The AV Advantage, Part 2- Boost Value and Efficiency for Every Event

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Do you know how to get better pricing, better techs, and better execution

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from your AV production partners? Well, let's get into

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it welcome to. The Event Pro show, your ultimate

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guide to the world of corporate events. Whether you're a corporate event planner,

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experiential marketing pro, producer, technician, or anyone involved

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in creating exceptional events, this podcast is your go to resource for

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valuable insights, expert tips and inspiring stories from the industry's

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leading professionals. Foreign.

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Welcome back to the Event Pro Show. I am your host Seth Macchi.

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I'm the CEO of lemg, an event production company

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based in Charlotte, North Carolina and we specialize in

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producing corporate events all over the country and we work with

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event planners all of the time. And you are joining us in

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Part two of the AV Advantage. It's a five part series we're

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doing to essentially give event planners tips on how to

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work better with their AV production partners. In our last

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episode, which is episode one, we explored why bringing your AV partner

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into the planning process early and how that can help spark

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better ideas, avoid costly redos, make the entire

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RFP process smoother. And we also talked

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about how collaborating with AV professionals from the start isn't

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just a nice to have. It's really essential for controlling your

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budget and delivering the best attendee experience, no

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matter your event size or format. And that's important. You know

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there's you can provide top quality no

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matter the size, no matter the format. That's really the goal. And

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if you find great partners, that's the goal. It doesn't matter what the budget

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is. Let's all do this together and make it amazing. I also

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showed some key questions

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to expect and be prepared for when you sit down with your AV

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partner for the first time about a project so you're set up for success right

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from day one. If you missed that episode, make sure

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to check it out. For tips on designing your event with AV in mind

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from the very beginning, you can go to the eventproshow.com

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same place that you joined us for this episode. Today

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we're moving on to Part two where we'll be diving

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in to practical strategies for doing more with your

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AV budget so you can stretch your dollars further without

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sacrificing quality or creativity. It's probably the number one concern

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that I hear day in and day out from event planners is just their

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budgets are so stretched, their people are so stretched. So

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we're trying to figure out ways to help you do more with less.

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That's really the mandate for a lot of people right now, and the time that

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we're in. And that's great. Let's do it together. So the goal is showing

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how early planning equals better pricing, better text

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and better execution. All right, so let's get started.

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So I want to talk really quick on why waiting costs more. I've talked

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about this before, but I want to want to talk about

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the economics. That's the underpinning to that

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statement. So there's a few things, a couple,

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couple primary things that are always going to be what you're paying for

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when you're working with an AV service provider. And one,

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the first one is labor. So that includes freelancers,

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internal technicians, load in, load out labor. It might include

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IATSE or union stage hands, but all of that is kind

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of the labor charge. And then you're going to talk about the gear

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piece of it. So the gear rental piece of it. Those two components

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a lot of times are split kind of 5050 on a well

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built AV quote. And you have other,

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other pieces of that. There might be creative and

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some development of maybe set pieces, but, but really just generally

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that's kind of a 50 50. So let's talk about those

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things. Freelancer costs and

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labor costs. Why, why are labor costs going up to begin with?

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And let's take it from COVID A lot of you were there,

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some of you weren't. But pre Covid, there

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was kind of a race to the bottom on AV pricing.

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Every there were a lot of AV providers and everybody was getting cheaper, cheaper, cheaper

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because of that. Technicians rates were kind of held

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at bay and especially freelance rates were kind

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of held. They hadn't grown for quite a while. I would

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say probably the five years leading up to Covid, it was

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pretty stagnant because of this race to the bottom on AV

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pricing. There wasn't a lot of budget to raise freelancer rates.

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And in the AV industry we really depend on

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freelancers. Freelancers when we

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say that they're independent contractors and typically a lot of them

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worked on staff with an AV company at some point and developed their

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skills to the point where they realized they could make more if they jumped into

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the entrepreneurial pool and started their own LLC and

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started working for multiple AV providers. And we as AV

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providers are great with that because we get incredible technicians

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and those technicians kind of are cross

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pollinating with ideas and concepts with other

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AV providers that we respect and are doing other work

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all over the place. So it ends up being a win, win for everybody.

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Well, going into Covid, when everything shut down, we lost a lot of

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that Talent, either they retired or they went into, I don't know, they became

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Realtors or and moved out of the industry.

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And so we're short on talent. And then the

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ones that stayed command a higher rate and

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at the same time a lot of rates. Speaking of

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commanding higher rates, they went up 50 to

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100% in a few years time from COVID forward.

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Because not only was there a demand on services, but I believe there was

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a pent up demand for rate increases in anyways

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because of the five years before COVID and all of that. So

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there is really a competition for great freelancers even

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to this day. And so knowing early

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and why, you know, if you wait, you have a show, but you wait to

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kind of bring your AV provider in, you're limiting their ability to get

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the top notch talent because that talent books 3,

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6, 9, 12, 18 months out.

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So the earlier we know, the more talent we have to work with. The second

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is in the AV industry.

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You know, 20, 25 years ago, toward you know,

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beginning of my career, it was all about what AV provider

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owned, all the gear internally. If we cross

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rented any gear, it was rarely for very

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specific things. All of that has really shifted. There are a lot of

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great third party gear providers out there right

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now that have high quality gear at competitive prices. So if you're

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hearing that your AV provider is cross renting a lot of

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gear, don't let that freak you out. That's actually how the model is

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moving, especially for a lot of younger companies coming in. They've realized they don't have

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to have this massive overhead of buying a ton of gear all at once.

