June 9, 2025
How to Prepare Your AV RFP to Get the Best Proposals
The Event Pro Show is your trusted source for everything corporate events. In this edition, host Seth Macchi, CEO of LEMG, tackles one of the biggest challenges event professionals face: building a clear, effective AV Request For Proposal (RFP). Whether you're new to planning or have years of experience, Seth outlines the crucial details and questions that help AV vendors provide accurate, tailored proposals. From locking in basics like event dates and venue specs to outlining must-have technical needs and optional enhancements, this conversation is filled with practical tips and real examples. If you're looking to eliminate confusion and boost the quality of your AV bids, these strategies will help you get there with confidence.
The Event Pro Show is a production of LEMG.
LEMG is a leading event production company known for delivering exceptional experiences. From site planning and event design to technical production, staging, lighting, sound, and more—we do it all. As a second-generation company, we’re proud of our rich history and commitment to innovation. Whether it’s a corporate meeting, conference, convention, or live event, we’re the team our clients trust to execute their vision flawlessly.
https://lemg.live/
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If you answer these few questions, you too, my
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friend, can put together a top notch RFP for AV
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services. Welcome to the Event Pro show,
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your ultimate guide to the world of corporate events. Whether you're a corporate
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event planner, experiential marketing pro, producer, technician,
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or anyone involved in creating exceptional events, this podcast is your go to
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resource for valuable insights, expert tips and inspiring stories from the
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industry's leading professionals. Foreign
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thank you for joining me on the Event Pro Show. I am your host Seth
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Macchi. I'm the CEO of lemg. We're an event production company
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based in Charlotte and we specialize in corporate events. And
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if you've ever struggled putting together an RFP for
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AV services, or if maybe this is your first time doing it,
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I will show you a few key questions and
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ideas to keep in mind when you're creating this so that you can provide
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something that an AV services provider can get back
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a wonderful proposal for you. And so it really doesn't matter,
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you know, the formatting of it is up to you. There's, there's templates
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online. You can find them at associations and different groups. You could, you could do
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a Google search and find RFP templates for
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AV services online. Or there's a, there's a lot of vendors that
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have wonderful templates you can download. But if you can answer these
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questions, questions and you and you're doing your research to get ready to talk to
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AV services provider providers, these are the type
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of questions that you need to answer so that you're equipped and ready to go.
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And it won't be, it won't be an issue for you. So remember
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with your rfp, the goal should really all it
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is is allow your AV vendors to get a scope for the event.
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AV vendors typically are working on dozens if not
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hundreds of projects perhaps per year. And so you want
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to give them something that shows whatever uniqueness it is to
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your event that they need to pay attention to so that they can give you
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exactly what you need to accomplish your goals or your stakeholders
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goals. So really you need to start with key questions you
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need to answer so that people are equipped to
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provide a proposal. So key questions start with things like just,
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I just call them the basics. So you need dates
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of course of the event, the venue,
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inside the venue, what rooms, if you know the show, name the
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client, all of those pertinent details, even down
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to like the actual way that you want the event
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referenced. So for example, if this is ACME
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sales explosion 2027, this is the
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way we want the event Referred to going forward. Great. Put that in
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there so that all documentation has that in there and it's correct
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right from the beginning. After that, put in
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what type of an event it is and who's attending.
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For example, a sales event
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where sales training, you know, a large corporation is bringing a
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thousand SalesPeople to Phoenix, Arizona to
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learn the latest in their brand new
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CRM system and best practices and
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then they have breakouts around that of training different elements of
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sales, try to close the deal, whatever. That type of an event
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is going to be completely different than an out facing sales event
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for maybe like a software company that is having a user
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conference or a sales conference where all their top clients come
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and they show them tips and tricks and the latest update and
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what's new and success stories and all that and they want to really impress
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the attendees. That's a, that's a totally different technology
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solution quite frankly, depending on what you're trying to accomplish. So
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it's really good to know just from a Super high level, 30,000 foot view
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of an event what who's the client, like who's at this thing and who's attending.
