The questions an audio visual (AV) supplier dreads are the easy ones that arrive late, once the answer would have changed the design. A good AV brief for an event is rarely a longer document than the one you already write. It is the same information handed over early enough to be acted on, and it decides whether you get a proposal built for your room or a proposal built for a room like yours.
In short
Your supplier needs four things from you: what the room is, when they can get into it, who is running the day, and what has to happen on stage. Briefs often cover the last one in detail and leave the first three thin. Handing over the venue and access information is also a legal duty. A contractor working in premises you control has to be told what the risks are and how to get out.
What goes in an AV brief for an event
Four groups, with different levels of urgency. The room and the access change what can physically be built, so they are wanted before anyone writes a proposal. The people and the show can follow, because they change how the build is run on the day.
A ceiling height that arrives after the screen is specified is a redesign. A presenter’s name that arrives the week before is an ordinary update.
Handing over the information is a duty, not a courtesy
This part surprises people. Under regulation 12 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, where people from an outside undertaking work in yours, their employer has to be given comprehensible information on the risks to those employees and on the measures taken about them. Your crew arriving for the get-in, meaning the hours when equipment may be brought into the building, are exactly those people.
Fire adds a second and sharper duty. Article 20 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires the responsible person to give an outside employer comprehensible and relevant information on the risks and on the preventive and protective measures, and enough detail to identify anyone nominated to help with evacuation. Few AV briefs name those people.
The responsible person is often the venue rather than you. GOV.UK sets out that responsibility falls on anyone with control of the premises, including a facilities or building manager. You are still the only party talking to both sides, so in practice you are the route the information travels along.
The venue information nobody else can get for you
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) describes what a contractor should be given as an induction to site rules, procedures, hazards and emergency arrangements, and describes coordination as who does what, when and how. For an event that turns into a short and very specific list.
- The get-in window and the get-out at the other end.
- Loading door and goods lift dimensions, and the weight the lift will take.
- Ceiling height, rigging points and any floor loading limit.
- Where the power comes from and who holds the key to it.
- What the venue already has installed, and whether you are obliged to use it.
- The name and mobile number of the person at the venue who answers during the get-in.
Venues publish a technical specification sheet. Ask when it was last checked.
Who can say yes once the doors are open
Most briefs have a contacts box, and it often lists the wrong thing. A name and a number tells a crew who to ring. It leaves open who can approve a change to the room while a queue is forming outside.
Name that person explicitly, and name who covers when they are in a session. Say what they can settle on their own and what has to go higher. If your marketing team and your operations team want different things, say which one wins, because a crew asked to choose between two clients of the same organisation will stop and wait.
Keep this apart from the show call itself. Who holds the call during a running order is a different role, and we have written about it as part of running an awards night. The brief covers authority before and around the show. Cues inside it are handled in the show call.
What happens after you send it
Briefs change, and we expect them to. The useful question is by when, and the answer is different for each part of it.
Crew numbers and equipment have to be committed when they are reserved, because the same panels and the same technicians are being offered to somebody else. A room layout can usually move later than that, up to the point where the rig is planned around it. Content is its own deadline and a strict one, which we have set out in building slides for an event screen.
Agree the route as well as the dates. Changes that arrive from several people across several channels get lost. One named person, in writing, with the supplier confirming back what they have understood, takes longer to set up and saves time every week after that.
What a complete brief actually buys you
On our event for Bazaarvoice we provided staging, printing and branding, audio, video, camerawork and on-site technicians. That is six workstreams reading the same document, and every one of them needed something different out of it. The camera operator needed the running order. The staging crew needed the loading door.
This is the practical argument for keeping the work with one supplier: one brief, written once, read by everyone who has to act on it. Splitting the work multiplies the briefing job and puts the reconciling of versions on you.
Frequently asked questions
When should we send our AV brief?
Send the room and access information as soon as the venue is confirmed, before anyone writes a proposal. Those details decide what can be built, so a proposal written without them is guesswork that will be revised. The people and show detail can follow in stages, and it helps to say when each of those gaps is expected to close.
What if we do not know the running order yet?
Send what you do know and say what is still open. A supplier can plan around gaps that are labelled as gaps. A document that looks complete and is not is the harder one to work from. Tell them when each gap will close, and flag anything that could change the shape of the day, such as a second room or a remote speaker, even if it is only a possibility at that stage.
Does the venue send the technical information, or do we?
Usually you do, because you are the party talking to both. Venues will send their technical specification to a supplier on request, but they are not obliged to volunteer access hours, site rules or emergency arrangements to a contractor they have no relationship with. Ask the venue for the current information and check when it was last reviewed, then pass it on.
Sources
- legislation.gov.uk · Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, regulation 12
- legislation.gov.uk · Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, article 20
- Health and Safety Executive · Human factors: contractors
- GOV.UK · Fire safety in the workplace
If you have an event in the diary and you are not sure what we need from you yet, send us what you have and we will tell you what is missing. We prefer to ask the awkward questions early, while there is still time to act on the answers. There is more on what to ask us in return in our guide to questions to ask an AV supplier, and you can see the full range of what we cover on our event services page. Reach us through the contact page or at hire@eventproductiongroup.co.uk.
