The AV Advantage, Part 3- AV RFP Essentials

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Would you like to know how to create clearer AV RFPs

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to get the proposals that you actually want? Well,

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let's get into it. Welcome to the Event Pro show,

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your ultimate guide to the world of corporate events. Whether you're a corporate event

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planner, experiential marketing pro, producer, technician, or

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anyone involved in creating exceptional events, this podcast is your go to

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resource for valuable insights, expert tips and and inspiring stories from the

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industry's leading professionals.

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Well, thank you for joining us on the Event Pro Show. I am your host,

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Seth Mackey. I'm the CEO of lemg. We're an event production

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company based in Charlotte, North Carolina and we produce

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corporate events all over the country and we primarily work with

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event planners. And so we wanted to create a five part series called the

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AV Advantage to help events event planners work

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more seamlessly with their AV providers.

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So you're joining us on part three.

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If you have missed our episodes, you can

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find part one and two at theeventproshow.com

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or join from wherever you joined us for this

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episode. But on the last episode I talked about how

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giving more time to allow for early planning, which

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your AV partner equals better pricing, better text, better

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execution. You know who, who doesn't want that? And so that's what we

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talked about last time. But today's goal we are going to talk to you

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as the planner on how to get the proposal that you actually

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want by writing clear RFPs. I, I

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think this is one thing through the years of working with

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clients and they request a proposal and

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they end up if they're not clear enough in their rfp,

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they end up with a folder full

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of proposals that are not apples to apples

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comparisons. And so them and their team

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are wasting precious planning time trying

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to figure out okay, is this vendor working on an

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8 hour day or a 10 hour day or

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and what are these fees and how are they addressing this and why isn't this

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included in this one? But it is included included in this one. And so the

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more specificity that you can add in your rfp,

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it actually saves time for you when you're evaluating your

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vendors. And I know a lot of you know this, but I wanted

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to share with you from an AV perspective how you

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could write clearer RFPs. And so

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let's talk about what most planners, or even

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some planners forget to include in their AVRFPs. Let's

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talk first about baseline needs versus

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enhancements and how to how to break those out. And what I

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mean by baseline needs is when you were given the mandate

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to create an event what is

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the baseline requirement of that event? And we're gonna.

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Let's walk through that. So baseline needs

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are. First, you start with what I like to call the basics.

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The most obvious things, which is

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interesting if they're not included because they seem most obvious to me, but

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sometimes they're not. So event dates, let's get that down.

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Pin down the exact dates, including any setup or

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rehearsal dates. That's super important. Venue details.

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If you are not going to include your AV provider in

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your site surveys and picking the venue, which we talk about in

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earlier episodes. But if you're not going to just the name of the venue,

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its location, specify the exact

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rooms and spaces in use, you can provide links to

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the venue website or at least the name of the spaces

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so the vendor can do their research, the event name and

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the client be precise about how the event should be referred to in the

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documents. So, and what I mean by that is a lot of times

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internally we'll think, you know, this is the pharma sales

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show, but it's, it's not called that. It's called Expo

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Explosion 10002027 or

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something. And it has like an exact name that's very helpful

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to just go ahead and start with the exact name that should be referenced for

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all instead of just a generic

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label. Event type and

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attendees. So event type is, you know,

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is this an internal sales training? Is this a user conference

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for clients? Is this something different? So even those

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two things, like an internal sales training event might have a completely different vibe

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than a user conference. So the internal sales

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conference is all about training and hyping up the sales

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team to go out and conquer the world as a different

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AV use case as

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opposed to a user conference for actual clients. And

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maybe it's the biggest sales event for

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your client, that corporation of the year.

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And so it needs to have a lot of shininess to it and

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a lot of excitement. And so that's two different

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use cases. So be sure to include that and what you're

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trying to accomplish. Just clarify who will be attending, their

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expectations, the event's primary objectives. All of this is super

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important for what AV solutions are to be

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deployed against your budget. And then the attendance

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model. So will the participant, will the

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participants be in person? Is this going to be virtual? Is this going to

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be hybrid, which we're seeing? Most events now

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have some streaming component. Most in person events have some streaming

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component. But to what degree and what's the

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expectation with that? What do you want

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to do with those videos afterwards? That kind of Thing defining the priority

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is the in room energy most important

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or is the global virtual experience the focus? And

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that is a really big deal. Sometimes some clients

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are doing an in room experience of maybe 100 people, but they have a

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global audience of 5,000. Well, there's a priority on the

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5,000 that are, that are joining virtually as opposed

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to the 100 in house. So another

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baseline need area then is the

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technical. So then you get into addressing

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things like audio. How many people need to hear, how

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many people in the spaces need to hear and are there any

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special considerations? So for example,

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if you're having a moderated panels on stage,

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what's the most amount of people on stage at any given time that

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speaks to how many microphones should be there? Um,

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so, so that type of thing in the audio world is, is very important.

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On the display side, you know what I'm, what I'm calling display,

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that's some people, you know, call video

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what needs to be shown. If you're going to be showing

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intricate sales data or you know, Excel

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spreadsheets to the nth degree, then we need to make sure

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that you have larger screens and higher resolution so

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it's visible to everybod. The focus is

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on just dynamic visual visuals for like an award show.

