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[John L Nobile]

Are meeting spaces in such short supply that they can justify charging clients extra for not using in house AV? Or is it only during peak meeting seasons.
We're now in peak meeting season and we're swamped till November. I suppose that it's just good business practice to maximize profit during peak seasons to make it through the lean ones.

[Taylor Hall]

Are meeting spaces in such short supply that they can justify charging clients extra for not using in house AV? Or is it only during peak meeting seasons.
We're now in peak meeting season and we're swamped till November. I suppose that it's just good business practice to maximize profit during peak seasons to make it through the lean ones.

Venues prey off of two common things when it comes to trying to strong-arm clients into using in house services: Naivete and White gloving.
If this is someone's first event or they do it infrequently enough, they may not realize (or have the bandwidth to research) that there are standalone companies that do the exact same thing the venue does when it comes to renting tech, for WAY LESS than the venue charges. They see $500 a day for a talking heads meeting room and figure that's just the industry standard because the sales rep told them so.
On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, you have Conglomo Corp and their infinite piles of money who want nothing more to do with making this meeting or event happen other than signing a check, and walking in the day of to let it run itself.
In the middle of those two are the more discerning clients that you and I end up signing because we charge fairly for the same (or often better) product. All it takes is a  quick google search and a phone call.

[Scott Holtzman]

Free wifi at Days Inn, Best Western, and virtually every hotel / motel.  Hilton?  Nope.  Got to pay up.  At least, until you remind them that we're filling 200 rooms for 2 nights.

Honors Gold and Diamond get free wifi :-)

[Ray Aberle]

Are meeting spaces in such short supply that they can justify charging clients extra for not using in house AV? Or is it only during peak meeting seasons.
We're now in peak meeting season and we're swamped till November. I suppose that it's just good business practice to maximize profit during peak seasons to make it through the lean ones.

Well, you have to remember that the hotel is re-selling the in-house AV services to the client. (Assuming that it's the model that 80% of the properties follow- the large company has an office and storage there onsite. Hotel never has to handle the gear.)

So, hotel charges client. Hotel pays AV company. Hotel is making profit on the sale of the AV services to the client. If the client brings an outside AV company in, the hotel is now not making a piece of the action. Enter the "outside vendor" charge.

-Ray

[Stephen Swaffer]

But how in the world can an outside vendor that has to load in equipment,  compete with an in house vendor that offers a fairly priced quality product?  Just the logistics alone should provide for a larger profit margin for vendor/ venue to share- without being unreasonable.

From my viewpoint in my day job, I do understand how they get away with it.  Often, a "package deal" with a turn key price means more to a manager than the value of the deal-wasteful though it may be.

The key to change would be pressuring the hotel-really tough if you're regional/local and the contract is negotiated company wide.

[Ray Aberle]

But how in the world can an outside vendor that has to load in equipment,  compete with an in house vendor that offers a fairly priced quality product?  Just the logistics alone should provide for a larger profit margin for vendor/ venue to share- without being unreasonable.

Because we don't pay our techs $22/hour and charge the client (through the hotel) $85/hour.

-Ray

[brian maddox]

Honors Gold and Diamond get free wifi :-)

Yes, they do.  But only miserable people actually get that rate.  [ask me how i know...]

[Kevin Maxwell]

Well, you have to remember that the hotel is re-selling the in-house AV services to the client. (Assuming that it's the model that 80% of the properties follow- the large company has an office and storage there onsite. Hotel never has to handle the gear.)

So, hotel charges client. Hotel pays AV company. Hotel is making profit on the sale of the AV services to the client. If the client brings an outside AV company in, the hotel is now not making a piece of the action. Enter the "outside vendor" charge.

-Ray

For quite a few years I was the onsite technical producer/director (as a freelancer) for domestic conferences for one company that held a good number of conferences. I was hired by the production company that had the contract for these shows. They were relatively small, with from 650 to 1500 attendees. These were held in 4 and 5 star hotels. I was also part of the management crew for their US Symposiums where we had around 10,000 attendees. I think we peaked at around 15,000 one year. These were (except for one year) held at Disney World. We took over the Epcot hotels. The European ones where held in Monte Carlo, Euro Disney (when it was called that) and then they moved it to Cannes France, for quite a few years.

The only thing that helped to keep me from going insane was their meeting planners were FANTASTIC. They knew how to negotiate with the hotels and had a lot of the basics spelled out in their contracts. When you come in and basically book all of the rooms in a hotel and then some, you have a LOT of pull as to what is provided. The conference rooms were always booked on 24hour holds so they couldn’t make us break down for some banquet or something else, for some other client.

To the best of my knowledge my client didn’t pay for the meeting rooms at all and they didn’t have to pay anything to the hotel or the in house A/V companies for us to bring in outside production companies if we felt we needed to. We never paid for power tie ins. And the way that most hotel A/V companies that I dealt with all over the USA worked was they charge the client and then they have to pay a service fee to the hotel, it is usually a percentage of their income with a guaranteed minimum pre year. It is a ridiculously high percentage fee the A/V companies pay to be in some of these high end hotels. Some hotels we could actually tie into the in house sound system because they were very good. Some used 12” coax ceiling speakers. Other we knew we had to hang speakers all over the place to make it work. I was on the road a lot doing these shows. We would usually throw just enough work for the hotel A/V company that made them a little bit happy. But I can’t in a public forum tell you my real feelings about most of them. I only say that much now because I don’t do that kind of work anymore. And that is another story. 

