All of the details have been accounted for. Your event is coming together and you feel ready to take on the big day (or days). The venue has been booked in Austin, TX or wherever you hail from and the AV equipment has been rented. The name tags are printed. Everything is ready to go. Or is it?

When you put on an event, the list of things you need to complete is long, but sometimes the big items overshadow everything else on the list. Once you get a venue booked and equipment rented it can seem like it’s all downhill from there. But the truth is that the success of an event comes down to much more than just a venue and equipment. There are many other considerations that must be planned for ahead of time to ensure the event goes off without a hitch.

The Logistics

Just because you’ve secured your AV equipment does not mean that you are done thinking about the audio visual elements of your event. Have you thought about how much power the venue can provide for your event? Do you need to bring in external generators or pay an additional fee? Beyond just the power to run the equipment, you need to be cognizant of the equipment itself. How big is it? How big are the doorways? How high are the ceilings? They always say measure twice and cut once, and the same is true with measuring rooms for your event. Know exactly how much space you have to work with before you actually rent the equipment to avoid day-of confusion and obstacles.

Access to extra rooms is something that most people forget about, but if your speakers or other attendees need a green room or other low-key space before and after their talks, it’s important to know where you have additional access to space. This is also a concern for storing the AV equipment you’ve rented. Where will you store it when not in use? Who will monitor the equipment and how will they have access?

The People

Getting a handle on the space is essential for knowing which equipment to rent and where people will go, but what about those people? How many of them will there be? How many presenters do you have? What format will their presentations take? There are as many formats and ways to present to a crowd as there are individuals, so it’s important to know exactly who is presenting what and where.

Also, it’s important to get everyone’s files ahead of time so that you can do a test run on the AV equipment before the event and ensure that everyone’s presentations look as they should. Make sure that all presentations are formatted the same so that there is less work the day of the event.

The Sound

Have you thought about how large your rooms are? Will your speakers be heard easily? How many microphones will you need for the event? How many rooms will be going at once? There’s nothing quite like going to a conference and not being able to hear any of the speakers because you weren’t in the first ten rows. It’s a horrible experience for everyone involved and it doesn’t have to be that way. Proper planning for the sound is a key element of ensuring a successful event.

Not everyone is an expert event planner. Oftentimes, people within an organization that have no experience planning an event are thrown into a situation where they are forced to do just that. This can be a rewarding experience, but also highly stressful. If these details all seem like too much to deal with, especially with everything else you have going on trying to plan an event, then it might be the right time to call in an ATX event service provider that can take care of all the details for you and leave you with less worry and frustration so you can focus on what you do best.

Just be sure that if you do decide to bring a 3rd party AV company that you thoroughly vet them to verify that they’ve produced several similar events to yours and that they come with good recommendations. The only thing worse than having to pull off an event yourself is having to do damage control when a third party doesn’t deliver. If you find yourself in need of a third party AV company, look no further an ATX Event Systems. We are certain to pass any vetting you throw at us!