Farhana and Shaan's Gaye Holud

We’ve worked with the organizer for this event on several occasions, and were certainly excited to help bring this event to life.

A Gaye Holud is the blessing or ceremony the day before a wedding, generally celebrated in Bengali communities. It roughly translates to “Tumeric, or yellow, on the body,” as the bride uses turmeric to beautify and cleanse her skin. You’ll notice a theme of yellow, white and green – colours which attendees are traditionally encouraged to wear.

(Several guests take their photos of the newlyweds-to-be. On the left is Mintu, a videographer of 18 years for AAA Movies.)

However, red is often the symbolic colour used on the wedding day. When asked about the prevalence of red today, the organizer remarked, “Sometimes, people change – and cultures change day by day.” That is, we sometimes have to bend the rules a bit and make exceptions to traditions that may be viewed as concrete or unchanging.

Mintu gave us a quick walkthrough of his camcorder, an AG-HPX300 P2HD – demonstrating it’s tight 1.6 aperture with the ability to interchange its video lenses with dSLR camera lenses. He films manually, adjusting four filters for white balance, and rolling his smooth, wheeled tripod. Mintu claims, “Nobody has this kind of camera in Alberta.” On the discussion of competitors with Punjabi film and media, Mintu says a lot of local East Indian film-makers started with AAA Movies. He adds wisely, “Without competition, life is boring.”

Regarding audio/visual, we’d decided to run the lights and speakers through the same XLR snake, so as to keep congestion down on the dance floor. Close to the stage, we’d placed two QSC tower speakers on the lowest tripod stand settings – and centred our shop-built sub, appropriately dubbed the Experiment.

The Experiment (not pictured) was built by Kris Benoit and Duncan Kenworthy to see if it was possible to make a subwoofer that sounded as good as one purchasable elsewhere. Asked about how it compared, Kris smiled saying, “I find the quality of the sub to be warm and rich – just the way I like it.” It’s small and blends in – standing almost two feet high, and four feet across – and rumbles more than enough for attendees to feel the rhythm in their feet.

Pictured above is a rack-mounted Crossover, aimed to keep the bass nice and tight. Some speakers are more capable of handling varying frequencies, but as we’d brought the Experiment, we used the crossover to orient the 30-180Hz frequencies to the experiment with some roll off on either side. This kept the low frequencies from doubling up over each other from different sound sources, and allowed for a nice clean, evenly-distributed signal.


We’d placed 12 lights (mostly Par 56 with several Sound Activated lights) on six different fixtures, so as to orient the lights smoothly and specifically, placed on two different light trees on either side of the sitting area. Each tree paralleled four different channels, with two extra lights on each tree for the stage wash, and two on stage for uplighting.

Liny Sabrin, a famous Bengali performer, graced us with a performance which was, at times, both touching and engaging. She invited several audience members, and the father-in-law, to dance and sing alongside her. Liny writes, produces and performs her own music, yet modestly credits her successes to her family.  It’s easy to hear how Liny’s voice is so beautiful, especially  knowing that her sister is the famous Baby Naznin.

The event was so much fun to be involved with. As it was hot in the gym, we’d certainly perspired from loading in the towers and gear. Naturally, we bought some drinks that had electrolytes – then researched what electrolytes are. It turns out we get the same effect from the decorative foods placed for celebration!



Thanks for allowing us to be a part of your Gaye Holud, and all the best to you and your new lives together,

– the Calgary Sound Rentals team

Comments are closed.