The RFP Shortcut Guide: Getting Event AV Quotes Without the Usual Bottlenecks

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So you need to get an AV RFP out the door

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quickly. You just don't have a lot of time. So what's the minimum amount of

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information you can send out to potential AV providers to get the

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best results back? Well, let's get into it.

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Welcome to the Event Pro show, your ultimate guide to the world of corporate

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events. Whether you're a corporate event planner, experiential marketing

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pro, producer, technician, or anyone involved in creating exceptional

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events, this podcast is your go to resource for valuable insights,

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expert tips and inspiring stories from the industry's leading professionals.

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Well, welcome to the Event Pro Show. I am your host, Seth Macchi.

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I'm the CEO of lemg. We're an event production company based

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in Charlotte, North Carolina. And we travel all over the country

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producing primarily corporate events. And

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I think this episode could save you a

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ton of time going into the new year here.

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So a lot of us are thinking about

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2026 right about now, and this could apply

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for any kind of end of year thinking where a lot of

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people work on this cycle where they're thinking about getting RFPs out the

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door for shows happening next year. And so I know

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we're seeing a big influx of RFPs. And it just

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reminded me of a topic that might be important

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to some people because so many people are trying, so many

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planners are trying to do so much and they just have so little

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time. Time is like the resource they just don't have. And so

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I had a thought. Why don't I do a quick episode on.

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This is for the person that wants to get an AV RFP out

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the door quickly. And so they're thinking, okay, what

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is the minimum amount of information I can put in this

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AVRFP that gets me the best responses back from

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potential AV vendors. So if that's you, this episode is

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for you. And so I'm going to walk through. You know, we've done

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episodes before about how to write a good avrfp.

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Well, this one's more about we're going to reduce. If you're in a

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hurry and you need to get something out the door, please, please include

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this info. And it might be good enough

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that you don't even get any questions back. You just get a proposal back. That's

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kind of the. I know that's the goal here. So you don't want to have

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to like get on the phone with every single one of them or jump on

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a Google Meets, you know, with everybody and do this over and over

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with multiple vendors. So here would be the minimum

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requirements to Put in an AVRFP to

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kind of answer a lot of the initial

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questions and quite possibly get you proposals back

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without any, any questions. So now,

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now my caveat here is that, you know, for more complex events,

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this probably isn't going to work. But if you have a pretty basic, you know,

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general session breakouts kind of a thing, this is probably going to work for you.

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So here's your minimum information. If you can put this in

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your rfp, then you can do this pretty quickly and your

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AV providers have basically all they need to build you

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a starting point proposal. So first of all, your

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info sounds basic, but sometimes it doesn't come. So your

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info, including your name, who you are, who you're with and how to get a

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hold of you. The second thing is the end client.

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The end client's important for context. A lot of times

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and a lot of times it rolls into file management, but

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also the event name. So, so your

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info, who you're with, how to get a hold of you,

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your end client. If, if you have an end client you're producing

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for, or if you are the end client, just let us know.

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And the show name. So those are important. Knowing that this is

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sales kickoff extravaganza

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2027, you know that that's the name of the event.

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We want to know the venue. So if you know the venue, put the venue

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in there, that's super helpful. And then the

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total run dates, and so the total run dates would include everything

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from load in all the way to load out and then underneath

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dates. This is, it is really important

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for pricing. So load in, when is load in happening?

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When's the expectation for rehearsals? You know, if you're doing rehearsals, when are you

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expecting that to happen? When is the show start, when does the

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show end and when is loadout?

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And so I found that a great way to do this.

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People do this a lot of different ways and send it to you in a

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lot of different ways. The best view really is a spreadsheet. You can

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do a lot with a single view spreadsheet, especially if

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you have like a general session room,

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a room where people are eating. Um, you have 10 breakouts,

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then you have like an auxiliary room, then you have a cocktail

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reception area. You know, you can put that out all on a spreadsheet.

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You guys know the deal. But putting that on a spreadsheet, super helpful.

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Within that spreadsheet, if you could show what

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rooms within the venue each of those events are

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happening and the dates that those rooms

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are in action, including like what's the expectation for load in,

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show and loadout and then

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confirm when you have possession of each space. So

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this is something I want to pause with. If you have a,

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an event for 500 people and it's happening

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on a Wednesday and it's a, it's a full setup,

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stage, lights, sound, backdrop,

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drape or you know, some sort of hard set, you,

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you the full deal. And

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this event is happening all day, you know, it's kicking off at 10am

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it cannot be loaded in that day unless people were

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there very, very, very early. So either, you know, when

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do you have possession of the room, do you have possession super early in that

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morning or the day before. And so setting

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expectation and understanding that, that it takes a, there's a, there's

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a bottleneck called the loading dock that you can

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only get gear in fast enough through that space and

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then set up in the room, that's a bottleneck. It's a real amount of time.