[Craig Leerman]

But how in the world can an outside vendor that has to load in equipment,  compete with an in house vendor that offers a fairly priced quality product?  Just the logistics alone should provide for a larger profit margin for vendor/ venue to share- without being unreasonable.

First, you have to understand that the in-house AV company is not offering a fairly priced or quality product in the majority of instances. They are paying the hotel about 50% of the AV bill for the privilege of being the in-house provider. At many tourist properties like in Vegas or Reno the in-house company can still make millions per year in profit after expenses and paying the hotel. At larger properties in Vegas that profit runs in the 10s of millions.

Second, the in-house company may nickel and dime a client for small things. A DI for computer audio at the last minute can run over $100 and they show up with a cheap Behringer unit.  On the show I referenced above, there was a “service charge” listed on the bill by the in-house company. I guess it’s a charge for serving you with AV.  Another line item on the bill said “expendables” and was $60. I’m assuming that was for the gaff tape. They would have used about 5’ of 3” gaff on the show taping down the cords from the projector to the screen.

Third, the in-house labor pool can consist of 1 or 2 trained AV techs, and a bunch of lower skilled AV techs that can barely build a screen under direction. The in-house company can charge a client $75 an hour and up for the labor plus overtime. If a client is doing a dinner fundraising event in a hotel that starts at 6 PM and goes until 10 PM the hotel is probably charging them overtime on the labor as the show is scheduled after a typical work day.

I can always beat an in-house company price because I don’t charge for things that should be included in a PA like a DI box, provide better gear, provide better results, utilize knowledgeable trained and experienced technicians, don’t have to pay the hotel about 1/2, and speaking of the price I charge a fair rate for my services and my crew makes more than the going rate. That usually makes me about 1/3 cheaper than an in-house company. 

The other factor with hotels is that many clients do not know or understand that they can negotiate with the in-house company to get a better rate or negotiate with the hotel to bring in an outside vendor. Once a client start shopping services to local AV or local sound companies they soon realize that most companies can beat the in-house prices. So the hotel never mentions that a client can bring in outside services, and to discourage the behavior they add babysitting charges. Clients just assume that an outside vendor is gonna cost more, especially when you factor in the cost of the babysitting charges.

On big corporate AV shows it’s not uncommon for an outside vendor to bring in a tractor trailer’s worth of gear and do the general session and a ton of smaller breakout rooms for the client. Labor is a combination of a few employees of the outside AV company, a bunch of freelancers like me who get called in by the AV company to fill specific spots during the show like A1, A2, LD, Master Electrician, Video, etc.  Extra Set and Strike stagehands are brought in from labor companies like Rhino or VTS and these folks help unload the trucks, push cases, build the screens, etc and get the show built.  The only services the in-house company does is the rigging as many hotels only allow the in-house company to rig.

There are dozens of large outside AV companies who travel all over doing big shows for national clients in hotels. One such company I have worked for that is based in Vegas told me that they have equipment in the Vegas location (they have multiple warehouse locations around the country) that they can do 140 breakout rooms.  That’s 140 screens, 140 projectors, 140 mixers, 140 sets of speakers on stands, 280 plus wireless rigs, 140 podium mics, 140 sets of desk/table mic setups, and enough XLR and AC cords for 140 rooms!  On top of that they can do multiple General Session meetings that include big audio consoles with line arrays, large screens with massive projectors and all the video stuff like multiple cameras and switching.

[Richard Turner]

In another 3 years I can see enough small gear coming on stream that is truly self contained. A lot of these talking head jobs could be done with 2 12" 300 watt boxes which these days could be battery powered. If someone knows anyone in product development what would be ideal is finding a friendly tool company , milwalkee dewalt ryobi and using a common off the shelf battery system. Most gear is rectifying AC to DC anyway so a solid 18 or 24v dc battery would be a great platform to work with.

add in a small mixer and wireless mic packs and your good to go. battery powered AV would be a ways off but OLED tv are becoming much more energy efficient and cheaper every month.

if it doesnt plug into the wall how can they charge for power drops?

I think it was about 10 years ago I did a gig as a tech for a comedy act at a conference, it was one companies last weekend at a hotel, contract was up and the actual company manager was there and he was a bit chatty, they had just lost the regional contract for the high end hotels out here, 22 locations I think. their contract was at 40% premium charged by hotel over their rates. the new guys went in at a rate 5% less and 60% premium  and things have gotten much much worse. rooms are sold at a discount, meal packages are hopefully better than break even. corporate AV is seen as gravy.

I generally avoid this venue for anything wedding related. their staff are instructed to treat local vendors like dirt.

[ProSoundWeb Community]