Speaker 1: Are you getting ready for your next conference and you're curious about what AV, what audio visual equipment you might need for your breakout rooms? Well, I'm going to share a couple tips that I have as an event producer who has produced and been responsible for all the AV that goes in your conference breakout rooms with a couple of tips and tidbits that you want to keep in mind when you're placing that AV order so that you make sure that you are prepared for everything but you're not overpaying for anything. Before we jump into it, I'm Logan Clements. I'm a freelance event producer based in Seattle, Washington, but I execute events here and all over the world. I do want to remind you to like, subscribe, turn on that little notification bell so you get notified every single Monday when I drop new videos. I'm also the co-host of the Better Events Podcast with fellow event pro, Mary Davidson. We dive even more into some of these topics from event production in general to event planning, running your own business. I've got topics on things like what it means to be a stage manager, engaging ideas you can take from sports to apply to your next conference or, you know, on stage program, and much, much more. So listen wherever you listen to podcasts. So my first pro tip for you when you're planning your AV for your breakout rooms, this one seems simple and yet it can be such a hurdle when you get into those final weeks of prep and or getting on site, is make sure you clarify if your speakers are going to be bringing their own laptops or they're going to provide their content ahead of time and they want us to use rented laptops, ones from the AV company. This is a special nuance I feel like because it's just something that gets forgotten often by planners and they're not even thinking through. They're thinking about all these other big logistics and this is one of those places where if you know all of your speakers are going to be providing their own laptops and they really just need an HDMI cord and they want to plug in and show their slides, you can save money on your AV order by not renting laptops. But it's also the inverse. If you have speakers who assume you were going to have the laptop and all they need is their USB of slides, there's where you're going to get stuck and either not have the laptops or maybe have to pay a late fee that, you know, a rush fee to get that laptop so they're ready. So this is something just to clarify. I've seen it done both ways. I've also seen it where money's been a little bit wasted at times because we thought all the speakers would give the content ahead of time and they really didn't and ended up just wanting to plug their own laptops in. At least a majority of them did. So we were paying for a lot of laptops that the client at the end of the day didn't really get to use. Another thing to think about with your AV for your breakout rooms is if you're able to get room drawings, which means your AV company or maybe your venue will give you a drawing, a floor plan of what the room can look like set up with AV in it. That's already a pro tip in itself. Don't just take it for, you know, where the tables and the chairs go. You also want to see where the AV goes. Where does the podium go if you're using a podium? How about the projector, the projection screen? And just really think about sight lines for your audience. I've seen at some of these venues that are a little bit older, they've got columns in the middle of the room that can create dead pockets where if an attendee is sitting at a round table or even a, you know, a theater style seating and that column's in the way, you're not going to be able to see that content. So just making sure that you can see that line of sight for your attendees and then don't forget about your AV team. Some of these larger breakout rooms probably will require a production person in the room to help run the audio or run the slides or the content. And so make sure that you're placing that tech table often it's in the back of the room. So that's a good spot. Put it in the back, but make sure they have a sight line and don't put a pole in front of them. They need to be able to see the presenter as well for a lot of their cues. So often I see it standard is in the back and to the left or the right. I feel like it goes more to the right because the door's often on the left. So you want to put them just kind of in the back far corner. Another pro tip I have for you with your breakout rooms is if you are going to have more than 100 attendees in a breakout, this is where you're really going to need to think about your sound system. I feel like when we get to breakout rooms, usually you've put a lot of your budget into the general session and maybe have rigging, which is where you have, you know, speakers and things from the ceiling. It's usually quite expensive to do that, but that is the way that you can fill the room. Think about going to a concert or a sporting event. They will have rigging and speakers and things up in the air. Now in a breakout room, you often are going for a more basic AV setup, but I have found if you have at least 100 attendees in that breakout, you're probably going to need more than just your standard speaker on a stand. You can have these things we call ground stacks, which are like multiple speakers stacked up on top of each other from the ground. That's going to be a little bit more cheap, a little bit cheaper than going for the full rigging from the ceiling. Because again, rigging costs money on its own, the installation, all of that's going to be a big jump from just a speaker on a stand. But I have found if you have more than 100 attendees in your session, speakers on stands honestly won't fill the room exactly the way you need it. You can definitely manage, but you're going to have some people complain in certain areas that they can't hear your speaker. And lastly, my tip for you with AV, setting up AV for your conference breakout rooms, is that if you have a large number of breakout rooms, a lot of sessions, or maybe you just have lots of speakers who have questions, set up a pre-event tech check with your producer. Again, I've done that role before or your production team, whoever you're working with, to talk through what equipment is included in that breakout room, just to help set expectations. More often than not, I find the people who place the order for the AV are not the people who are actually having to execute or use it, like your speakers. And so there's sometimes a disconnect in what the person paying for the AV is telling the AV company, and then the speaker is being told. And so just kind of to avoid any of those miscommunications, just getting everybody together is going to solve so much. What I found too is really helpful is sometimes even create a little like deck, a little presentation, a little mock-up of what the room looks like, and explicitly say, you have a projector, you have a projection screen, you're going to have a clicker, you're going to use your laptop, or maybe you're using our laptop, or maybe you're going to have two screens in the room, you have a podium, you have a chair, whatever it was. And I actually dropped in images of like, this is the clicker you're using, here's what the room kind of is going to look like. That was really helpful for having my speakers really understand what to expect. And that helped us out on site where we had way less issues of people going, I'm shocked what's in this room, I don't know what I need, I didn't know I had to bring that, yada, yada, yada. And instead, it's more, how do I fine tune this? Or I really have to use my laptop because I'm using a specific program that I want to show the employees how to use, it has to be my laptop. So it was more nuanced troubleshooting than the original complaint that sometimes you have in some of these things where there is that miscommunication between the person ordering the AV and the person actually using it. Well, hopefully that helped answer a couple of your questions about AV production in breakout rooms for your next conference. Again, these little pro tips are ones that I've come up with from producing breakout rooms and helping clients navigate all their AV orders, setups, and everything they need. So I hope you took what you needed from it. And as always, I'm Logan Clements. I'm a freelance event producer based in Seattle, Washington, but I execute events here and all over the world. I want to thank you for watching my video and I'll see you in my next one. Bye.