How Brian McGuigan Built a Viral Platform by Bringing Event Tech into the Spotlight

0:00 Welcome to the Event Pro show, your ultimate guide to the world of corporate events. Whether you're a corporate event planner, experiential. Marketing pro, producer, technician, or anyone involved. In creating exceptional events, this podcast is your go to resource for valuable insights. Expert tips and inspiring stories from the industry's leading professionals. Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Event Pro Show. I'm really excited about this episode because I have a bit of a unique guest for his specialty, but definitely an event professional before Brian. Before I introduce you here, I'm going to do a little bit of a bio for you because I think it's good for context. But Brian after. After earning a degree in finance and accounting from Virginia Tech, Brian developed valuable management skills at other companies. Not, not inside of production. But his, his passion for photography and videography led him into a full on career in production.

0:58 So he's been working as a technician and production manager, project manager for event productions over the past decade. But what's really interesting, Brian is also a strong background in building social media presence, especially around the daily activities of event technicians, helping to raise awareness around the work that goes into producing a top notch corporate event. His passion for industry is infectious and he loves to help others peek behind the scenes to learn more about event productions. So welcome to the show, Brian McGuigan. Well, thank you. That's quite an intro. Yeah, glad to be here. Yeah, thank you for taking the time.

1:41 You just mentioned you caught a late night flight, you've been working all morning, but you carved out some time to do this. So I really appreciate it. But it also is like, so such an example of like event professionals. You know, this is our lives, we're like trying to carve out time to do different things. So thank you, I really appreciate it. And I, I like to kick off the podcast everybody with the same question because everybody has such a unique, different answer. But what's the first event that you can remember attending? So like as far back in your mind as possible. Maybe you were a little kid. Well, the first events that I went to were probably all sporting events. I'm from dc, so Redskins or Commander's Games Nationals. I didn't really catch the bug for events when I was, when I was really young. Now I think after being in the industry, I love going and seeing those productions and drawing inspiration from the events that I see. Some of, some of the events that I, that I really enjoy are, you know, obviously big concerts. I saw Taylor Swift eras tour crazy and yeah, and one thing I love the UFC events Are I think some of the highest end production that, that I see. And those are. Those are. I love drawing inspiration from any, any events now much more than I appreciated it when I was younger. I think

3:13 it definitely seems like inspiration comes from entertainment style events and kind of like percolates down into corporate events. And corporate events are always maybe like a year or two behind like touring trends, you know, that are out there or whatever, the big whiz bang shows or whatever. So it's kind of cool to see that inspire people. Yeah, for sure. So you mentioned that when you were younger you didn't really, you weren't drawn to events like from an event production standpoint. And I was the same way. I played music so I was more interested in like what was going on stage. And I totally ignored like the technicians that made it happen. Which I super regret now because I find that way more interesting now. You know, I wish I would have paid more attention to the sound guy kind of a thing, but when was the first time you can remember wanting to be involved with events like as a career something that could support you? Well, yeah, exactly. Like you said, I didn't even know that this career existed even until I was exposed to it through doing photo and video stuff on the side. I was managing some social media accounts and one of the clients that I had was a outdoor venue bar, beer garden kind of thing. They had a concert going on and they had a production crew there and I was make filming content for them and I got in contact with the people that built the stage and set up all the

4:46 lights and they wanted all my footage and I made them a video. Then they just hired me. After that they kept hiring me and then eventually I worked for them full time. But that's how I got started. That's cool. It's like that moment where like, you want to pay me? You want to pay me to do this? Exactly, yeah. Be here anyway. Yeah, I would have done this for free, but okay, that's great. So you kind of touched on it there. What were some of your first jobs in events. So you were kind of doing like photography, videography. And then as that progressed, like what did that look like for you? It was small events. I worked in weddings. I worked in just small concerts and stuff around my area outside of D.C. and yeah. And then once 2020 covet happened, that's when I dove a lot deeper into doing actual video production and which kind of led to everything that I do now which is much more video focused. I wasn't video focused. Much. In the beginning, I was doing audio, lighting and everything. I actually worked at some nightclubs doing, like, the lighting and nightclubs. Yeah. So pretty much I. I've done mostly everything at the lower level now at kind of the mid to like, you know, real corporate event production and political events