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So make sure you're thinking about that in your, in your

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spaces that you have enough time for load in. And if you don't know, just,

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just reach out to your partners and say how much time would do you think

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that would take? And then you can kind of plan that. But if we get

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RFPs where it's like we have possession on Wednesday, the show starts at

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9am on Wednesday, we need it loaded in on Wednesday. And

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it's a large format event. It's, you know, that's either a no

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or it's going to cost you a ton in overtime. It's going to be something

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that you're going to, if you would just get possession the day before, it'll

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save you money and it's realistic. So making sure you're being realistic

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with your, your possession of room and then

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putting in notes there in the spreadsheet. Just

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a cell that's expanded. What's the AV expectation in each

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space? So for example, there's going to

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be 500 people in this room. We need two screens that are adequate for

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the space. The space is this big and

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we're going to have at one point a panel of six people with a

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moderator. And we are going to be

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showing videos and PowerPoint presentation in this space.

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And we are going to be having somebody singing the Star

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Spangled Banner at the beginning of the event. You know, as much as you can,

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much detail of what you're trying to do. Just from an AV perspective, that's

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super helpful. A lot of times you can build pretty much what, what

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the AV needs are from something like that in the breakouts, what's the

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expectation there? You know, how many microphones, how many people are presenting in

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those breakouts? Are they bringing their own computers? Are they,

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Are we providing computers? How many people are in each breakout that speaks

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to screen sizes and those type of things? So different expectation

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in each one. I will say it's very challenging if,

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if you're saying, like. We'Re having

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this general session and it needs

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lights, you know, just the word lights. Well, that is

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challenging to quote, because.

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Are you doing an awards? Are you kind of like

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blowing it all out at that event? Or is it just minimal

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stage wash lighting, those types of things? So try to put a little bit of

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detail about what your expectations are. And I will say,

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if you're not sure if you have pictures of previous events,

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sometimes that's all you need to do. Say, we do need lights and here's what

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it looked like last year and we were really happy. Or we want to go

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bigger than last year. That gives context. So that's. That's a big

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deal right there. The next point I would say is

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go ahead and put a budget range or expectation. If you don't know, that's

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fine. But if you do know, that's super helpful. That

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helps to know. Okay, that's the target. So we're going to build for that budget

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expectation. Very.

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You're just not going to run into people. I know a lot of production people

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and we all kind of feel the same way. Like, give us a budget target,

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we're going to build it for that. We're not going to try to upsell you

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like crazy to kind of like, you know, I know your budget's this, but if

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you double your budget, you can do. Well, of course, everybody knows that with more

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money you can do bigger stuff. But if you give us a budget target, we

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can build it for you. And then it's always helpful to know who needs to

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see the proposal when we're done. So who are we sending it to, who are

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we copying it to? And then who signs the proposal? Like, who's

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the true gatekeeper here so that we know this person

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is the decision maker in it. That's. That's super helpful as well.

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And that's about. If you can get that, if you can do that as

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like your AVRFP minimums, then

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then usually we can get proposals turned around to you with

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minimal questions for pretty straightforward shows. And I

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will say pictures are always appreciated. Pictures video previous events. If

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this is a recurring event, go ahead and send that context, then

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we know what you're aiming for and it allows

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us to do to stay within the range of your expectations. It's all

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about expectations and trying to understand. Sometimes that's

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the hard thing. There's a disconnect between like what I think

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you're saying versus what you're saying and a lot of times pictures,

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if you can't articulate it, you don't have time to kind of like write it

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all out. Pictures help a ton. So I hope that was

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helpful. I hope that this helps you. Those of you that are short on

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time but heavy on lots of events and you need to get quotes back

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from providers. I hope this is helpful for you. I hope that it

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it creates a streamlined approach to creating RFPs to find

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AV vendors. Of course LEMG would always love to help

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you, so you can send a proposal or RFPs to me.

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I'd be glad to to review them and you could check us out at

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LEMG Live. But thank you for joining us on the Event Pro

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Show. You can listen to our entire catalog@the

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eventproshow.com where we put out an episode once a week.

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One week it will be guest that is an expert

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in some way shape or form that touches corporate events.

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And then the alternate week I will I provide a little bit more

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drill down tips on how to work better with AV partners

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as a meeting planner that produces corporate events. And

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we really appreciate your time. Thank you so much and we will see you on

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the next one. The Event Pro show is

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a production of LEMG video by Nick Barrett,

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audio and post production by Prince Thompson. You can learn more about

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us at LEMG Live.