Elevator fees: a fee for using the on-site elevators. Use of an external audiovisual company: the venue may charge a fee for the use of an external company, such as 25% of the contract. They might say that you have to use your employer because it's a union. You should be aware of these costs, but there are ways out of this.
External audiovisual providers have no control over these charges to the master account. The internal audiovisual provider or center controls all equipment policies, electrical service and Internet access points. Internal audiovisual providers can take advantage of these services instead of using an external audiovisual provider. Plan the scale and scope of production you want for your event before you begin selecting the venue.
Negotiate these elements in your contract and keep the options of using an external audiovisual provider open. The installation will often require the use of your manpower and rigging equipment for safety reasons, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. When planning events, it is always advisable to get some external audiovisual offers and an internal audiovisual offer for the event. The audiovisual company pays commissions to the hotel to stay at home and have access to hotel guests.
Include them in the field survey or ask them to contact the venues being considered to discuss specific requirements related to the audiovisual sector. At the beginning, you will have a great advantage when it comes to negotiating the best conditions for your event, especially if it is a multi-year contract and you are going to hire a large number of rooms. Audiovisual companies suspend audiovisual equipment, such as lighting and speakers, on stage or in another position. The audiovisual company buys the equipment and pays the salaries of the hotel's audiovisual staff and temporary audiovisual contractors.
But at what unnecessary cost to your event budget? External audiovisual providers can do just as good, if not better, a job with your event than internal ones, and potentially cost less. As a result, organizers often realize, much later, that they have been forced to use an internal audiovisual provider or, if they want to use an external audiovisual company, that they have committed to paying the venue for audiovisual services and additional fees. If they are not taken into account when hiring audiovisual facilities and services, the costs of electricity, equipment and Internet can wipe out the event's budget. Equipment rental rates are set to recover bonuses for signing, to cover the operating expenses of audiovisual providers (including commissions paid to the hotel or venue) and, above all, to obtain benefits.
When it is necessary to suspend lighting and audiovisual equipment from the ceiling, venues must rent their suspension points on the ceiling daily, use their equipment and have all the equipment made by their installers. The best way is to simply include your producer or audiovisual company in the planning process as soon as possible. If activities are standardized with a screen, a projector and microphones in each room, the most appropriate option is the hotel audiovisual. Therefore, if a multi-day meeting ends at 5:00 p.m.
on the first night and the venue can sell that space for a dinner to another customer at 7:00 p.m., the audio-visual company of the meeting must remove all equipment from the room to make room for dinner. As someone who has worked in some of the largest hotels in the country and has sold audiovisual for independent audiovisual companies, I have seen just about everything when it comes to hotel contracts.