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It speaks to what the goal is, where
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and when is it taking place. And again that's in the basics, but it's just
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the geography of like making sure you're listing
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like where geographically this thing is happening in
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the States or wherever else. Will the
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audience be in person, virtual or a
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mix or like a hybrid kind of a thing speaking to
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literally where people are and what's the priority
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of, of who's hearing
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what and what's the most important thing that you're trying to accomplish.
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And I'll give you an example of what that might mean to you
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is let's say that a client comes to you and says we want to do
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a hybrid event with. We want, we want
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to do an event where all of our executives speak on a stage but they're
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speaking to maybe 30 people to give it kind of that energy. Those 30 people
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are just going to be internal people at HQ.
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But then we're going to stream the event live to
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the 40,000
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member Global employees. And
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that's really what's important. The global
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employee experience is the priority. And so
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it helps, it, it helps to define, you know, what is, what is the
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mission of this event, what are you trying to accomplish, who
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is the targeted audience here and what do all the
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stakeholders want? And so
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understanding that helps provide a better AV
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proposal and also moving on number
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and type of venues. So for example,
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we're going to be at Hotel X in Dallas,
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Texas and we're doing our general session in main
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ballroom A. But we're also then gonna
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go to four different breakouts in that space
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so that we can do some training and just understanding what rooms those
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are, you know, not just the venue, but what rooms those are. One thing that's
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super helpful, there's a little note is that make sure you
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note what's worked well in the past. If you have a history in this event
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or other events that you've done, maybe you could speak to like what do we
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really liked about this other series is they did this. And also what
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hasn't worked well, sometimes that's more informative than
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anything to say, hey, what we're really trying to avoid is X,
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Y and Z. Great, that's awesome. That informs, that
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informs me as we're, you know, we're putting together a proposal for you
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and really the last question would be, do you have a fixed AV
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budget? Do you have a budget guidance that you can give your
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AV providers so that they can understand what you're, what
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you're aiming for and, and what is the true scope of what, what
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you are trying to accomplish versus what resources you have available to you to
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do that? And I know this is uncomfortable for people
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and I understand that. But there's something that I, I think
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of as kind of a procurement mindset where in procurement
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they try to centralize purchasing and make things as efficient as possible.
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And it works really well for things like, hey, we need to buy a bag
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of nails and it doesn't matter where you get those bag of nails from, we
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just need the cheapest bag of nails. And it's more of a commodity mindset.
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But this is a high level service that you're asking for. And so there's a
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lot of nuance in it. And if you have a great, a
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strong AV partner, they can understand your budget,
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they can understand your requirements and they'll build something within that reasonable budget. And so
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that's really why you get that question. It's not that they're trying to squeeze every
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last dollar out of the scenario, they're just trying to understand like where
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are we here? What's the range that I have to work with? And then we'll
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work within that. So that's the initial questions that you would want to
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answer next. You would get into baseline requirements
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and that term, baseline requirements. It really is helping you
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understand this is the, these are the must have
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items to get this thing done. So for example,
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let's talk about audio and audio. In that example, in
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that room in Texas you have, you know, a thousand people
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or something in the general session. So there's a thousand people and they
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need to be able to hear. Okay. And during
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the few days that we're in the general session, we're going to
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have some panels and the largest moderated
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panel, everybody on stage at one time be eight people. Okay, so
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that's eight. That's the most microphones that'll be being used at any
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given time. Okay, noted. And so you start working through. So now you've
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answered the question of what, what kind of, how much, how many microphones. You've
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answered what type of sound system that you need in that space. Because you know
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the venue, you know the room, you know the, how many people are
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in there. And it implies how the pa. The sound system
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is going to be pointed. And so it really starts working through that.