6:16 and stuff. I stick to doing video and lighting and stuff now. And for those that don't know, you mentioned political events especially, but corporate events in general, you know, your progression there, really, what's happening is execution and timelines get compressed like, you know, especially like a political event. A lot of times they'll. They'll give you marching orders just a few days out maybe, and you're just running hard to get it done, you know, to get it done in time. And that's where, you know, you become more and more of a professional because you have to have, like, a workflow and really have confidence that you can get something done. And all those experiences before kind of helped you. But this is like when it's real, when you have a client that's like, I need it done by this specific time and it, you know, it's very challenging. So I was going to say the same kind of stress as when, you know, back when I was getting started, when a wedding ceremony was about to start in 20 minutes, it's the same feeling.

7:19 Stakes are higher. But you learn it from doing it at that smaller scale, which is. So everything translates and builds up. That's right. That's right. You get your reps in early and that other stuff. But you're right, weddings can be just as stressful as anything. Is that. That's our one moment. This is our one moment in time. We're going to the bride's mom stressed out. That's right. It can be tough. They're upset that things cost money. Yes. So a couple of years ago, you decided to begin probably around the time I think you and I met, maybe a couple years ago. And. But around that time, I didn't know this, but you started creating content around event production. And then all of a sudden, you know, you reached out again and saw that you were really growing an audience around that space, that specific space, you know. But who, who is the audience you were thinking about when you started, you know, like when you started creating that content? Who are you thinking about? Who are you doing it for? Well, I always.

8:23 And I. I started doing social media and back when I was in college and, you know, so I've been kind of doing it for. For a while, and I did it before I started this Brian, as AV page. I was. My main thing is, why does anyone create content? I want to get clients. So my idea is I want as many people. And I don't even care where you are. I want everyone to know that Brian is ab. Brian's in dc. I build LED walls. I. You know what I mean? I do lighting, I do corporate events. And I just want as many people in the world to see that. So my.

9:07 When I'm making content, I make content that I think is interesting and that I would want to watch. And that's just always my barometer of what I think is good and it's what I'm capable of doing. I'm not very good at holding a phone and talking to it, but I can film myself working and I can edit a little bit and I can make some interesting content out of that. And people. People like it. And Instagram reels, they. If you make a decent video, they'll. They'll spread it. And. Right. You got to do more than one. Yeah, do a couple. But more than what would you like. What would you say? The type of content. What. What type of content do you create? Like, and you know, when your accounts, like, when you're doing this, is it like, are you talking head stuff or are you actually walking people through stuff? I don't think I have a video on my current page that I sent a word and it may be like background noise. I film myself work and then I edit a day down into 60 seconds.

10:13 That. That's my process. That's what you do? Yeah, Yeah. I mean, I can, I have. I can show you my camera. I can show the whole process. But basically, yeah, I filmed. If we're. If the job that day is to build an LED wall, I set my camera up and pointed at us and build it and I'll move the camera, get different angles, and I edit that footage down into what you see on. On my page. But yeah, it's very cool. It's very cool. Yeah. And you just don't need to talk. It's. It's a technical thing. You're just walking someone through it and a speed that they can like sit for a second and watch. It's super cool. But as far as, like, you. You mentioned you've been doing social media for years in different formats, different things, you know, so the, The Event Pro show is really designed for event planners. And specifically this question would be about. A lot of event planners are solopreneurs. You know, they're. They're the same as you. They're trying to get attention and win clients. So if you had a piece of advice for them, how would, how would they get started trying to grow their social media base? You know, like what type of content would you be thinking if you were them? There are so many ways to things that I could recommend and it's going to be different for everyone. I think what I have done always is I will see.

