Our second visit to the new Cigar Factory was to provide audio visual rentals at The Cedar Room for the Charleston Convention and Visitors Bureau September Investor Partners meeting. It was another great opportunity to get to know the newly opened conference, meeting, and wedding space called The Cedar Room which you see here.

The Charleston CVB is a robust and vibrant organization managed by the city, which can be credited with supporting so much of Charleston’s growth over the past twenty years. Retail, hospitality, and business partners are all included in monthly discussions regarding the direction the city will take, new laws and ordinances, and shared educational opportunities to further increase members revenue and Charleston’s health in turn.

Forty years ago, Charleston was a struggling city of the South. Organizations like CVB had a major hand in the recovery and remain at the fore in gaining international attention for Charleston in every sense. The CVB attracts many national conferences each year, national sporting events, new businesses and corporations, and a great deal of event traffic to the Holy City. AV Connections is both an AV partner for these meetings and events and a proud investor in Charleston.

We encourage all businesses in Charleston to join us at these monthly gatherings to learn and share. Together, we better a city worth every ounce of effort to support. We are proud to be a family owned local business and always proud to be in business with the CVB.

This past month, AV Connections had the pleasure of providing awards banquet lighting rentals at South Carolina Aquarium for the Lifetime Award presentation gala of the Greater Charleston Restaurant Association. South Carolina’s soaring and magnificent palace of sea life is available for private events. The SC Aquarium welcomes weddings, conferences, holiday parties, and school gatherings. AV Connections is always pleased to get the call for a job at the Aquarium. There are few better places which take to event lighting so impressively. The Aquarium, located off East Bay in Charleston on the Ashley River Waterfront offers all the best in an event location: Stunning views, plenty of parking, and close proximity to all of Charleston’s great hotels and sites. It is perfect appointed and the most memorable of Charleston’s waterfront venues.

No organization is better suited to hold an Awards dinner than this association, made up of Charleston’s greatest food industry stars, the membership is a who’s-who of the finest food professionals Charleston has to offer. The mix of organization and venue were sure to make for a perfect night.

We provided the audiovisual for this award presentation. And what a pleasure it was to help honor Franz Meier who is credited with creating the European backbone of Charleston cuisine during his tenure at Charleston’s historic Colony House, now the Harbor Club. Mr. Meier would go on to own and oversee some of the most important food and wine destinations in the Low Country, amassing a forty year legacy of fine food for Charleston. We heartily congratulate Mr. Meier and are so glad to have been able to witness this remarkable achievement.

AV Connections was floored to set out on our first job to provide AV rentals at Cigar Factory Charleston. A national lifestyle magazine which is headquartered here in Charleston, SC held their national sales meeting in the newly completed Cedar Room at the Cigar Factory. We were thrilled to see this new space. What an incredible new conference, meeting, and wedding space has been created in this beautiful old structure on the East Bay Cooper River waterfront of the Charleston peninsula!

THEN:

NOW:

Such a well-known landmark of the Charleston city facade, the Cigar Factory sadly sat empty and largely abandoned for generations. Constructed of hand crafted American brick in 1882, the Cigar Factory was first a cotton mill. In 1913 it became the American Cigar Factory and in 1930’s was the largest private employer in Charleston. Economic decline and a culture stepping away from tobacco products caused the business to slow and eventually, the Cigar Factory was shuttered.

Nearly forty years and a number of development plans went by before this beautiful renovation of our modern age was completed on this precious Charleston structure. We are full of pride that Charleston is home to this remarkable commercial enterprise which now houses a number of corporate offices, as well as the conference and wedding venue you see above, The Cedar Room. Where we once drove by a silent American factory, we are now called to provide audiovisual and wedding lighting in this reawakened monument to Charleston’s industrial period.

AV Connections is happy to provide AV and event lighting for your conference, meeting, banquet, gala, or wedding at The Cigar Factory. Call us for an estimate.

On June 17, 2015, in our beautiful home city, Charleston, SC the lives of nine of our neighbors were taken during bible study at Mother Emanuel Church on Calhoun Street. It was only minutes before the world was coming as fast as they could. In all the noise surrounding this tragedy, it is easy to miss the most important agony of all.

