Executive Overview

Annual review of venue’s AV provider’s preparedness to support on-site valuable returning/new clients.

What follows here is the outline of a meeting industry seminar aimed at improving the audience experience, every time.

Everyone has attended a meeting in a boardroom, classroom, ballroom, theater, or arena, where the audience experience is less than positive.

What you are about to discover are notes from the Audience Advocate, Ray Franklin. He developed this presentation as a result of over 40 years with challenging venues, clients, and vendors.

This is an attempt to enlighten all three groups, including Meeting Professionals International (MPI) membership and other professional meeting associations.

The workshop outline:

Segment 1 (30 minutes) – Introduction of the “audience expectation” for an excellent experience. The best practices can benefit each stakeholder in a meeting encounter.

Audience – Once the content is created, the audience wants to be comfortable, and be able to see and hear content with minimal distraction.
Client – XYZ Corporation is investing money and expects a return on its investment (ROI). Whether the audience is employees, customers, or association members, they deserve the full value of the investment.
- Today’s audiences are avid media consumers with event demands above the casual gathering. They want to be engaged, even distracted from their cell phones. Providing an excellent environment for the event will go a long way to engaging your audience.

Venue – Hotels sell rooms, Food & Beverage (F&B). The meeting rooms are often free of charge if there is a large enough F&B contract. Of course, if the venue wants to maximize the use of their available space, they should be aware some physical issues impact the audience experience, then the client’s choice to return for another meeting. Free civic or university events should also follow these best practices.

AV Vendor – In-house AV firms (or venue AV staff) have the benefit of being “exclusive” providers of sound, lighting, AV, video, and often electricity for meetings. Their ultimate client is the GM of the venue.
The better AV provider is a consultative partner with the venue to support the client event. Too often the in-house AV provider has staff that is not aware of the “audience experience.” The result is screens, sound systems, etc. are not optimized for the client, room, or event.

Segment 2 (35 minutes) – Demonstration of the issues and solutions that should be adopted as “Best Practices When Using AV in Any Meeting – Regardless of Size.” We will give an equipment list to the in-house AV provider to demonstrate each of the following categories.

Segment 3 (30 minutes) – Q&A including discussion of the client expectations and real-world situations that vary between venues.

Segment 4 (Option 15 minutes) – audience seating

Where appropriate, add a 15-minute review of audience seating for banquet, classroom, or theater seating. Many venues need to understand the audience's comfort, and safety when setting a room. For example – most venue setup staff don’t know the local Fire Marshal rules for seating, egress, etc. They often don’t understand that “theater seating” requires the more complicated setting of chairs in staggered rows, not one behind the other.

To HOST AV101 2022 Workshop Tour - Venues who sponsor the workshop typically invite important customers to experience and interact with the sales staff and in-house AV provider.

Contact Ray Franklin - production.director@gmail.com 702-879-8177

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AV101 2022/2023 Workshop Tour - Return to live events #RaiseTheScreen