Sharing Your AV Event Budget Is Key to Right-Sizing Your Event
When your AV production partner understands your budget, they can map out a right-sized event strategy that optimizes your dollars.
Building a Foundation of Trust Reduces Risk
Sharing details about your budget with your AV provider can seem like risky business. For example, if you tell your provider your AV event budget, they might think it’s their job to find creative ways to spend all of it. And when you tell an AV provider the budget up front, you can’t test the waters by getting an unbiased point of comparison against other bids or against what you’ve paid different vendors in the past.
Keeping AV event budget details under wraps makes sense, especially when the AV providers providing bids are unproven entities. Nonetheless, partial or incomplete budget information causes complications for AV providers that are trying to build a staffing and technology plan that meets expectations and engages your event attendees. In order for your provider to accommodate your needs, they first have to understand your goals and limitations. That’s why it’s important to find a partner vs. a vendor – a proven company with which you can build a foundation of trust.
Sharing AV Event Budget Information Brings Many Benefits
Why share your AV event budget with your AV provider instead of holding the information close to the vest? First, you’ll save time by right-sizing your event. At the end of the day, the budget dictates what your provider will do in the room. When AV providers lack important information, they inevitably produce flawed, imprecise bids that waste your time and theirs. If that information will be shared eventually, making it available earlier enables the AV provider and the meeting planner to make good choices right off the bat.
Second, you’ll gain valuable guidance from a collaborative partner. When you share your AV event budget with your AV partner, they can (1) help you make smart decisions based on where and when the event is held, (2) build an Intelligent AV Design tailor-made for your needs, and (3) help you determine where to focus your budget most efficiently and effectively (e.g., video, audio, lighting, staging). If AV production budgets seem to dictate what the team can achieve in the room, a collaborative partner may be able to find creative workarounds.
Right-Sizing Your Event
Meeting planners regularly take charge of multiple disciplines and strive to meet or come under AV event budgets. The stakes are high, and information sharing can feel dangerous when you work with an unknown entity. It shouldn’t feel dangerous when you work with a true partner.
For example, Total Show Technology recently provided AV production support for a Comic-Con-like show at a convention center where celebrities tell stories and take questions from hundreds of attendees. If we were to spec that show the same way we spec large-scale corporate general sessions and breakouts, we would have exceeded their budget 10 times over (and had our bid rejected outright). However, our client shared their budget with us in advance to ensure our plan correlated with their expectations.
When your AV event production partner understands the event budget, they can map out a realistic, right-sized event strategy that meets your needs and optimizes your dollars. The benefits of openly sharing your budget far outweigh the drawbacks – especially when you work with an AV event production partner you trust. As is the case with most things that affect the success of your meetings and events, finding the right total show production partner is key.
Why Total Show Technology?
TST is the total show production solution for anyone who hosts, plans, manages, or produces events, meetings, and trade shows. We own the Pacific Southwest market and travel with our clients all across the country. Our clients have relied on us to deliver audio, video, lighting, equipment rental, and show production for conventions, corporate meetings and events, and trade shows since 1996.
Whether you’re looking for audio visual support or advanced event technologies that enable you to deliver your message effectively, we help your shows go off without a hitch and always make you look good. In an industry where almost anything can go wrong, we make sure everything goes right.
Let’s have a conversation! Call us at 702-897-8508, email us at sales@totalshowtech.com, or visit www.totalshowtech.com/contact.
