Month: March 2015

Or: “What is throw distance?” “What is throw ratio?” I was setting up for an internal hotel staff event and the sales manager came in: “Can you push the screen back? We need room for the dessert station.” The screen was set up for rear projection and unfortunately I needed at least 10 feet between…

We were on the second day of my client’s meeting, and she came to me to say they were going to have one of their vice presidents call in to present the next session. “Can we set up a speaker phone?” she said. “We could, but what you really want is a Telos.” I replied.

Or “What is the difference between 4:3 and 16:9?” “Why should I care about aspect ratio?” Suppose you’re having a meeting for all your top executives and they’ve spent a lot of time putting together presentations with spreadsheets and charts and graphs. The day of the event the first executive loads her slide deck, but…

Or: “How can I lower my AV costs?” I had talked to a client about their event, this was the first time this particular meeting was being held. It was a few days, with a general session and four breakout rooms along with a special awards gala. I put together a proposal and sent it.…

Or “What is an ellipsoidal?” “What is a stage wash?” There’s a lot of jargon in the audio visual world. A “leko” is a term used to refer to an ellipsoidal reflector spotlight. These are very common fixtures. They’re often used for a “stage wash”, or basic lighting of the presentation area.

Or “Why do I need an EQ?” or “How do I prevent feedback?” Early in my career I worked at a company where I didn’t have a piece of equipment: an equalizer. I did ok on events with one podium microphone and a wireless handheld. But then I had a panel using eight wireless lavaliers,…

Or “Do I need a mixer?” A mixer combines the audio signals from more than one microphone and adjusts their volume. It can also combine other audio signals (“sources”) like sound from your computer, DVD audio or music from an MP3 player. How do you decide when you need one?

Or “Why is X provider so much more expensive?” or “Why is my bill so different this year?” I recently sent an event proposal for $20,000 and the hotel AV provider’s quote was $30,000. (And their total was after a 30% discount.) On the other hand another recent proposal was $14k and we lost to…