How to Plan AV for a Conference or AGM

A conference lives or dies on whether delegates can hear the speakers and see the slides. Get the AV right and the day feels professional and effortless. Here's what to plan for.

Sound and microphones

You need even sound across the whole room so no one strains to listen. Plan a lectern mic for presenters, lapel mics for panellists, and roving handheld mics for audience questions during Q&A.

Screens and projection

Slides and video need to be readable from the back row. A bright projector works in a controlled room; for large or bright venues, an LED screen is clearer. For big rooms, a live camera feed to the screens helps delegates at the back see the speaker.

Staging, lighting and recording

A raised stage and lectern with good lighting makes keynotes look the part. If you want to share the sessions afterwards, plan for recording or live streaming from the start.

A technician on the day

The single best investment is a dedicated AV technician who manages sound, slides and screens throughout, so presenters just plug in and speak. JMG Audio supplies the whole package, technician included.

Breakout rooms are a separate job

A plenary plus four parallel sessions is not one AV setup, it is five. Each room needs its own sound, display, microphones and someone able to fix problems quickly. This is the single most under-budgeted item in conference planning. Map your programme room by room and session by session, and hand that map to your AV supplier when requesting a quote rather than describing it as one event.

Collect presentations in advance

Ask every speaker for their slides well before the day and load them onto one machine. Presenters arriving with laptops that need adapters, files that will not open, or videos with no sound account for a large share of conference delays. A single presentation machine, tested in the actual room, removes almost all of it. Have adapters for every common connector anyway, because someone will still bring their own laptop.

Plan for hybrid attendance

Assume some delegates and possibly some speakers will join remotely. That needs real planning: reliable connectivity, audio routed so remote participants hear the room and the room hears them, and a screen positioned so in-person delegates can see the remote speaker. Test the platform in the actual room on the actual connection, not from the hotel lobby the week before.

Record it — the content outlives the day

Keynotes, panels and presentations have value long after delegates go home, for reports, follow-up communications and next year’s promotion. Recording costs very little on top of AV you are already paying for, provided the audio is taken from the mixing desk rather than a camera at the back of the room. Organisers who skip it usually regret it within a month.