11:44 Maybe it's a cooking video that I see that has millions of views. Or there's one and I can send you all these videos but. Or these pages. But there's one I remember that's popping in my head. It's someone that details cars. I think it's Atlanta car detailer. And he just shows the car in the beginning and it's dirty. It's usually a nice car, which helps. And then shows every step of the process and scrubbing every piece of it and then shows at the end it's perfectly clean. And I just kind of try to apply that to what I'm doing to building an LED wall, setting up a camera too. Yeah. And for mention that I totally see that like in what you're.

12:28 You're posting. Absolutely. Exactly. And if you look at, I have a ton of saved videos on my TikTok and all my Instagram reels and it's all videos that I'm like, all right, how can I use that format in one of my next videos? Just drawing inspiration from, from what you see. And I think where almost everyone goes wrong is they do a ton of work. So setting up their event and then just take a picture of them and say, look at this. Come by. No one that's not going to get you. Like everyone's doing that. Show the parts, show you putting in the work and kind of make it into a bit of a story.

13:13 That's like a fun 60 second video to watch. Like, I don't, I'm not into cars or detailing cars, but I like watching those videos. Right. You have a super specialized skill that you're good at that people don't know about. So it's like the perfect format. And I also think in like the. At least one of the top three, but probably the top one objection. When you're selling production is cost, you know, like just not understanding the cost. And if all you've ever done is walking in on doors at opening day, you're like, okay, you know, it's just it, it's a show, you know, but like if you didn't see the two day load in, you know, and the hard work that it took to get there, you don't really understand why it cost that much. And I think that's a cool way of doing it in kind of a, like a fun way. It's not like on the nose. It's just like, hey, you should, you should know what it takes to do production. Which is why I would encourage any planner to go watch your stuff. Because it just kind of like takes each component. You know, it's not even the whole show. Sometimes it's like little parts of. There's a bunch of parts that it takes to go, you know, do a show. So.

14:23 Yeah, yeah. And just on that, like, a lot of the videos will be like one video is setting up the camera. So the way I like to think of it when filming for an event is so we have cameras, we have LED wall, we have lighting, we have. Each one of those are their own piece of content. One video from each of those and then one video for the whole thing. So you kind of zoom in on each part and then zoom out. And then. Because everyone has a problem with like, how do I make enough content? Right? Yeah. And yeah. So kind of the way I think about it is you kind of zoom in and zoom out. So just do little pieces, small things. You can be, let's say for an event planner, folding a napkin, like, you know what I mean? Something. Or setting a table.

15:14 Yeah. And then that's one piece. And then you decorating one other part of the room. And then, then do a time lapse of the whole thing. And then, you know, you gotta try everything. And so you basically, you've taken that. One picture and you've turned it into like 15 pieces of content because you're, you're, you're zooming in on every component that it took to do it. That's, that's really cool advice and super interesting too, because I think if you did like one video of the whole thing. That's overwhelming. Exactly. You're folding the napkin thing is like, oh, I can learn that right now, sitting here watching it.

15:54 You know, because you. Everyone wants to do the impressive highlight reel of showing the whole, the whole event. But the ones that in my opinion tend to do better are the one. The videos that are more focused on one thing. You, from the beginning of the video, you know what it's going to be. You know, they're going to fold the napkin and then at the end, you see a nicely folded napkin. Satisfying. Yes. In my experience, that that's what does better. You're right, because everyone, everyone posts the highlight reels. Like yeah, yeah, you're just showing off blowout thing. But it's like what did it really like tell me the secrets. Like how exactly you do that.