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So you've worked through audio display. What do you intend to
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display? This is another baseline requirement. And so this might be a
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different answer if you're doing an accounting conference where
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all, all day they're going to be looking at QuickBooks online on
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a screen and looking at line item detail of like accounting documents
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versus maybe this is an award show and in the award
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show you just want it to be beautiful and exciting and fun, but there's never
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really going to be much detail that people have to like read tiny text that
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might change how you design what the display is. Lighting
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something. As far as baseline requirements, one thing to really think about
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is this, is this going to be recorded? And so stage
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wash will need to be very, even that, that type of thing. So it starts
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speaking into the lighting needs. And you know, beyond that, when
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you get into more detail of these technical things, your AV provider will walk
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you through it. But these are questions you can kind of work through now
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that you can give them technical staff. You, you might not know
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what the entire staff is going to be like, how many people are,
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are going to be in the room. But you do know that you have a
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really tight run of show down to the minute and you need somebody out there
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calling the show on intercom so that all the technicians are
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coordinated and we stay on schedule. Okay, you need a td and if you
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have executive, a lot of executives that are going to be getting mic'd up, a
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lot of VIPs, a lot of A level celebrities
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and stuff that need microphones and stuff backstage and, and they needed to be
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treated professionally and made sure that everything looks Nice and sounds
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good. Okay. You need an A2 backstage so that they can take care
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of that. And so as you work through this technical staff
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scenario, you. You might not know the entire
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staff, but, you know, key people that have made your events go well in. In
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the past or key requirements that you're thinking, I think that's a person that,
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you know, we need a stage manager that, you know, that type of thing,
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presentation support. So if you have an event that has a lot of
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presentations or video roles, start thinking about that. You know, we need
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something that, that plays videos, we need something that
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plays presentations, and we have multiple of each. And so
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also, by the way, while we're at it, our presentations have a lot
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of changes during rehearsals, so we need someone to take care of that.
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Okay, you're talking about another technical staff person that takes care of graphics
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and works with your executive team as they're doing rehearsals
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to change slides and change, you know, edits and stuff. So you're
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working through all of these things that are known to you.
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So that's all of your baseline needs. Once you have all of that,
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all of the baseline needs, the next thing you need to do is talk
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about enhancements or things that are beyond the baseline
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requirements. And so a lot of times these are things that maybe your stakeholders
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were talking about. Hey, the logo of this brand that we're
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representing is a giant grizzly bear. And so we want a 2D
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large scenic piece that is a big bear or something. And we need that
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created or whatever. You need, like some sort of scenic
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elements that tie into the branding around the room or whatever. These are things
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that would be nice to have. Let's talk about that. So start talking about
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that type of thing. Live streaming or hybrid
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broadcast setup might be something that isn't really a
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baseline requirement, but you've been thinking about that. Hey, I think we can get some
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additional revenue if we. If we sell this streaming pass
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in the last 10 days of registration, we can include some people.
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So what would happen if we did that? And then the next question beyond that
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would be, okay, well then do you need recording? And do those recordings
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then need to be edited? Does it need to look like a polished product at
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the end, or do you just need raw recordings? And these are enhancements that you
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might need? And other enhancements you might want to think about are
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additional lighting, LED services, digital signage.
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The list can go on. But if there's anything that seems to be like. It
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would be a nice to have, go ahead and put it here. Now, what you
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might be thinking is your, your the the enhancements I listed might
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be your baseline requirements or vice versa. And you're right.
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So you have to determine what are the absolutes, the baseline needs
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that you need and then what are things that you think of as enhancements
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that you want to talk about, but you're just not sure yet. So it's nice
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to break those up so that there's clarity on the vendor side,
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the AV vendor side, to know what's must have and what are
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additional things. Other additional items are any room venue
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information that you might have. Maybe you did a site survey, maybe you
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just know about anything that's quirky or specific to that
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space that you think that they should know. If you have previous pics,
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pictures of, of this event or this event series
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that is incredibly helpful, or videos, you know, anything
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that can document what's been done in the past and anything you think the AV
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suppliers should should know about that would help them create the
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best proposal. Go ahead and put it in there and share that with them
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so that they can create something exceptional for you. And it
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cuts down on the back and forth. Now, one thing to expect after you
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do this is that most AV service
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providers will want to have at least one conversation with you before they
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put together the proposal. They'll, you know, send them this and
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let them digest it and sit with it
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for a while, but they'll want to talk it through with you to make sure
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that we're all on the same page before they dive into the project
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that is putting together a proposal and all the things that go with
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that, all the design work that might go with that. So you should expect that.