We are a family here at AV Connections. Both actually, and in sentiment. We work together, we live together, we worship together. We serve churches and civic organizations just as did the lost members of Mother Emanuel. We feel the pain of these families; loss so acute that finding the words to write now is nearly impossible. We look on each reached-out hand of a family member with renewed thanks and we agonize for our neighbors at Mother Emanuel whose loss we cannot fathom.

We are angered that anything should be lost to hatred, let alone human life. We are desperately aching for the parents and children who have lost those they cherish most and cannot for a moment hope to understand their pain. We hope only that our prayers are heard for their peace. A better world must await for all of us now, this is the only solace in Charleston’s shared grief.

Today we are taking a glance over our team’s shoulder with a glance into the set up for a Magnolia Plantation Gardens wedding lighting job for a recent fall nuptuial on the historic property. The bride and groom choose the Magnolia Plantation and Gardens Carriage House for a beautiful autumnal celebration. Both the vows and reception were held on the Magnolia grounds and AV Connections was called upon to create a twinkling rustic night design for the reception.

Magnolia Plantation Gardens wedding lighting has just one key to making the lighting both spectacular and correct: Respect the structure. The Carriage House, a most popular Charleston wedding event venue, was built in 1840. It is selected so often because it is truly a Charleston setting, complete with original hardwoods throughout. The key to Magnolia Plantation Gardens wedding lighting is to light it to make the structure and its rustic elegance sing. While so many options are available, cafe bulb rentals are a great choice for weddings with differing plans on how they will be hung for each wedding.

Taking into account that this bride and groom wanted to put an elegant spin on a rustic venue, we really thought through the wedding lighting rentals and design to get the most from the long and wide Carriage House, without adding any inelegance to the atmosphere. It is a careful balance 0 you want an amazing party, but you don’t want to go too far. It is AV Connections’ experience with Magnolia Plantation Gardens wedding lighting which helps us to achieve things other wedding rental companies cannot: A subtle, warm lighting to a great party. Magnolia Plantation Gardens wedding lighting is one of our favorite jobs, we look forward to helping more wedding planners and brides and grooms have great weddings at this beautiful site.

AV Connections was so pleased to be the wedding lighting for Cooper River Room weddings once again this past week. Once of Charleston’s most picturesque wedding venues, the Cooper River Room is perched above the Cooper River on the Mt. Pleasant side of metro Charleston. Part of a massive waterfront project to make great public park and venue spaces for the people of Charleston, the Cooper River Room enjoys panoramic views of the mighty river and the bridge. Wedding lighting for Cooper River Room can run the gamut of fabulous indoor and outdoor lighting options: AV Connections has run round lantern rental lighting in strings from one part of the law to another, inside and along tents, and seemingly off into blank space in the night like a magical disappearing act.

Some brides and grooms choose to be inside and that requires a different planfor wedding lighting for Cooper River Room: In that wedding scenario you may consider more standing lantern rentals at the doors and custom color gobo’s inside the Cooper River Room. We also erected LED custom uplighting rentals, and Par 38’s. Other’s choose to erect a tent on the great lawn at the Cooper River Room and there are once again a world of great wedding lighting rentals available from AV Connections of Charleston.

Whether you choose to plan your Charleston wedding yourselves or are working with a local planner, we are happy to have a member of our wedding light design team meet you at the Cooper River Room to discuss great wedding rental options available from AV Connections. When the wedding day arrives you can be certain we will be set up and torn down in a timely fashion and leave you nothing to worry about when it comes to your wedding lighting for Cooper River Room. We look forward to working with you.

It’s been another busy month of conference audio visual Charleston SC by AV Connections! We have literally been all over the map of greater metro Charleston, South Carolina with AV equipment rentals, staging, and producing various conferences and meetings.

Our recenct job sites include all of Charleston’s best conference centers and hotels for meetings and conferences. This includes AV and/or lighting at these renown and beautiful locations: The Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina for conferences, the Embassy Suites Historic District Charleston for conferences, the Charleston Plaza Hotel for conferences, the Hampton Inn Historic District for meetings, the Hilton Garden Inn Charleston for conferences, the Harbour Club of Charleston for meeting and conference AV. Just to name only a few.

We’re growing and pleased to be so very busy. As we continue to deliver flawless conference technology presentations, our AV technology and rental group continues to grow with two new employee additions in Charleston this month. Insuring that our customers receives reliable, perfect service and keeping the best AV rental prices in Charleston, SC as well as the best inventory has kept us on the move. We continue to drive our technology and inventory forward as we grow our business to ever-new locations. We look forward this month to also providing conference AV in North Carolina and Georgia. Our detail-driven perfection and best prices for conference budgets are known throughout the South and we are always pleased to travel to conference locations.

