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

0:00 So you need to get an AV RFP out the door quickly. You just don't have a lot of time. So what's the minimum amount of information you can send out to potential AV providers to get the best results back? Well, let's get into it. Welcome to the Event Pro show, your ultimate guide to the world of corporate events. Whether you're a corporate event planner, experiential marketing pro, producer, technician, or anyone involved in creating exceptional events, this podcast is your go to resource for valuable insights, expert tips and inspiring stories from the industry's leading professionals.

0:40 Well, welcome to the Event Pro Show. I am your host, Seth Macchi. I'm the CEO of lemg. We're an event production company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. And we travel all over the country producing primarily corporate events. And I think this episode could save you a ton of time going into the new year here. So a lot of us are thinking about 2026 right about now, and this could apply for any kind of end of year thinking where a lot of people work on this cycle where they're thinking about getting RFPs out the door for shows happening next year. And so I know we're seeing a big influx of RFPs. And it just reminded me of a topic that might be important to some people because so many people are trying, so many planners are trying to do so much and they just have so little time. Time is like the resource they just don't have. And so I had a thought. Why don't I do a quick episode on.

1:44 This is for the person that wants to get an AV RFP out the door quickly. And so they're thinking, okay, what is the minimum amount of information I can put in this AVRFP that gets me the best responses back from potential AV vendors. So if that's you, this episode is for you. And so I'm going to walk through. You know, we've done episodes before about how to write a good avrfp. Well, this one's more about we're going to reduce. If you're in a hurry and you need to get something out the door, please, please include this info. And it might be good enough that you don't even get any questions back. You just get a proposal back. That's kind of the. I know that's the goal here. So you don't want to have to like get on the phone with every single one of them or jump on a Google Meets, you know, with everybody and do this over and over with multiple vendors. So here would be the minimum requirements to Put in an AVRFP to kind of answer a lot of the initial questions and quite possibly get you proposals back without any, any questions. So now, now my caveat here is that, you know, for more complex events, this probably isn't going to work. But if you have a pretty basic, you know, general session breakouts kind of a thing, this is probably going to work for you.

3:04 So here's your minimum information. If you can put this in your rfp, then you can do this pretty quickly and your AV providers have basically all they need to build you a starting point proposal. So first of all, your info sounds basic, but sometimes it doesn't come. So your info, including your name, who you are, who you're with and how to get a hold of you. The second thing is the end client. The end client's important for context. A lot of times and a lot of times it rolls into file management, but also the event name. So, so your info, who you're with, how to get a hold of you, your end client. If, if you have an end client you're producing for, or if you are the end client, just let us know.

3:53 And the show name. So those are important. Knowing that this is sales kickoff extravaganza 2027, you know that that's the name of the event. We want to know the venue. So if you know the venue, put the venue in there, that's super helpful. And then the total run dates, and so the total run dates would include everything from load in all the way to load out and then underneath dates. This is, it is really important for pricing. So load in, when is load in happening? When's the expectation for rehearsals? You know, if you're doing rehearsals, when are you expecting that to happen? When is the show start, when does the show end and when is loadout?

4:38 And so I found that a great way to do this. People do this a lot of different ways and send it to you in a lot of different ways. The best view really is a spreadsheet. You can do a lot with a single view spreadsheet, especially if you have like a general session room, a room where people are eating. Um, you have 10 breakouts, then you have like an auxiliary room, then you have a cocktail reception area. You know, you can put that out all on a spreadsheet. You guys know the deal. But putting that on a spreadsheet, super helpful. Within that spreadsheet, if you could show what rooms within the venue each of those events are happening and the dates that those rooms are in action, including like what's the expectation for load in, show and loadout and then confirm when you have possession of each space. So this is something I want to pause with. If you have a, an event for 500 people and it's happening on a Wednesday and it's a, it's a full setup, stage, lights, sound, backdrop, drape or you know, some sort of hard set, you, you the full deal. And this event is happening all day, you know, it's kicking off at 10am it cannot be loaded in that day unless people were there very, very, very early. So either, you know, when