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I hope this is helpful. If you do these things, you should be pretty
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well set to create great RFPs for
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AV services. And if you need any help, I'm always
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available. You can look me up. Seth Macchi on LinkedIn just DM me
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there. I would be glad to help you. LEMG would be glad to help you
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as well. We focus solely on corporate events, so if that's
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your thing, let's talk. In the meantime, you can always find
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more tips and tricks or guests in the corporate event
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space@the eventproshow.com where you can follow
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along in our journey, that is this podcast. I appreciate
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your time. Thank you so much and hope you have a wonderful day.
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The Event Pro show is a production of LEMG video
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by Nick Barrett, audio and post production by Prince
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Thompson. You can learn more about us at LEMG
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Live.
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If you answer these few questions, you too, my
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friend, can put together a top notch RFP for AV
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services. Welcome to the Event Pro show,
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your ultimate guide to the world of corporate events. Whether you're a corporate
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event planner, experiential marketing pro, producer, technician,
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or anyone involved in creating exceptional events, this podcast is your go to
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resource for valuable insights, expert tips and inspiring stories from the
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industry's leading professionals. Foreign
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thank you for joining me on the Event Pro Show. I am your host Seth
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Macchi. I'm the CEO of lemg. We're an event production company
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based in Charlotte and we specialize in corporate events. And
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if you've ever struggled putting together an RFP for
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AV services, or if maybe this is your first time doing it,
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I will show you a few key questions and
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ideas to keep in mind when you're creating this so that you can provide
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something that an AV services provider can get back
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a wonderful proposal for you. And so it really doesn't matter,
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you know, the formatting of it is up to you. There's, there's templates
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online. You can find them at associations and different groups. You could, you could do
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a Google search and find RFP templates for
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AV services online. Or there's a, there's a lot of vendors that
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have wonderful templates you can download. But if you can answer these
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questions, questions and you and you're doing your research to get ready to talk to
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AV services provider providers, these are the type
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of questions that you need to answer so that you're equipped and ready to go.
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And it won't be, it won't be an issue for you. So remember
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with your rfp, the goal should really all it
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is is allow your AV vendors to get a scope for the event.
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AV vendors typically are working on dozens if not
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hundreds of projects perhaps per year. And so you want
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to give them something that shows whatever uniqueness it is to
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your event that they need to pay attention to so that they can give you
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exactly what you need to accomplish your goals or your stakeholders
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goals. So really you need to start with key questions you
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need to answer so that people are equipped to
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provide a proposal. So key questions start with things like just,
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I just call them the basics. So you need dates
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of course of the event, the venue,
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inside the venue, what rooms, if you know the show, name the
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client, all of those pertinent details, even down
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to like the actual way that you want the event
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referenced. So for example, if this is ACME
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sales explosion 2027, this is the
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way we want the event Referred to going forward. Great. Put that in
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there so that all documentation has that in there and it's correct
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right from the beginning. After that, put in
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what type of an event it is and who's attending.
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For example, a sales event
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where sales training, you know, a large corporation is bringing a
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thousand SalesPeople to Phoenix, Arizona to
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learn the latest in their brand new
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CRM system and best practices and
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then they have breakouts around that of training different elements of
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sales, try to close the deal, whatever. That type of an event
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is going to be completely different than an out facing sales event
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for maybe like a software company that is having a user
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conference or a sales conference where all their top clients come
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and they show them tips and tricks and the latest update and
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what's new and success stories and all that and they want to really impress
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the attendees. That's a, that's a totally different technology
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solution quite frankly, depending on what you're trying to accomplish. So
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it's really good to know just from a Super high level, 30,000 foot view
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of an event what who's the client, like who's at this thing and who's attending.
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It speaks to what the goal is, where
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and when is it taking place. And again that's in the basics, but it's just
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the geography of like making sure you're listing
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like where geographically this thing is happening in
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the States or wherever else. Will the
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audience be in person, virtual or a
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mix or like a hybrid kind of a thing speaking to
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literally where people are and what's the priority
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of, of who's hearing
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what and what's the most important thing that you're trying to accomplish.
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And I'll give you an example of what that might mean to you
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is let's say that a client comes to you and says we want to do
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a hybrid event with. We want, we want
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to do an event where all of our executives speak on a stage but they're
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speaking to maybe 30 people to give it kind of that energy. Those 30 people
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are just going to be internal people at HQ.
