Suppose you’re planning a three day conference for 500 attendees, and you need to order wifi in the meeting space. In the U.S. that could cost you between $6,646 and $80,040. Or it could be free. My meeting planner friends have shared stories for a long time about inconsistent internet pricing. I work for an…

Attendees at PCMA’s 2023 Convening Leaders were observed by cameras “pretty much everywhere” I had a great time at this year’s PCMA Convening Leaders. I met interesting people and attended informative sessions. The final morning I went to one titled “AI, Biometrics and Better, More Targeted Experiences.” I was surprised a few minutes in when…

What happened, how to respond and how to avoid it in the first place I’m a board member for the Philadelphia chapter of PCMA, and was running our last virtual happy hour when it was “zoom bombed”. The whole incident probably took less than a minute or two before I removed the offenders. Afterwards we…

Or: “What is feedback? And what can I do about it?” Frequently in movies someone will walk up, tap a microphone and it squeals. That squealing sound is a miniature version of feedback. Feedback is probably the most common event audio problem. It’s typically an extended, high pitched squeal or wail. Feedback is a loop: Sound goes…

Sometimes before an event you ask yourself, “What am I forgetting?” If you’ve got a good AV partner hopefully you’ve covered these already, but here’s a few things to check off:

Or “Why do I need a DA?” Suppose you’re having a meeting and displaying a powerpoint. What do you do when everyone can’t see the screen? You can try to make it bigger, or you can add a second screen. If you go with the latter option, you’ll need what’s called a distribution amplifier or…

Or “What size screen do I need?” Have you ever been to an event where you couldn’t read the words on the screen? I recently went to a speech where the screen was so small only the first couple rows out of a few hundred people could be expected to see it. How do you…

The other day I went to the pharmacy and bought some replacement heads for an electric toothbrush. This was the first time I’d bought them myself, and they seemed a little pricey, so I went with the generic store brand. A few days later I thought to look them up on Amazon. They were so…

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.