Johannesburg · Est. 2025
Roman Empire Group is the holding company behind Empire Rentals, Downstage and Empire Studio: the camera kit you can hire, the software we build for live and creative work, and the studio that puts it all to work.
I
Camera, lens, sound, lighting and grip hire.
More than 200 pieces of kit on one register, hired by the day as packages or single items. Build a kit bag on the site and the bookings team sends you a quote.
II
Software for work that happens live.
A software company for creative work. Clear to Air is a browser control room for live esports broadcasts, free to use; Cue, script software for film crews, is in development. Downstage also builds the websites and back offices creative businesses run on, including the group's own.
III
Create. Capture. Transform.
Shoots, podcasts, events, series and websites, from the brief to the final edit. A crew, a podcast room in Sunninghill, and the group's own kit behind every job.
Empire Rentals owns all the group's gear. It hires it to outside productions and to Empire Studio, so the kit a Studio crew shoots on is the same kit you can hire.
Rentals and Studio run from one back office, built by Downstage, with one shared inventory. A Studio shoot can't double-book gear that's out on hire, and a hire can't take kit a shoot needs.
Rentals collections, Studio sessions and the office are all at 6 Kikuyu Rd in Sunninghill.
Our logo is the Roman numeral III drawn as a building. The group is the lintel and the base; each company is a pillar it holds. Charcoal runs across, and the companies' colours stand up: Empire Rentals red, Downstage blue, Empire Studio yellow.