Why should event organisers choose venues with in-house AV?

At 1 Wimpole Street there are eight full-time AV team members to support users of the AV services at the venue. Our AV Manager, Kevin McLoughlin writes a useful guide and gives you the reasons why you should book a conference and meeting venue with an in-house AV team.

Every event professional realises how important AV technology is to an event. For example, when communicating a message or stimulating a discussion you will expect speech reinforcement to be at the very least intelligible so that every single one of your delegates can hear.

When you want to go further and use AV to wow your audience you would welcome professional advice that you can trust as knowledgeable and value for money. When this discussion needs to take place, who should an event professional turn to?  An independent 3rd party AV supplier or the permanent in-house team employed by the venue?

Here are a few pointers to help you decide:

Convenience – An in-house AV team at the venue work together with the events sales team and other on-site service suppliers. There are no communication worries as planning for the event is conducted in unison with the singular goal of meeting the client’s expectations.

Risk – Dealing with an in-house team and in-built AV systems that the team are very familiar with means reduced risk for technical failure. The team will have worked with this equipment previously and can advise on the best set up and equipment usage within the idiosyncrasies of a venue they know well.

Agile – There are times when the most prepared of event organisers will realise they have missed something off their list or a presenter will arrive last minute with an unusual AV request for their presentation. With an in-house team that has a stock of equipment on site this request can often be fulfilled at a moment’s notice – and the delegates will never know.

Relationship – With a large team of permanent in-house technicians, relationships can be built with the actual technicians that will be running the AV for an event and this can start well before and continue after the event. Technicians can then build on each event using their intricate knowledge of the venue to offer better solutions for future events.

Value – Because staff and equipment are on site and available, the costs of AV hire are reduced or even included in the room hire. This is far more difficult for external suppliers to match as they have to take in to account transport and set up time with the related staff costs. The in-house AV team have a holistic view of the event and have buy-in on creating an experience that will persuade the client to return to the venue not just to use the AV services again.

Within 1 Wimpole Street the AV team provides services for the Royal Society of Medicine, a leader in continuing education for medical professionals. This means they are driven by a desire to help make every event a success without a focus on revenue and up-selling, but with a clear objective of providing the right technology for a client’s event not promoting tech for tech’s sake.

If a client wishes to use their own AV supplier (often because they have used them before and have built a trusting relationship with them) the 1 Wimpole AV Team can accommodate this and regularly do. We pride ourselves in building friendly working partnerships with 3rd party suppliers, holding the big picture view of the success of the event for our client.

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