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They can kind of ease into it and use the third party provider that's very

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trusted, does great work. But because of that

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there is a bit of a demand, a scheduling demand on

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that equipment. And so again,

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if you're waiting on booking your AV provider, you're limiting their

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ability to get the best prices on equipment and finding the

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best gear. And the third minor point that

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I would want to bring up about why you shouldn't wait to bring your

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AV provider in is rush charges. If you get

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too short, too close to the finish line before your event starts,

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there might be rush charges because you're generating more work for

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them to try to get your event planned and ready to go

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in a short amount of time. So that those are three big reasons

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and the economic underpinning of why waiting costs

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you more. So the earlier you can bring in, you can get your

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technicians booked, the best technicians, you can get the best Gear at the best

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prices and rush charges aren't even a thing.

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So that's the pricing piece of waiting versus not

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waiting. The AV planning process I wish every

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client followed. I don't really have a timeline, but I do have

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kind of conceptually, what is a great path to

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follow when you're looking for an AV provider is once your

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project is known so you're given the concept, go ahead and bring,

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you know, the concept that you have an event coming up, go ahead and bring

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your AV partner in even if you don't have an rfp.

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If an RFP is required, go ahead and consult with

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your AV partner that you really trust on helping to build

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that. I believe that the best relationships

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eventually don't really require an rfp.

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You can bring in your AV partner that you trust way early on and they'll

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help you come up with a solution. That is, it works

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within your budget, within your requirements, even if you're

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uncomfortable with that. Have two, have two AV partners that

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are your AV partners and you bounce between and that kind of mitigates

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that risk of being dependent on one partner. But if you can build

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relationships to not even require an rfp, first of all, it

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saves you a ton of time. And second off, they're better

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at building the concept of what you're trying to do than you are usually,

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unless you come from an AV background, you're a planner with an AV

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background, which there are some, and I have friends that are, but not, not

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everybody is. And so building a relationship with an AV partner that can

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help you create the solution, that they know your end goal and they help

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you create it against your budget would be the best way to

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go. The next step is once you, once you know the

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event and you're looking at locations, go ahead and bring your AV

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partner to site surveys. And you know, maybe not every site

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survey you do, but maybe the final two or three bring them and

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they can help consult on what's the best place to do that event.

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And so after that, then the design begins based on the actual

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space. And so you're working in the correct order here. The design

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begins in the actual space. You come up with design, then you get

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full quote. It's created with time to discuss and

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come to the best possible solution. So all of this

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requires time. This is why bringing someone in early allows you

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to do this. But at least three months leave, at least

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three months to book the best labor and equipment. So doing all this ahead of

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time so that once you know the solution, the technicians you're going to need all

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that kind of stuff. Then your, then your supplier, your vendor has time,

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maybe three months or more to book the best labor and

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equipment and then consistent communication all the way to

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load in. That's like the perfect scenario. Now I know that's a

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luxury for some of you for most of your events or maybe all

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of your events or some of your events. Sometimes it's just not

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that way. Hey, we need to get this event done in four weeks. So

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go get it. You know, and I get that, but that doesn't always. The fire

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drill doesn't have to be the standard operating procedure.

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That could be the exception. So I want to talk a little

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bit about common time

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wasting mistakes. You know, speaking of when you

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have a short time frame, let's talk about things that do waste time that I've

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seen and you know, how to avoid them. If you're sending out

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RFPS without enough specificity. I'm going to get into that

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in a second about RFPs.

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I'm going to get up into that in our next episode

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with more specificity. But if you're sending out just

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super general RFPs, you're going to find that your quotes that you're getting back

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from potential vendors are kind of all over the place. And

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so you end up collecting non similar quotes from various

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providers. And so then your team, or if you don't have a team,

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it's just you have to go back and forth with each

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vendor and try to create similar quotes between vendors. You're trying to do all

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the translation of like, okay, is it, is this 8 hours per

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a day or 10 hour day? When are we in overtime? What you know, you're

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trying to figure out all these details. Well, if you can be really specific

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with your rfp, it creates a apples to apples quote

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across the line and saves you a ton of time. So the

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bottom line in all of these suggestions that I was just

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sharing with you is that early planning equals

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better pricing, better text and better

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execution. So I'm going to keep on with this. So

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be sure to join us next time for part three of the AV

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Advantage where I'll be walking planners through how to get

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the proposal they actually want by

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writing clearer RFPs. More specificity.

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How can you do that? How can you standardize this thing so it's easier for

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you to make your final decision? Thank you for joining us on

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the Event Pro show. You can join us weekly where every other

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week I'll be providing tips like this that are specific to AV and then

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on the alternate. Every other week I bring in a guest that is

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somehow associated with corporate events. I have so many friends in the

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corporate events space that I want you just to know. You should know.

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And so this could be somebody talking about food and

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inclusion and Talking about

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venue CVBs or venues, or talking about

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catering, or talking about floral or just all, all

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sorts. There are so many people that you need to know and

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it's a fun show. It's a fun way of sharing tips and

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tricks by people that you don't often get to talk to. Thank you

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for joining us and we will see you on the next time. If you need

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AV help, go to LEMG Live and

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we would love to work with you. Thank you so much.

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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.