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That kind of changes the approach where we can do some different things, but maybe

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it's not about seeing super detailed numbers, maybe it's more about being

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flashy and you can, you can have different options there. On the

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lighting side, will there be any recordings? Are you going to

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record the video? If so

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that changes kind of the light look on the stage and then from there,

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if you're going to be recording, then what are you going to be doing in

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the event? If it's an award scale up, you want it to be really

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exciting. If it's just a training event, you might

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stop at the lighting just for the recording just because you don't need too

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much splashiness to it. If

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you're going to have live performers, maybe you're bringing in a band at the end

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of the night, that changes how the lighting design is. So these

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types of things change and they're necessary to know

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from a lighting design perspective. And then on the technical staff side,

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if you know this, if you don't know this, it's okay. But if you know

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the technical staff side, identify key team members that you'll need.

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So I need a technical director, I need a show caller so

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that we can keep the show running smoothly and on schedule. I know

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that I need an A2, that is great with executives. I'm gonna have a lot

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of executives backstage, they're gonna be mic'd up, a lot of talent back there. So

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I need a real pro that's dedicated to doing that, that, that type of a

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thing. I need a stage manager because we have a lot of movements backstage, a

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lot of several green rooms and you know that I know that I'm going to

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need a stage manager. That was the key before. So define those people

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for you. And even if you don't know all the staffing details,

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spotlight rolls critical to your events flow

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from your previous experience or what you're anticipating. And then the last

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baseline technical thing would be presentation support.

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If last minute slide changes are likely. Just

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go ahead and note this up front so that we can plan to have

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dedicated support staff right there as you're

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dealing with all your graphics and your slides. And you can make real time changes

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and work through rehearsals, making changes, those types of things.

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So I want to pause for a second, I want to say by

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thoroughly outlining these who, what, where,

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when elements you give vendors in the context to tailor their

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proposals. Uh, this, this is a game changer for

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you. So this baseline, all these baseline needs, you're

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giving your vendors this context and you will

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find that your proposals coming back will be

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very much in line with each other. Way easier to make a decision.

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So that's baseline. And then, then you can get into, if you'd like, you can

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identify enhancements or nice tabs after you've identified your

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baseline. Say, you know, once I've covered these basics, I would

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also like to explore these things so you can outline additional features

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you'd like to maybe see. So things like a scenic

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piece highlighting a brand, mascot, you know, I want something custom

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created to do a certain thing or I want

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extra kind of slick live streaming capabilities.

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So it looks like the, the virtual attendee,

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it looks like they're joining a show that's on ESPN or something like that. It's,

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well, way more produced. Or I want large LED

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surfaces in the lobby area just to add

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a wow when people walk in. Or, or I'm going to need post event

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video editing. What does that look like? Instead of you just delivering all of the

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recorded footage to us, can you guys do all the post

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event editing of the 100 breakout sessions that we did and what

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does that look like? But that would be an add on for us. So we're

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just looking at those prices. So make sure there's a clear

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distinction between essentials and then the enhancements

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and so that guides your vendors in prioritizing the proposals

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and then they can offer creative solutions within your

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budget. One thing that I would include

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if you can include visuals and reference materials so

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they can be simple, they don't have to be this refined thing.

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It can just be a folder of photos,

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floor plans, videos from past events or site visits,

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and any resource that conveys your

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vision. That could be a Pinterest board, you know, whatever

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previous setups or unique venue characteristics. All of this

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can significantly streamline proposal development

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because it just pictures worth a thousand words. It really is

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trying to get what's in your head out on on paper.

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So everything that your AV partner needs to deliver accurate

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apples to apples bids. And so

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this would include items like be

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sure to put run a show. A tentative

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run a show is fine, but ask that all

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labor is shown at something

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specific that's standardized. So at an hourly rate or

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at 10 hour days, make sure they define when

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overtime starts for that specific company.

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And include when you take possession of the room or

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rooms for load in that greatly impacts

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that cost. Clarify if in house charges will run

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through the vendor or your house account. Clarify

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if hotel rooms will be provided for the crew. If this is an out of

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town, out of town to that vendor event,

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clarify if meals will be provided for the crew. The whole point here

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is just anything that you're going to be providing or not providing,

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make sure it's known so that it's apples to apples. And then the last

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piece I referenced above. But just budget honesty,

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just having transparency and what your budget guidelines are.

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Guidelines are fine. You know, we have 80,000 to

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$100,000 for this project or whatever. It can feel

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uncomfortable to share a budget or your constraints,

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but to the vendor it's not because you know by, by doing

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so it allows your vendors to respond realistically. If you just

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say I want to do this show, it's five days

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long, there's going to be 500 people go, you're going to get

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pricing that ranges dramatically. But the more detail

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you can give, especially budget guidance, everything gets

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really realistic in what you're getting back. So

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rather than squeezing every dollar out of you,

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an experienced partner will propose solutions within your specified range,

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making the process more efficient for

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both parties. And really that's the point here, you know, the more, more

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detail you can provide along a structure like this saves

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your AV vendor a lot of time. And then in turn you

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get pricing back from multiple vendors that save you time because

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you can just go through and choose the one that feels best

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for you, so I hope that was helpful. Join us in

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part four of the Avantage what your

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AV partner wishes you'd ask. And we thank you for joining

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us on the Event Pro Show. We have an episode every week coming

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out every other week. It'll be tips that are more specific to AV and then

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the alternate every other week I have a guest,

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one of my friends in the corporate event space that does something

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that touches corporate events. Just someone that I think that you

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should know and hear their story. Those episodes are a lot of

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fun too. If you need an AV provider for your next corporate event, please

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reach out to us at LEMG Live. In the

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meantime, I hope you have a wonderful week and we'll see you on

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the next one. Thanks 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.