Is an AV Provider a Partner?

Depending on the needs of internal or external clients, your event may require working with any number of vendors to achieve your goals. But you can think: is an AV Provider more like a partner? Is there a point where your contact becomes more valuable to you than just a point of transaction? To answer this question, you have to think about how critical that service is to the success of the event, and also on how confident you are with that particular aspect as well.

Nowadays technology is repeatedly developing and requires dedicated attention to stay as cost-effective as possible. For Future’s Past Events, as AV production specialists, it’s our job to continuously find the best ways to deliver your message to a live audience. And since audiovisual is usually one of the top three costs for any event, the onus is on us as an event planner to extract as much value from it as possible.

The best step to begin is to establish what an ideal partnership with an AV Provider team looks like. For this, we have taken some information from our long-term clients and have heard from them what they value most in the relationship as part of our annual training program. Here are the three most common points:

• Performance:

It all has to be right. There don’t have any partnerships that can form if your AV Provider team doesn’t deliver. It could be due to systematic flaws, poor planning or communication, or just an inclination towards costly mistakes – the ability to deliver a quality service that meets the client’s expectations is really the first pillar of a partnership.

• Consistency/Reliability:

It isn’t enough to only provide a long experience. The experience – from the initial estimates to the planning, and finally to the onsite execution – is extremely important, and after a few events, there should be a clear sense of consistency. We take it a step further by keeping the same pool of technicians dedicated to working with each group.

• Creativity:

A really AV Provider Partner should be a resource to help revamp an event, offer new ideas on brand activations, or to design and build a unique experience for guests.

If this year’s experiences with AV production don’t leave you feeling like all three boxes above are being checked off, then you’re not getting as much value from it as possible.

• Reducing Costs

Besides the main three points above, seeing your AV provider as a partner also offers cost benefits as well. Advanced planning is the best way for us as AV providers to keep our costs down, and so if we have dates to plan around, we can pass those savings along.

• Save Time

If you build a partnership with your AV provider is also a great way to reduce the time you have to spend planning around the event. Clearly, there are events that will be mostly duplicating a past event. But will certainly be times when a totally new design is needed, but for similar programs, any updates or modifications can be easily made once there’s an established format.

• Build Trust

While it may not be as flashy as time and money, building trust is a key component of any good partnership. Having an AV Provider partner means knowing that no matter what project, curveball, or unique challenge that’s presented, you’re not alone in it. It also means you can unload some of that thought onto someone else and trust they can get it done, freeing you up to focus on other things.

Futures Past Events as an experienced AV Provider can support you across all aspects of technical benchmarking and requirements, from brief and pre-event engagement through to registration, live streaming, webcasting, social media, and post-event cascade. We can help safeguard and ensure the longevity of your key messaging, giving it extended life and impact.

Contact us and keep calm, your next event will be outstanding! Call us at (416) 939-7525 or send us an email at futurespastevents@gmail.com.