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But then we're going to stream the event live to
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the 40,000
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member Global employees. And
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that's really what's important. The global
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employee experience is the priority. And so
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it helps, it, it helps to define, you know, what is, what is the
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mission of this event, what are you trying to accomplish, who
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is the targeted audience here and what do all the
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stakeholders want? And so
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understanding that helps provide a better AV
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proposal and also moving on number
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and type of venues. So for example,
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we're going to be at Hotel X in Dallas,
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Texas and we're doing our general session in main
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ballroom A. But we're also then gonna
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go to four different breakouts in that space
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so that we can do some training and just understanding what rooms those
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are, you know, not just the venue, but what rooms those are. One thing that's
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super helpful, there's a little note is that make sure you
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note what's worked well in the past. If you have a history in this event
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or other events that you've done, maybe you could speak to like what do we
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really liked about this other series is they did this. And also what
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hasn't worked well, sometimes that's more informative than
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anything to say, hey, what we're really trying to avoid is X,
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Y and Z. Great, that's awesome. That informs, that
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informs me as we're, you know, we're putting together a proposal for you
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and really the last question would be, do you have a fixed AV
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budget? Do you have a budget guidance that you can give your
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AV providers so that they can understand what you're, what
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you're aiming for and, and what is the true scope of what, what
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you are trying to accomplish versus what resources you have available to you to
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do that? And I know this is uncomfortable for people
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and I understand that. But there's something that I, I think
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of as kind of a procurement mindset where in procurement
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they try to centralize purchasing and make things as efficient as possible.
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And it works really well for things like, hey, we need to buy a bag
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of nails and it doesn't matter where you get those bag of nails from, we
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just need the cheapest bag of nails. And it's more of a commodity mindset.
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But this is a high level service that you're asking for. And so there's a
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lot of nuance in it. And if you have a great, a
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strong AV partner, they can understand your budget,
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they can understand your requirements and they'll build something within that reasonable budget. And so
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that's really why you get that question. It's not that they're trying to squeeze every
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last dollar out of the scenario, they're just trying to understand like where
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are we here? What's the range that I have to work with? And then we'll
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work within that. So that's the initial questions that you would want to
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answer next. You would get into baseline requirements
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and that term, baseline requirements. It really is helping you
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understand this is the, these are the must have
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items to get this thing done. So for example,
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let's talk about audio and audio. In that example, in
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that room in Texas you have, you know, a thousand people
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or something in the general session. So there's a thousand people and they
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need to be able to hear. Okay. And during
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the few days that we're in the general session, we're going to
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have some panels and the largest moderated
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panel, everybody on stage at one time be eight people. Okay, so
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that's eight. That's the most microphones that'll be being used at any
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given time. Okay, noted. And so you start working through. So now you've
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answered the question of what, what kind of, how much, how many microphones. You've
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answered what type of sound system that you need in that space. Because you know
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the venue, you know the room, you know the, how many people are
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in there. And it implies how the pa. The sound system
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is going to be pointed. And so it really starts working through that.
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So you've worked through audio display. What do you intend to
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display? This is another baseline requirement. And so this might be a
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different answer if you're doing an accounting conference where
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all, all day they're going to be looking at QuickBooks online on
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a screen and looking at line item detail of like accounting documents
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versus maybe this is an award show and in the award
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show you just want it to be beautiful and exciting and fun, but there's never
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really going to be much detail that people have to like read tiny text that
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might change how you design what the display is. Lighting
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something. As far as baseline requirements, one thing to really think about
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is this, is this going to be recorded? And so stage
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wash will need to be very, even that, that type of thing. So it starts
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speaking into the lighting needs. And you know, beyond that, when
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you get into more detail of these technical things, your AV provider will walk
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you through it. But these are questions you can kind of work through now
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that you can give them technical staff. You, you might not know
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what the entire staff is going to be like, how many people are,
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are going to be in the room. But you do know that you have a
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really tight run of show down to the minute and you need somebody out there
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calling the show on intercom so that all the technicians are
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coordinated and we stay on schedule. Okay, you need a td and if you
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have executive, a lot of executives that are going to be getting mic'd up, a
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lot of VIPs, a lot of A level celebrities
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and stuff that need microphones and stuff backstage and, and they needed to be
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treated professionally and made sure that everything looks Nice and sounds
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good. Okay. You need an A2 backstage so that they can take care
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of that. And so as you work through this technical staff
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scenario, you. You might not know the entire
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staff, but, you know, key people that have made your events go well in. In
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the past or key requirements that you're thinking, I think that's a person that,
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you know, we need a stage manager that, you know, that type of thing,
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presentation support. So if you have an event that has a lot of
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presentations or video roles, start thinking about that. You know, we need
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something that, that plays videos, we need something that
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plays presentations, and we have multiple of each. And so
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also, by the way, while we're at it, our presentations have a lot
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of changes during rehearsals, so we need someone to take care of that.
