Site Inspection Checklist: 10 Things to Look Out For
Learn the 10 most important things to include on your site inspection checklist when you’re doing a venue site visit.
While site visits are fairly standard at local venues, sites visits are more challenging when venues are located in other states or geographic areas. It’s not uncommon for meeting planners and their AV event production partners to book out-of-state venues sight unseen and hope the space will meet their needs. However, the absence of a site inspection and a site inspection checklist can prove costly.
When the team sees the venue for the first time directly before an event, they often encounter several surprises and essential details that have fallen through the cracks. It’s usually then that the team wishes they had scheduled a site visit using a site inspection checklist.
Simply put, there are some things you can’t know about a venue without an in-person visit. No matter where the venue is located, a physical site inspection is critical.
Site Visit Scenario
One of our clients recently needed a quick-turnaround quote from a boutique LA hotel. We had never produced an event at the hotel before, and we lacked vital information. Recognizing the need for a site visit, we sent a local partner to the hotel. Our partner used our site inspection checklist and shared video, notes, and photos with our team. As a result of this visit, we learned that the venue lacks sufficient power supply and that our 15-foot truck wouldn’t fit in the dock.
Doing our homework saved our client and our team several headaches. More importantly, capturing key information about the venue enabled our team to make site selection decisions and plan ahead.
Site Inspection Checklist
Doing site visits enables AV production teams to identify red flags early on. This valuable knowledge saves time, labor, and money – and it reduces risks and stress factors on the day of the event.
A detailed site inspection checklist can include dozens of items. Here are 10 important things to look out for:
- Review all contractual and non-contractual event requirements with the venue.
- Clarify what specific equipment and services are provided in house – make no assumptions.
- Do a complete site walkthrough and pay attention to the flow of people from the entrance to the registration/sign-in area and from the elevators to the actual meeting space.
- Review load-in and load-out policies and constraints.
- Record room and stage dimensions, as well as locations of doors, windows, and outlets.
- Check accessibility, identify fire exits and safety hazards, and review onsite security policies.
- Identify potential space obstructions, such as built-ins, pillars, and columns.
- Confirm video, audio, and lighting requirements, including the need for trusses, rigging, risers, additional electrical supply, and podiums.
- Verify bandwidth capability for high-speed Internet, along with access point locations.
- Know how all equipment works, including air conditioning, heating, adjustable lighting, air walls, windows, and blinds.
Choose the Right AV Event Production Partner
Meeting planners and their production partners don’t always have the time or money to visit every venue under consideration before making contracting decisions. Nonetheless, neglecting to do a site visit is dangerous and can lead to unwelcome surprises on the day of your event. If necessary, send a local partner to visit the venue in your stead. And always work with an event production partner that strategically manages risks and takes all necessary steps to make every one of your events a success.
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 [email protected], or visit www.totalshowtech.com/contact.
