What are the best practices for managing event sound requirements?

First is identifying if the venue is indoor or outdoor? Next would be if it’s in a small room, or a spacious hall. Acoustics will vary depending on these said factors, and the sound system supplier you will hire must have complete equipment at your disposal to supply the necessary sound requirements of your venue. If the sound system is lacking, people from farther parts of the venue won’t hear you. If the blasting sound system are too much, it becomes annoying and irritating to the ears.

Pre-Event Planning: Assess the venue's acoustics and layout. Choose the right sound equipment based on the event size and type. Quality Equipment: Invest in high-quality sound systems and microphones. Poor equipment can ruin even the best-planned events. Professional Sound Team: Hire experienced sound technicians. Their expertise is crucial for setup, monitoring, and troubleshooting. Sound Checks: Conduct thorough sound checks before the event. Adjust volume, bass, and treble levels to suit the venue and event type. Backup Plan: Have backup equipment and a contingency plan for technical failures. Volume Control: Monitor and adjust the volume throughout the event, ensuring it's comfortable for the audience.

It is almost the same experience as watching YouTube; the video quality can be bad, but if the sound is great you watch compared to brilliant video and bad sound, you navigate to a new video in seconds. In my experience, the event might not be the best, but people forget about the rest if the sound is great. Take a professional speaker with you to help you understand how the sounds might impact the message and experience of your event, if at all possible.

I would first hire an audio expert or make sure that the AV team you have hired has an audio expert on the crew. Then with the audio expert, you should walk each room, the main keynote room, the breakout rooms etc.. You should do this a month or so before or when you attend someone else's event as a guest of the venue, to see how others are using the space. This is a great way to see how others are dealing with audio and lighting and staging issues, well before you finalize your crew and needs. You need to get a "true lay of the land" and know what you need and how to prep for it and not rely on the venue schematics. Note, as a general rule most house sound systems are less then ideal, never use them. Bring your own.

This is a crucial part of the preparation for any major event. You should build a level of trust with your AV crew and make sure they have done these events before and that they know exactly what you need and what you are going for. However, as a rule, these audio experts are "behind the scenes" and they usually do not have customer facing experience or skills, they are artists and engineers. Your AV team should already have a polished liaison that can interface with keynote speakers and other vendors needed. TBH, I would never send my senior audio tech to talk with anyone external, ever. I trust him immensely and have worked with him for years so I know his skills and abilities. I make sure to have a team in place to handle this if needed.

This. One thousand times this. As one who has worked every avenue of events, you hire people who know what they are doing. It is no different from any other venue contact. Do you know exactly how the wraps on the doors and columns work? No, you don't. Does the venue-choice vendor know - yes! You've spent hundred and hundreds of hours developing the agenda, gathering the speakers, figuring out what break-outs are happening and when. Leave the technical work to the technical people. IF you can't afford that service, question where other money is being spent. There is nothing...and I mean nothing worse than spending blood sweat and tears on event that no one can hear or that is poorly heard by your attendees.

Check out the personality of the sound engineer. I have spoken at events where the sound engineer had a beef with speakers and it was difficult to work with them. Speak to other people who have worked with them.

This section really is beyond the scope of most conference managers. As a seasoned Conference Director and Owner, I have been both the "client" and the vendor, so I know exactly what to ask for and how to deliver. However, questions about types of speakers, cables, microphones, mixers, etc. are all handled by the AV team and directed by the audio expert that is hired in section one of this article. In reality this section does not really need to be here. We can talk brands like Clair Brothers speakers and SoundCraft, Allen & Heath mixers or Mogami cables, but really this should be left to your AV vendor. Note, for avoiding interference make sure your AV vendor has a wireless RF expert to scan the building to secure each audio channel.

As part of the prep, make sure that you leave enough time to "ring" the room and verify that all the audio and lighting is working properly, simultaneously. Securing clean power and other items need to be locked in and ready to go for this test as well. So remember not to finish setup at 4PM and have the doors open at 5PM. Finish the setup and ring the room several hours before doors or even a day before. I always recommend 18-24 hours before the doors open, have all the audio in place and tested. This allows for last minute tweaks and fixes if something malfunctions. The AV team should always have a back up plan in place. If your budget does not allow that kind of prep time, think hours before doors open and never minutes.

Communication is paramount. Please do not get offended, when the AV team says that a lavalier mic placement needs to be adjusted, it is to help the overall quality, it is not to annoy the "celebrity" keynoter. I have seen some very interesting and sometimes heated arguments arise because expectations and concerns were not addressed early enough and rehearsals were superficial. Never skip the tech rehearsal, if possible have the tech rehearsal and content rehearsal on different days or different hours. It can be combined, but in the rush I have seen things missed and then during the live event there was a scramble. As show owner or director make sure you have rehearsal written into the contracts for both the AV vendor and anyone speaking.

Chances are very good that production is not in your wheelhouse. Find and trust professionals. Ask the venue if they have preferred vendors. Get quotes, negotiate. Sweat the details, but defer where you can. Do Not Scrimp on these items. Your hard work will wither if you do not deliver what seems to be simple asks that often are very difficult. Know your limitations and get the pros to do the rest. I've seen many a conference/symposium/event fall flat because someone reallocated tech budget to something else.