How to Avoid Costly Event Production Mistakes
Audio visual services are one of the most important ingredients for a successful event. They provide the sights and sounds so you can be seen and heard. By taking the time to plan your needs out in advance of your event, you can ensure that you meet the needs of your entire audience. Cutting corners and not thinking through the entire logistics of your event can result in total disaster and quickly ruin any event. If projectors quit working or your audience cannot hear you well, all of your hard work will be for nothing as your entire event will come to a screeching halt and your audience will not be interested in continuing to listen to you.
Some of the most common mistakes we find with audiovisual services occur when companies:
- Cutting costs
- No equipment backup plan
- Not allowing time for proper setup or teardown
- Formatting mistakes
Cutting Audio Visual Costs
Event production professionals can work within a reasonable budget. Be open and transparent with your event production company about your budget and event goals, and then utilize the expertise of the technical team help you determine where you can save costs and still meet your needs. They have a working knowledge of the technical requirements to make sure everyone can see and hear your presentation. Trying to cut costs with AV services without understanding how it will impact your audience experience is a common mistake.
Not Having a Backup Plan
If you’ve ever been to a presentation where a projector goes down or the microphones don’t work, you know this is when you lose your audience. Getting them back is twice as hard.
Talk to your event production partner about the flow of your event, the critical components and work together to put together a backup plan so you will all be prepared in the event that something should fail. Failing to plan is planning to fail, and it’s always a good idea to make sure there in an action plan in place in the event that something goes wrong.
Plan for Appropriate Setup and Teardown Time
Setting up the sights and sounds for any event usually takes more time than you realize. Don’t make the mistake of misjudging the time it takes to start setting up of all audiovisual requirements. Work with your event production company to put together the timeline for the event including estimated setup and breakdown times. The more elaborate your audience experience, the longer it usually takes to set up. You don’t want scissor lifts and ladders all over the space when your guests begin to arrive. Be prepared to rent the space you’re using up a day in advance to allow for set up. Breakdown usually doesn’t take as long.
Coordinate Presentation Formats
Be sure to coordinate any presentations for the right file format and aspect ratio for the projector and screens you will be using. If a speaker has a presentation in an outdated aspect ratio, for example, you may have a situation where it is not compatible with the widescreen you have set up. This could result in their presentation not displaying correctly and leave the audience unable to view it or read it. Take some extra precautions and be sure to ask about aspect ratios and file formats long before the big day and communicate these to anyone who will be presenting a slide deck or using these tools.
Avoid making these common mistakes by communicating with your event production company ahead of time.