16:35 And while you're doing that, you're positioning yourself as the expert in that space of like exactly thinks of how do. I've got a question about this. Who would I call, you know, or who would I text or whatever. Oh, that's how you do, that's how you position. That's 100% correct. And I, I always like to think that a lot of people like to try to target content or I guess talk, put in chat, GPT. What question do my clients have and then just make a video answering that question. I think more importantly, what's worked for me the most is just if no one sees your video, then no one's gonna see your video. If people see you do what you do and you do it well and you make a good video of it, you want as many people to see as possible. And if, if no one's seeing it doesn't matter if a million people see your video, then you know, you got a good chance one of them needs a napkin, you know.

17:34 Right. But I'll say too, like, if you're really clear, like you're saying like you tell people this is about folding a napkin. You show them folding a napkin and you end that. This was folding a napkin. Like you, you actually kind of narrow down your audience to really high value views. You know, people that are super interested in what you do so that there's power to that too. And the algorithm will take care of that for you. That's what I've noticed. It'll show the videos to the people that are interested in seeing your videos. They're way too good at doing that. So. Yeah, and what I notice especially is if you keep your videos about the same topic and then keep making them, like don't switch topics is what I'm saying. You're an event planner, keep it about events, planning events, show different stages of planning an event and show different kind of aspects. But they know that your audience is going to be probably other event planners and other people that are planning events, other people that work in events and that are going to need your services because people that do events like event content, you know, people like the stuff that they do. You're totally proving that right now, like by you just started it just a little bit ago and there's like all sorts of attention, you know, around Your videos,

19:06 What do you think? Like, as far as your content? Like, what's gotten the most attention? Or what are people most interested in with what you're creating? See, I mean, my most viewed ones are usually they're the kind of satisfying. Like I said, focus on one topic and the ones that always do well is building an LED wall. You can do the stack, stack, stack with the sound. Yeah, yeah. And it's satisfying to watch, I think. So that's what people like. But you. It's so surprising how many people are that do what we do and are love watching it because I don't, I don't see many other people making videos like that.

19:56 But to me it's the same thing as, again, like the car detailer. It's, you know, you don't say, hey guys, I needed or I detail cars. Come to me. Just show yourself doing it and then. Right. And people, people that need it will find it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the, the LED walls, like this satisfying build. Start from nothing and then show the end product at the end and make it quick, make it show the interesting parts have sound. And I just, I use all the sound that I just capture in camera. I don't add effects ever, but, you know, make sure you have the sound. And when I'm editing, almost what more I'm thinking about is like, oh, that sounded better.

20:49 Like, I'm not even thinking about looks. I'm thinking about where. Which one sound the best. You know, when I, when they're placing a tile. Yeah, I try to line up. Yeah, exactly. I need that crank. Yes, I like it. Do you think from a general perspective, okay, just like pulling back. And you've dealt with planners now in your career and you've been doing this for a while now. What aspect of production do you think is the most confusing, an event planner or even the average person when it comes to understanding AV specifically, you know, technical production. The most confusing part for that stuff, how everything comes together at, at the end, I think is. Is tough to.

21:52 Because one thing that I feel like before I, you know, gain some years of experience is I was like, okay, I, I have to set up this camera. And you're not thinking about the rest of the whole production. I think thinking about how you need every little piece to kind of come together perfectly and everyone needs to be communicating and on the same page. And you need to start that communication, you know, weeks, months before the event and understand why each kind of piece is needed. That's kind of like a abstract answer. But I love It. I think understanding all the components is hard to wrap minds around and the time it takes. So, like, if I could put what you just said on a T shirt, man of like, basically as much time as you can give us. That's what we. That's what we would love to have, you know, Don't. Don't you. If you know it, go ahead and share it because there's a lot of planning that goes into coordinating all the parts of an event, you know. Yeah.

23:00 If you're. Especially if you get into cross rentals and freelancers and out of town where your core team is from and there's a lot of coordination that goes into it. And that's just the aod, you know, the planner is dealing with all sorts of stuff on their own. So. Yeah. And, you know, no event is. I mean, we get as close to perfect as we can, but, you know, the more time you have, the more perfect there it can be, so. That's right, you know, 100%. Yep. What do you think corporate events will look like in 10 years? You know, like you're. You have your pulse on event technology. Cool things coming down, you know, every day, new things coming out every day. What do you think it'll look like in 10 years?

