It is estimated that the Cruise Ship industry will spend an estimated $300M in 2018 on annual dry dock services and refits.

A huge sum of this will be on Deck, Engine and the hull however,
with the ever increasing demand from passengers to be entertained on a higher level, Cruise Ship companies have included larger sums from these budgets, to install state of the art audio visual systems.

Onboard entertainment at sea, once a weakness on many cruises, just keeps improving.

Today, you can still see piano bar acts, dance to a DJ, watch movies under the stars on outdoor LED screens on deck, or try your hand at karaoke. But the stage shows are leaps and bounds ahead of their predecessors. Long gone are the days on the large cruise ships of musical revues that use high school-caliber performers and costumes. Instead, we've entered an era of one-upmanship showcasing Broadway shows such as:

• Mamma Mia
• Rock of Ages
• The Second City comedy shows
• Authentic Memphis blues performed live.
• Dinner theater with high-tech twists
• School of Rock,

to name a few.

They are also entertaining passengers with acts including Arial trapeze artists, Celebrity singers and World-class comedians.

Digital signage is also increasingly being used to keep passengers informed of whats on and where, as well as providing “Map wayfinding and information software’

Whilst these larger companies have bigger entertainment budgets to show case these shows, some smaller cruise lines with less budgets for audio visual, stick to the old entertainment standards, such as musical revues and poolside bands with modest show lights.

They also provide multiple entertainment options and venues for every kind of cruise traveler, whether that's rock concerts, big-name lecturers, Minnie Mouse meet 'n' greets or Julliard performances.

Although we often live in a world of a certain mentality; that electronic items used for entertaining and computing should be replaced for newer more advanced equipment on an annual basis, this is not always cost effective.

Especially when running a tight ship (excuse the pun) for all cruise line companies, however with carefully planned Audio Visual maintenance programs and by employing an audio visual consultant to propose smaller scale technical upgrades, a ship audio visual system can perform well for many years.

We have over the years undertaken many projects where budgets were modest; where we have studied the performance of a cruise ships entertainment equipment and reliability, to enable us to propose Audio Visual solutions and technical upgrades, whilst incorporating existing equipment and by proposing service and maintenance programs for

• Show lights
• Performance lighting
• Sound installation

We can also provide digital signed proposals for 3D map wayfinding and passenger information panels using the latest software from Via Direct.