6:09 do you have possession of the room, do you have possession super early in that morning or the day before. And so setting expectation and understanding that, that it takes a, there's a, there's a bottleneck called the loading dock that you can only get gear in fast enough through that space and then set up in the room, that's a bottleneck. It's a real amount of time. So make sure you're thinking about that in your, in your spaces that you have enough time for load in. And if you don't know, just, just reach out to your partners and say how much time would do you think that would take? And then you can kind of plan that. But if we get RFPs where it's like we have possession on Wednesday, the show starts at 9am on Wednesday, we need it loaded in on Wednesday. And it's a large format event. It's, you know, that's either a no or it's going to cost you a ton in overtime. It's going to be something that you're going to, if you would just get possession the day before, it'll save you money and it's realistic. So making sure you're being realistic with your, your possession of room and then putting in notes there in the spreadsheet. Just a cell that's expanded. What's the AV expectation in each space? So for example, there's going to be 500 people in this room. We need two screens that are adequate for the space. The space is this big and we're going to have at one point a panel of six people with a moderator. And we are going to be showing videos and PowerPoint presentation in this space.

7:42 And we are going to be having somebody singing the Star Spangled Banner at the beginning of the event. You know, as much as you can, much detail of what you're trying to do. Just from an AV perspective, that's super helpful. A lot of times you can build pretty much what, what the AV needs are from something like that in the breakouts, what's the expectation there? You know, how many microphones, how many people are presenting in those breakouts? Are they bringing their own computers? Are they, Are we providing computers? How many people are in each breakout that speaks to screen sizes and those type of things? So different expectation in each one. I will say it's very challenging if, if you're saying, like. We'Re having this general session and it needs lights, you know, just the word lights. Well, that is challenging to quote, because.

8:36 Are you doing an awards? Are you kind of like blowing it all out at that event? Or is it just minimal stage wash lighting, those types of things? So try to put a little bit of detail about what your expectations are. And I will say, if you're not sure if you have pictures of previous events, sometimes that's all you need to do. Say, we do need lights and here's what it looked like last year and we were really happy. Or we want to go bigger than last year. That gives context. So that's. That's a big deal right there. The next point I would say is go ahead and put a budget range or expectation. If you don't know, that's fine. But if you do know, that's super helpful. That helps to know. Okay, that's the target. So we're going to build for that budget expectation. Very.

9:22 You're just not going to run into people. I know a lot of production people and we all kind of feel the same way. Like, give us a budget target, we're going to build it for that. We're not going to try to upsell you like crazy to kind of like, you know, I know your budget's this, but if you double your budget, you can do. Well, of course, everybody knows that with more money you can do bigger stuff. But if you give us a budget target, we can build it for you. And then it's always helpful to know who needs to see the proposal when we're done. So who are we sending it to, who are we copying it to? And then who signs the proposal? Like, who's the true gatekeeper here so that we know this person is the decision maker in it. That's. That's super helpful as well. And that's about. If you can get that, if you can do that as like your AVRFP minimums, then then usually we can get proposals turned around to you with minimal questions for pretty straightforward shows. And I will say pictures are always appreciated. Pictures video previous events. If this is a recurring event, go ahead and send that context, then we know what you're aiming for and it allows us to do to stay within the range of your expectations. It's all about expectations and trying to understand. Sometimes that's the hard thing. There's a disconnect between like what I think you're saying versus what you're saying and a lot of times pictures, if you can't articulate it, you don't have time to kind of like write it all out. Pictures help a ton. So I hope that was helpful. I hope that this helps you. Those of you that are short on

10:52 time but heavy on lots of events and you need to get quotes back from providers. I hope this is helpful for you. I hope that it it creates a streamlined approach to creating RFPs to find AV vendors. Of course LEMG would always love to help you, so you can send a proposal or RFPs to me. I'd be glad to to review them and you could check us out at LEMG Live. But thank you for joining us on the Event Pro Show. You can listen to our entire catalog@the eventproshow.com where we put out an episode once a week. One week it will be guest that is an expert in some way shape or form that touches corporate events.

11:32 And then the alternate week I will I provide a little bit more drill down tips on how to work better with AV partners as a meeting planner that produces corporate events. And we really appreciate your time. Thank you so much and we will see you on the next one. The Event Pro show is a production of LEMG video by Nick Barrett, audio and post production by Prince Thompson. You can learn more about us at LEMG Live.