Any time you prep for a meeting, conference, or event, you’ll have to rely on a number of specialists to bring your vision to fruition. While you can see the venue and sample the food, you might have to put a lot of trust into the AV specialists you hire, hoping that they can deliver what you want when your event rolls around.
Unfortunately, a lack of knowledge can lead to some truly awful disasters related to your events. For example, you might end up with a venue that doesn’t offer sufficient access to power, WiFi, or streaming capabilities. You might end up paying outrageous fees to both the AV vendor and venue because you don’t know what you need. Or you could suffer epic presentation fails like videos that are incorrectly formatted, that freeze while streaming, or that completely crash.
None of these are desirable outcomes, but you can avoid these snafus with a little knowledge and some help from an experienced and reliable event management services provider like American Meetings, Inc. (AMI). Here’s what you should know if you want to prevent the most common AV disasters from happening at your next event.
Get Event Management Services and Vendors in Place Early
Like most tasks related to planning a corporate meeting or event, getting the major players in place early on can help you to avoid all kinds of issues down the road. Your first step should be to compare corporate event planning companies to find a meeting services organization like AMI that offers the strategic planning services you need to brainstorm your next big event.
From there, experienced professionals at your event management services company can help you to find the perfect venue and get all your ducks in a row. One of the first tasks, however, is hiring reliable AV specialists. When you have this key player in place early on, your AV representative or team can help you to pick a venue that has the right foundations for your needs, including adequate power, internet services, and so on.
Go Over Every Detail
One of the biggest problems many companies face is not understanding what they’re getting. When you don’t really know the lingo, it’s all too easy to end up paying for a bunch of equipment or services you don’t need, both from the AV company and the venue. If you want to make sure you get just what you need and avoid paying excessive fees, it’s best to work closely with corporate event planning companies to fully understand what you’re paying for and whether or not it’s necessary.
This could mean having your AV specialist walk you through your contract line by line to explain each piece of equipment you’re renting, why it is necessary, and what it’s going to cost. It could mean setting up a meeting with the venue and the AV specialist to make sure there are adequate power outlets and other resources available on-site. You should plan on negotiating fees for everything from internet access to add-ons like additional mics, just for example.
Says Tarique Stanley, AMI’s Senior Event Technology Specialist, “If you don’t know what you’re doing you could end up getting nickel-and-dimed with fees, especially after the fact, when they know they can charge you like crazy for oversights. It’s easier to make vendors accountable by negotiating for possible extras ahead of time. This will help you avoid hefty fees later on.”
Find Reliable Corporate Event Planning Companies and Vendors
The worst-case scenario is a presentation failure at your event. This could be something relatively small but nonetheless vexing like a video in the wrong aspect ratio. Or it could be a much more devastating outcome like inadequate bandwidth for streaming that causes video presentations to stall. It could be a disc that won’t play.
There are a few ways to ensure these epic fails don’t happen at your event. One is to choose an event management services company like AMI that has the experience to prevent such problems and works with technical experts that have a proven track record of success. You’ll also want to test early on to make sure venue resources are adequate to handle power and streaming needs, as well as test materials like presentation videos to make sure they’re working properly.
Don’t forget to create backups. If something goes wrong, there may be a way to salvage your presentation with a proper plan B or C in place. Not all corporate event planning companies have the experience and reputation to help you avoid AV disasters, but with the experts at AMI on your side, your next event should go off without a hitch.
