Before You Ask for an AV Quote: What Your Technical Production Partner Needs
What a production team needs to scope your event, how each detail changes the quote, and how to send a brief before everything is confirmed.
Send two production companies the same line, “gala dinner in a hotel ballroom, need sound and screens”, and you’ll get two quotes you can’t compare. One prices a lectern microphone, two loudspeakers and a projector. The other prices sound for a band, a lighting operator and a setup crew.
Both companies guessed at what you left out. Every line of an AV brief becomes something physical: a crew call, a microphone channel, a slot at the loading bay.
Start with the Date and the Room
Ask for a quote as soon as you have a date. Name the room and say whether it’s confirmed or pencilled.
Crew don’t load into a hotel. They load into one room, through a loading bay or goods lift, and build within that room’s ceiling height and rigging limits. Ask the venue for its technical pack.
Where the hotel has in-house AV, say what it provides. We can often work with it, and we’ll check what can be used and what else needs to be brought in.
How Many People, and How They Sit
A rough pax range is enough. Pax and layout fix how far back the last seat sits, and that distance sizes the sound and screens. Banquet rounds turn part of every table away from the stage. Theatre rows don’t. Layout decides where the loudspeakers, screens and control position go.
Sound, lighting and video are usually run from one control position at the back of the room. A floor plan, even a sketch, shows where it fits and what it costs in seats.
The Programme Decides the Microphones
Send the running order, even in draft. On the night it becomes the crew’s script: each item a lighting cue and a set of microphones to open. An item missing from it gets improvised.
The microphone count follows the busiest moment on stage, not the length of the speaker list. Five panellists on two handhelds means microphones passed along the table while the room waits. Audience Q&A adds roaming handhelds and someone to carry them.
A presenter who needs both hands free takes a headset, which resists feedback better than a lapel microphone.
Slides, Video and Who Owns the Final File
Agree the screens’ aspect ratio before anyone designs the deck, or the slides get letterboxed or cropped. Send video clips as separate files, and flag any with audio for the sound desk.
The file that plays is the one loaded at the control position, not the one in someone’s inbox when doors open. We check presentation content during setup, before rehearsal. Put the file deadline ahead of setup and name one person to hold the final version.
Live Music Changes the Brief
A system sized for speeches rarely carries a band. The day the act is booked, ask for its input list, stage plot and technical rider.
The input list sets the console channels. The stage plot sets riser space, power and foldback. A late rider adds channels and power the quote never priced.
Settle who brings the backline: the drum kit, keyboards, and guitar and bass amplifiers on stage with the band. A band that plays after the speeches needs its stage set and soundchecked before doors, or a changeover built into the running order.
Our article on gala dinner AV with live music draws on a real job: the JASS Benefit Gala 2026, with a combined orchestra on stage and dinner tables across the floor.
Load-In, Rehearsal and Crew on the Day
Send the venue’s load-in times, when the room must be clear, and anything your own team will handle. A room that frees up only after an earlier event needs more crew than one free from the morning.
Decide what needs stage time before doors: the chief executive’s rehearsal with slides, the awards walk-through. Setup and testing come first, so the earliest of these fixes the crew call. Our How We Work steps show the order.
Equipment goes out on hire by itself, or with crew to operate it live. Say which: the price depends on the kit, the venue, the number of days and whether you need a technician on site. Delivery, setup and collection are agreed in your quote.
What to Put in the Quote Form
The quote form takes your contact details, with event type and date optional. Everything else goes into one box, “What Do You Need?” Copy these lines into it:
- Venue: hotel and room, confirmed or pencilled.
- Guests: rough pax, seated or standing, banquet or theatre layout.
- Programme: running order, draft or final.
- Presenters: who, how many at once, any audience Q&A.
- Screens: slides, clips, who supplies the files.
- Music: line-up so far, who brings the backline.
- Access: load-in and pack-down times, what the venue provides.
- Support: equipment hire only, or crew on the day.
Floor plans, run sheets, stage plots and the venue’s technical pack can follow after the first reply.
When Half the Details Are Still Open
You don’t need a finished brief. Tell us what you know so far. Your quote sets out the equipment, support and costs, with optional items marked.
Mark undecided items TBC and give ranges where numbers are moving: a low and a high headcount, two candidate rooms. A marked gap gets a question back. A missing one gets a guess.
