Better AV for meetings

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.

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.…