotherham. We run small events off 2.1kWh battery packs instead of diesel, the same kit goes out to hundreds of events a year, and what we can't fix we say plainly below.
Power: batteries where the job allows
The single biggest change we've made is offering battery power for events that would once have run a diesel generator. The Instagrid ONE max is a portable power station with no engine, no fuel and no exhaust: 2.1kWh of silent 230V mains power delivering 3600W continuously, with an 18kW peak for start-up surges. It weighs around 20kg, so one person carries it, and because there are no fumes it can sit indoors right next to the kit it is running - a marquee, a film set, an exhibition stand, a PA rig at a wedding. For noise-sensitive venues it solves a problem a generator never could. It hires at £125 for the unit, recharges in about two and a half hours from empty, and is IP-rated so a bit of weather does not end the day.
What it runs: PA systems and DJ rigs, lighting, AV screens, camera and charging kit on film locations, exhibition stand power - anything that would otherwise sit on a 3kVA generator all day burning diesel to power a few hundred watts. Two units chained together cover a small stage, and because the power is clean 230V there is nothing to annoy the sound engineer.
Battery packs won't carry everything. A full funfair ride line-up or a festival main stage needs proper generators, and that is what we supply for those jobs - because we own both, we'll tell you which side your event falls on before you book.
Kit that gets used hundreds of times
95% of the equipment we hire out is owned by us, in our own warehouse, and most of it has been out to hundreds of events. A bouncy castle bought new for one garden party is a skip waiting to happen; the same castle hired from us stays out working for years, each unit carrying a service history log like a car's MOT record and an annual PIPA test to keep it safe and in service. That is the quiet advantage of hiring over buying for one-off events, and it is the same logic for a rodeo bull as for a 100ft assault course. Every hire carries £5 million of public liability insurance as standard, and the inflatables are PIPA tested annually by an independent inspector.
The same applies to the stuff around the edges. Gazebos, tables, PA systems and staging all go back in the van at the end of the day and come out again next weekend, which is a long way from the single-use marquee-and-bin-it approach.
Fewer miles, one warehouse
The warehouse sits a few minutes from where the M1, A1 and M18 cross, and that geography does real work. One van can do a school rewards day in the morning and a corporate fun day in the afternoon without a cross-country detour, and because we run our own delivery fleet there is no sub-hired transport in the middle, so the routing decisions happen in our office, not a courier's. For South Yorkshire events the kit travels a handful of miles from Rotherham; the crews who build it live here too.
We also do the community jobs that keep spending local: council fun days for Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster councils, the Rotherham Hospice Winter Fest, the Children's Hospital Charity's sponsored walk with its seven gazebos, PA and branded gantry. All the paperwork goes by email - quotes, and the risk assessments and method statements your venue will ask for, sent as PDFs before the day - so there is no paper trail to bin afterwards. The scout group's 70th anniversary party for 80 young people, the memorial day at Mosborough Rugby Club, the Abbey School Nexus academies' activity days - that local work is a proper share of the calendar, and it happens with kit and crew that never leave South Yorkshire to do it.
What you can do on your side
If you are organising the event, a few things move the needle more than the rest. Mention any sustainability brief to your suppliers early - if we know the power requirement up front we can size battery packs against it, and if a diesel generator is genuinely needed we can size it properly instead of guessing. Hire the kit you need for the day; skip the single-use giveaways in favour of something people keep (a prize crane filled with vouchers beats five hundred plastic freebies on almost every measure, including cost); and use digital tickets and signage where the venue allows it. Pick a venue people can reach without everyone driving separately, and pick a date that avoids a second setup day. None of it is complicated, and all of it is cheaper than the alternative.
Wondering whether your event can run on battery power? Ring 0114 345 0135, tell us what needs plugging in, and you'll get a straight answer, including when the answer is a generator. If you like to check a company over first: the Google reviews stood at 5 out of 5 from 209 when we last looked, and we're a Premium member of the Bouncy Castle Network.
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