23:48 I would say hopefully bigger. I think more events. Bigger events. Less, you know, less people are going to live in. I think less people will live in big cities. So events are going to be more of like a gathering experience. Everything is going to be broadcast, which it already is, but even more so, I think. Yeah, YouTube is going to be. No one's gonna have TV anymore. Everyone's just gonna watch YouTube. I think. Yeah. I mean, more the broadcast and media side of it is I think everyone's just gonna be doing their own productions and have their own production companies that they rely on and these big.

24:42 I. Guess, like, studios and stuff are gonna kind of go away. I think it's going to be all people working with their own, either in house or they're going to have, you know, people like us and planners that, you know, go directly to. To the right people then that know the right people and that can put, you know, events and broadcasts and stuff together. Is my opinion, just more kind of decentralized, I think. Yeah, I agree with you. I do. I do think that, like, the merging of, like, you know, the. The brunt, like unsanded parts of like, how Covid came out the other end, everybody was really adopted. Like virtual events, hybrid events are thrown.

25:27 Everybody was trying to figure out what to call It. That's just events now. That's just every event. Yeah, and it's an expectation, too. Like, there's a whole new generation of people entering the workforce where it's like what they did with school, you know, how they experience things is just totally different. It's just. That's the expectation. And I think that will get smoother and smoother into just like seamless events, you know, wherever you are, however, any way you want to access it, you know, I definitely agree with you. What about you? What do you think? You think you're gonna have, like, AI robots? And I don't know what kind of answer. I don't know. I expected AI is gonna fundamentally change a lot of things, starting with how events are planned and put together. Not just like an event planner standpoint, but even, like, you know, I think usually a lot from the AV perspective, but being able to streamline things in that process. I don't know what equipment we'll be deploying or even if we see it now, what that'll look like, because I feel like every time a huge technology leap happened, the incumbent couldn't make the change. So with ice or cooling products, companies that sold ice blocks couldn't transition to big warehouses that were cooled, and then those companies that were big warehouses couldn't make the transition to refrigerators. You know, like, they couldn't think about, but they. They're all solving the same thing. They were keeping

27:00 food cool, you know, but, like, they couldn't break out of their current mindset, you know. So what are events is like the big question, you know, like, we're communicators. We help people communicate ideas to other people. That's really what we do. So. So in that context, what will events look like? I don't know. I mean, I'm excited about it, but I don't know, maybe stuff hasn't been invented yet that we'll be using in 10 years, but. And then I think, well, maybe it's just not that complicated. You still gotta hear people and see people and, you know, we'll of course, pretty much the same thing, so. So my answer is I have no idea. No one does. But I think the productions will continue to progress and I'm excited to see it, so. I am too.

27:46 I am excited about the next 10 years. What's. If people want to follow you and see stuff that you do, the stuff that we've been talking about, where should they go? Brian does AV on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. So that's where you find me. And if they wanted to hire where you work, you're working with RS Media One as a production manager. So is that just RSMedia1.com yeah, RSMedia1.com. We are based in D.C. you know, so if you ever need anything. Fantastic. Yeah, I love it and I, I really appreciate you taking the time to be a guest on the show today.

28:26 I've enjoyed the conversation. It gets me thinking about stuff that I, I don't normally think about, but I think it's incredibly valuable, especially right now. So thank you for taking the time with us. Yeah, absolutely. Glad to do it. Well, thank you for joining us on the Event Pro Show. If you want to hear any previous episodes where we have guests that are like Brian and have different perspectives in corporate events from every direction, you can go to the eventproshow.com or wherever you listen to your podcast. We're there too and we release episodes about once a week. Thank you for joining us and we'll see you on the next one. The Event Pro show is a production of LEMG video by Nick Barrett, audio and post production by Prince Thompson. You can learn more about us at LEMG Live.