Ambiance AV, which is headed by founder Hemant Bhalla, is composed of audio engineers, lighting designers, DJs, party planners, graphic artists and all-around event specialists. The business handles the ins and outs of both weddings and corporate events alike, and Bhalla said Ambiance AV worked more than 150 weddings in 2014.
The company has worked events for Snoop Dogg’s manager at which John Legend performed, the 16th birthday party for LL Cool J’s daughter and even one event where Elijah Wood served as the DJ.
Photo courtesy of Ambiance AV
Bhalla, who lived in the Highlands with his family from 1982-1992 and now lives in Pasadena, has been in the industry since the age of 14 and worked hard to help Ambiance AV achieve its celebrity status.
“I saw somebody DJ at a family function and I thought it was the most amazing thing I had ever seen,” Bhalla told the Palisadian-Post.
At age 14, he started DJing at weddings, using cassette tapes. Too young to drive yet, he would get picked up and dropped off by his clients.
Bhalla said he was delivering newspapers at the time and would borrow small home theater pieces of his family’s before he was introduced to turntables by other DJs he met at weddings. He bought his first turntable from a nightclub that went out of business.
He was taken under the wing of Kumba Entertainment, one of the pioneers for the South Asian market.
“By the age of 15, I was DJing with Kumba Entertainment, and I was with them for about 15 years,” said Bhalla, who was born in India before moving to California at the age of 5.
Bhalla went on to attend Full Sail University in Florida where he got his degree in media arts/recording engineering in the late 1990s. A coveted internship in the music department at Disneyworld followed before heading back home.
Back in L.A., Bhalla said he bounced from one studio to another as one, then another and then another closed its doors.
“I was having a really hard time finding a place that would actually stay open,” Bhalla said. “At that point I decided it was time to do my own thing.”
Ambiance AV has been operating officially for eight years. “I handle pretty much everything including booking, client relations, walk-throughs of event locations, venue research and I also work the event,” Bhalla said.
Ambiance AV is otherwise made up of freelance workers, some of whom have been with the business since it started. Bhalla said between two and eight people work each event depending on what services are requested, and added that some events take 15-16 hours of set-up before the party kicks off.
In addition to weddings and corporate events, Ambiance AV also does charity work including contributing their services to the Make A Film Foundation and the Caring Hands Foundation.
When Bhalla is not behind the DJ booth, rigging up lights or meeting with clients, he, along with wife Nila and daughter Gia, love to take road trips, watch movies, binge-watch TV shows and listen to Indian music.
“The ultimate goal is to move my family back into the Palisades,” Bhalla said.
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