Pittsburgh Arts, Regional Theatre, New Work, Producing, Copyright, Labor Unions,
New Products, Coping Skills, J-O-Bs...
Theatre industry news, University & School of Drama Announcements, plus occasional course support for
Carnegie Mellon School of Drama Faculty, Staff, Students, and Alumni.
CMU School of Drama
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
Getting It Done: Anatomy Of A Small Corporate Event
ProSoundWeb: The "nuts and bolts" of getting it done efficiently and professionally – there wasn't a famous celebrity involved, and it wasn't what anyone would call "sexy," but it still called for application of some specialized knowledge.
Corporate AV is an interesting beast. On one hand, there is generally a fairly simple set of inputs, but you need to be sure that everyone can clearly hear the speaker, and that you don’t have any obvious problems. It seems that the corporate world just wants things to work, more than needing anything fancy or wanting to notice great mixing. If something does go wrong, that can look bad on the corporate entity that is hosting the event. I did find several of the techniques that this engineer used interesting in terms of achieving those aims. The first was independently driving two point-source drivers with the same send. This allowed him to mix in mono, but reduce the level of one speaker while the speaker was on that side of the room to reduce feedback. I also found it interesting that he was prepared to take the sound output from the projector, to get sound from devices without a dedicated audio output. One thing about corporate work is that you have to be able to deal with situations that you don’t necessarily expect like a computer not having a mic input or a band showing up to perform.
As much as I never want to be a part of the corporate events world I understand the draw to the corporate side of theater especially in the audio and video world. My mother is a corporate manager and plans events similar to the conference described in Orlando. She is also in charge of hiring AV techs similar to the one who wrote this article. Something I have found interesting both in the article and through what I have heard about my mothers line of work is how techs cope and prepare for working with people who have no AV knowledge and tend to make last minute requests. I have heard horror stories about CEO’s requesting a full audio set up in a new space within the hour or bands (like the ensemble mentioned in the article) being thrown into the mix at the last minute. When it comes to the corporate world management and AV tech is definitely an option for technicians but, in the corporate world you must be ready for anything.
I found this article quite familiar to read as most of my gigging experience is in the hotel ballroom context across DC. While I worked more so in podium moving and slides operator than mixing AV work this article described, I found it to do a great job of illustrating what working in conference tech looks like. I’m not opposed to continuing to do conference gigging, and hopefully conference lighting, in the future. While I crave the artistry opportunities the performing arts facilitate, I view a healthy balance between the two to be imperative for my sustainability as a designer. I love working artistically, but can occasionally struggle with the obsessive art culture theatre engages in. I’m curious if as a professional building in a few conference gigs at the beginning of each year would help me find a balance in my theater. Additionally, while they are less creative, they are typically higher income and would allow me to financially take on the lower-paying more creative work. In short, while not exclusively, I’m not opposed to conferences existing in my professional design career.
3 comments:
Corporate AV is an interesting beast. On one hand, there is generally a fairly simple set of inputs, but you need to be sure that everyone can clearly hear the speaker, and that you don’t have any obvious problems. It seems that the corporate world just wants things to work, more than needing anything fancy or wanting to notice great mixing. If something does go wrong, that can look bad on the corporate entity that is hosting the event. I did find several of the techniques that this engineer used interesting in terms of achieving those aims. The first was independently driving two point-source drivers with the same send. This allowed him to mix in mono, but reduce the level of one speaker while the speaker was on that side of the room to reduce feedback. I also found it interesting that he was prepared to take the sound output from the projector, to get sound from devices without a dedicated audio output. One thing about corporate work is that you have to be able to deal with situations that you don’t necessarily expect like a computer not having a mic input or a band showing up to perform.
As much as I never want to be a part of the corporate events world I understand the draw to the corporate side of theater especially in the audio and video world. My mother is a corporate manager and plans events similar to the conference described in Orlando. She is also in charge of hiring AV techs similar to the one who wrote this article. Something I have found interesting both in the article and through what I have heard about my mothers line of work is how techs cope and prepare for working with people who have no AV knowledge and tend to make last minute requests. I have heard horror stories about CEO’s requesting a full audio set up in a new space within the hour or bands (like the ensemble mentioned in the article) being thrown into the mix at the last minute. When it comes to the corporate world management and AV tech is definitely an option for technicians but, in the corporate world you must be ready for anything.
I found this article quite familiar to read as most of my gigging experience is in the hotel ballroom context across DC. While I worked more so in podium moving and slides operator than mixing AV work this article described, I found it to do a great job of illustrating what working in conference tech looks like. I’m not opposed to continuing to do conference gigging, and hopefully conference lighting, in the future. While I crave the artistry opportunities the performing arts facilitate, I view a healthy balance between the two to be imperative for my sustainability as a designer. I love working artistically, but can occasionally struggle with the obsessive art culture theatre engages in. I’m curious if as a professional building in a few conference gigs at the beginning of each year would help me find a balance in my theater. Additionally, while they are less creative, they are typically higher income and would allow me to financially take on the lower-paying more creative work. In short, while not exclusively, I’m not opposed to conferences existing in my professional design career.
Post a Comment