We run the AV department inside the building.
Our capital, our team on your floor, and a revenue split we do not have to inflate to make the math work. We have run the AV department inside buildings since 2002, and we have been the outside production company walking into buildings we did not run since 2007. We have argued both sides of the house contract, and it shows in how we price your groups.
Your AV provider shows up in your guest scores
In-house AV is a commission business, and most providers protect their margin by charging your groups more. That lands in your event survey scores, and in whether the group books you again.
The split conversation, said out loud
The revenue split is the most contentious number in this business, so here is how it actually works.
A national provider can offer a split that looks larger than the margin it implies. That works because their guest facing rates are high enough that even a thin overall margin still turns a profit. The split reads generously on the contract page. Your groups pay for it, in a line item they see and remember.
We quote a split we can hold, and we keep your group rates down instead of building them up to fund the split. Your top line per event may be smaller. What you get instead is higher event survey scores, groups that rebook, and an AV rate your chamber events, your nonprofits and your community business can actually afford.
What a partnership actually looks like
Assessment first. We survey what is already in the building. Network, house sound, video, lighting. Anything already installed that can carry part of the load stays in the design. We are not interested in replacing working infrastructure to inflate a capital plan.
We fund the equipment. The capital plan is agreed during the contract award and we buy it. Your property does not carry the capital, the depreciation, or the refresh at end of life.
The inventory is assigned to your property. Every piece lives in a dedicated warehouse for your building inside our system, tracked by serial number, maintained on a schedule, and pre-booked against your event calendar.
We staff the building. A Director of AV is stationed on site and owns the relationship with you, the financial performance of the partnership, and the strategic plan for the property. They also run the on-site team, with a Director of Operations underneath where the scale warrants it. The staffing plan is agreed in advance and written down.
We run our own sales system. Our CRM comes with us, and the pipeline for your event business is visible rather than anecdotal. We will ask for access to your booking system so we can support your sales effort earlier in the cycle. We do not require it.
Exclusive or non exclusive, your call. Exclusivity carries a higher split. We will show you what each version is worth before you decide, rather than steering you.
The labor problem we take off you
The hard part of in-house AV is not the equipment. It is the staffing math.
You have to know which roles to hire, how many of each, what every person has to be able to do inside their role, and how to shape a schedule so you are not carrying payroll through every slow week on the calendar. Nobody has ever solved that formula perfectly, ourselves included. The usual industry answer is to charge enough to cover being wrong about it.
We would rather be right about it more often, and pass that back into your rates.
Why this is contracted and not a line on your org chart
AV is where IT precision meets live production. One side wants addressing, segmentation, change control and documentation. The other side wants a general session at 8am, a breakout reconfiguration by lunch, and an awards dinner in the same room by seven. Both of those things are now the same job.
Running that inside one building, under one budget, with a team you also have to recruit and retain, is harder than it looks from outside it. That is why this is a contracted service almost everywhere it is done well.
Who we partner with
We partner with a small number of properties, and we are specific about it.
The structure works at full-service hotels and resorts in the upper tier of the major flags, and at full-service casinos, where event AV combined with permanent systems work runs into seven figures a year.
If your property is below that, a venue partnership is the wrong instrument and we will tell you on the first call rather than three months into an RFP. Installation or managed AV is usually the right structure instead, and we do both.
How these end
We have run the AV department inside buildings since 2002. Most of those partnerships are over.
The honest list of why: properties sold. Flags changed. Ownership decided to bring AV back in house. We walked away from a couple where the math stopped working. And some chose a larger incumbent.
None of that is unusual. Anyone who has been doing this since 2002 has the same list. Most of them will not show it to you.
We are showing you because it is where the last section came from. The partnerships that ended are what taught us which properties this instrument actually fits, so the threshold is a result rather than a posture. We would rather disqualify you on the first call than take a building we already know we will hand back.
Talk to us about your venue
Ask us how an in-house AV partnership would work in your building.