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Okay, you're talking about another technical staff person that takes care of graphics
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and works with your executive team as they're doing rehearsals
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to change slides and change, you know, edits and stuff. So you're
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working through all of these things that are known to you.
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So that's all of your baseline needs. Once you have all of that,
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all of the baseline needs, the next thing you need to do is talk
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about enhancements or things that are beyond the baseline
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requirements. And so a lot of times these are things that maybe your stakeholders
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were talking about. Hey, the logo of this brand that we're
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representing is a giant grizzly bear. And so we want a 2D
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large scenic piece that is a big bear or something. And we need that
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created or whatever. You need, like some sort of scenic
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elements that tie into the branding around the room or whatever. These are things
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that would be nice to have. Let's talk about that. So start talking about
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that type of thing. Live streaming or hybrid
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broadcast setup might be something that isn't really a
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baseline requirement, but you've been thinking about that. Hey, I think we can get some
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additional revenue if we. If we sell this streaming pass
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in the last 10 days of registration, we can include some people.
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So what would happen if we did that? And then the next question beyond that
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would be, okay, well then do you need recording? And do those recordings
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then need to be edited? Does it need to look like a polished product at
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the end, or do you just need raw recordings? And these are enhancements that you
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might need? And other enhancements you might want to think about are
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additional lighting, LED services, digital signage.
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The list can go on. But if there's anything that seems to be like. It
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would be a nice to have, go ahead and put it here. Now, what you
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might be thinking is your, your the the enhancements I listed might
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be your baseline requirements or vice versa. And you're right.
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So you have to determine what are the absolutes, the baseline needs
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that you need and then what are things that you think of as enhancements
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that you want to talk about, but you're just not sure yet. So it's nice
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to break those up so that there's clarity on the vendor side,
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the AV vendor side, to know what's must have and what are
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additional things. Other additional items are any room venue
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information that you might have. Maybe you did a site survey, maybe you
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just know about anything that's quirky or specific to that
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space that you think that they should know. If you have previous pics,
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pictures of, of this event or this event series
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that is incredibly helpful, or videos, you know, anything
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that can document what's been done in the past and anything you think the AV
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suppliers should should know about that would help them create the
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best proposal. Go ahead and put it in there and share that with them
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so that they can create something exceptional for you. And it
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cuts down on the back and forth. Now, one thing to expect after you
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do this is that most AV service
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providers will want to have at least one conversation with you before they
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put together the proposal. They'll, you know, send them this and
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let them digest it and sit with it
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for a while, but they'll want to talk it through with you to make sure
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that we're all on the same page before they dive into the project
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that is putting together a proposal and all the things that go with
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that, all the design work that might go with that. So you should expect that.
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I hope this is helpful. If you do these things, you should be pretty
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well set to create great RFPs for
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AV services. And if you need any help, I'm always
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available. You can look me up. Seth Macchi on LinkedIn just DM me
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there. I would be glad to help you. LEMG would be glad to help you
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as well. We focus solely on corporate events, so if that's
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your thing, let's talk. In the meantime, you can always find
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more tips and tricks or guests in the corporate event
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space@the eventproshow.com where you can follow
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along in our journey, that is this podcast. I appreciate
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your time. Thank you so much and hope you have a wonderful day.
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The Event Pro show is a production of LEMG video
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by Nick Barrett, audio and post production by Prince
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Thompson. You can learn more about us at LEMG
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Live.