Making your next conference AV rental experience both seamless and affordable is our goal. At AV Connections Conference Audio Visual Charleston SC, excellence is the only option.

Our event lighting rentals Charleston SC group was hard at work on a bittersweet task this past week, we were asked to light the magnificent Gibbes Museum for the last time until 2016. The grand old girl, Charleston SC’s most venerable museum institution will close for renovations until 2016. The Gibbes Museum committee wanted the Museum to have an appropriate send off into the construction of her future.

An amazing team of vendors, including our event lighting rentals Charleston SC technology group, was assembled to create both a memorable evening event to say goodbye, but also a full day of activities for every age. Although we were said to hear of her closing, we were honored to create the event lighting design for her send off.

The Renovation Celebration held by the Gibbes Renovation Committee, was a resounding success. During daylight hours there were children’s activities and demonstrations, and two hundred people arrived to do yoga together in the upstairs gallery. It was quite a sight and wonderful gesture.

For the evening even from 6-9 pm, AV Connections lit the outdoor courtyard truly from pillar to post and from ground to stars. we installed Charleston uplights and Charleston uplighting on all of the trees surrounding the courtyard. cafe bulbs were strung overhead. Colorful Charleston uplighting was added to the front of the Gibbes Museum by AV Connections to welcome guests and promise a spectacular evening under the stars. And finally, uplights, gobos, and video screens were installed throughout the building. The courtyard became an elegant evening party and AV Connections turned the main gallery into a dance club upstairs.

We had a great time with it and we were so pleased to be the ones to give really beautiful light to her last night of celebration for years to come. We’ve celebrated most of Charleston’s incredible causes and buildings with great event lighting rental work over our thirty-years in business. But some moments are more moving than others. It will be sad to see her go for now but we know an incredible renovation awaits her and she is very much deserving as are the people of Charleston and our visitors. Farewell for now, Gibbes.

Av Connections of Charleston is pleased to provide wedding chandelier rental Boone Hall in Mt. Pleasant, SC. We offer set up and dismantling services for our huge inventory of chandelier rental fixtures. AV Connections is constantly searching lighting markets for the newest, most artistic and most elegant lighting options available. Today, we share with you a wedding at Boone Hall’s famous and magnificent historic Cotton Dock where we frequently provide wedding cafe lighting and wedding uplighting for events of every theme.

In this case, the bride and groom and Charleston, SC wedding planner wanted a more rustic feel which would also speak to Charleston’s long history of beautiful iron work. Charleston, like New Orleans, has been know for iron work arts since the early 1700’s. Once brides and grooms fall in love with Charleston, they often look to feature wedding details which speak to the history and beauty of our Charleston. We natives are always humbled by this effort, we love that all the things we adore about home are incorporated so respectfully into ceremonies celebrating the great loves of our times. We are moved each time we are asked to make a wedding look like Charleston, because we think nothing is more beautiful than an authentic Charleston celebration!

On this day we installed spectacular rustic-inspired rental fixtures for the wedding held on the porch and the reception held inside Cotton Dock. The wedding lighting design and set up was completed by our incredibly talented Wedding Lighting Group. They are a hip, bright, team of limitless creative lighting ability. They will hang lighting or they will custom make specialty lighting fixtures for your event. In wither case wedding chandelier rental Boone Hall from AV Connections is the best priced wedding lighting rentals in Charleston, SC.

Contact us! We are happy to design your wedding lighting or competitively price your dream wedding day and make our magic fit into your wedding budget.

This is exciting, AV Connections’ Charleston wedding lighting is featured on the NBC’s Today Show’s site today! See it here (click!).

It was an incredible party by Southern Protocol Wedding and Events and we thought we would share a few more images of the lighting with you, courtesy of Jennifer Bearden Photography.

Another incredible lighting job by our Charleston Wedding Lighting Group. we could not be more proud of them. Well done, and well deserved Today Show piece!

These lights and uplighting and so much more are available to you to rent for your wedding from AV Connections. We look forward to working with brides and grooms and wedding planners alike. we will be your first and last call for amazing, reliable, and quality lighting at your Charleston wedding.

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