Without an Experienced Production Company, Your Event Will Be Messy and Stressful. Here’s Why…

If you have an experience in the large-scale event planning world, you’ve probably experienced (and come to dread) some of these scenarios:

• 5 minutes before your keynote speaker goes on, the sound system starts glitching. Unfortunately you’re in the middle of replacing a presenter whose plane was delayed. You can’t figure out which emergency to fix, and you don’t have time to fix both.
• You have booked a venue that is perfect and affordable. Then you find out you’ll be charged for scissor lift rentals and custom build outs for your stage because the space won’t accommodate what your event needs. Suddenly, you are thousands over budget and still aren’t sure it will be what you hoped.
• Bad weather has caused half your attendees to be unable to attend in person. You have 6 hours to provide an online platform and pivot to hosting a hybrid event.
• You are planning two conferences, a product rollout, and a sponsorship event simultaneously in two different cities. One of the vendors you’ve contracted with never calls you back, and one wants to meet twice a week.

Event planners have a lot going on. Your job is to consistently deliver successful, high quality events. As an event production company, our job is to make you and your events look good. A knowledgeable, experienced production company can not only keep disasters at bay— it can streamline and simplify the entire planning process and elevate your events to a level that will have attendees, speakers, and stakeholders wondering how you pulled it off.

Planners often hire production companies as an afterthought. They think about sound, lighting, and video as a necessary but unexciting component of planning. This is a huge missed opportunity. When an event planner brings a production company on board at the beginning of the planning process, it can add value every step of the way. Here’s what that looks like at the different stages of planning and execution.

What Your Production Partner Should Be Doing In the Beginning Of Planning

The first thing your production company should do is listen. They will want to learn as much as they can about your vision, goals, and priorities for an event. They also need to know what you aren’t sure about yet, so they can help you figure it out.

For example, an experienced production company is intimately familiar with what a space needs to have to make any event successful. Rather than you spending time researching location options, your production company will likely be able to point you directly to choices they know would work for your needs. They can also give you a clear understanding of what your budget will allow you to achieve, and how to stretch it for the most value.

What Your Production Partner Should Be Doing During the Planning Process

The earlier in the planning process you involve a production company, the more ways they can help you throughout planning. Their creative teams can take any number of tasks off your plate, like site rendering, graphic art, event-related written content, and vendor communication.

Because they’ve done so many events, they’ll consistently have time- and money-saving input. You can depend on a production partner to present new and fresh options to make your event exciting and high quality, while always keeping your priorities fully in focus. Efficiency is the calling card of any good event production company. They will never waste your resources and they will constantly look for ways to partner with you in streamlining your planning process.

What Your Production Partner Should Be Doing During the Day of Your Event

A production company will have a team of professionals at your event ready to create a successful run of show outcome. From the moment they arrive, their goals are to execute a flawless showflow and to help you be able to focus without worrying about what might go wrong.

Production partners anticipate any problem that could pop up and have a contingency in place every time. Presenter’s USB drive corrupted? They have the slide deck on a backup. Microphone shorting out? They’re slipping a new one in the speaker’s hand before you can react. Last minute room change? They’re 3 steps ahead and setting up already. This is what they do; it’s where their expertise lies and what they are trained and ready for. You will always be in the loop, but you will not be on the hook for solving every logistical challenge that arises.

For your client or company, you are the face of every event you plan. It is essential that you work with people you can trust and depend on, because in the end your reputation is what’s on the line. The work of your production company serves one purpose: creating and executing a flawless and exciting experience that meets and exceeds expectations. By extension, their success is your success. A great production company will make your job easier and your events better.

Have an upcoming event that could use a production partner? Use the contact form below to get started on making your event production as predictable and excellent as it can be.