Category: Event Guides

Connectivity at a conference gets treated like a free hotel amenity, and then on the day it turns out to be the infrastructure that registration, streaming, presentations and payments all depend on. When the network stumbles it is not only the internet that stops; the queue at the door stops with it.

Why the building’s network is not enough

Guest networks in hotels and exhibition centres are designed for a resident browsing in their room, not for hundreds of devices entering the same hall at the same moment. The problem is not the speed of the subscription but the number of simultaneous connections and their density in a small space: every device takes a share of the access point’s time, so devices divide the capacity until it is slow for everyone, however fast the line looks on paper.

On top of that, attendees’ devices scan for networks automatically, and phones run personal hotspots that compete for the same spectrum. A crowded hall is a hostile radio environment by nature, not an empty field.

Start with a question: who needs the network, and for what?

Before talking about speeds, write down who will use the network and what breaks if it goes down:

• Registration at the door — the most sensitive use, because its failure stops entry immediately and everyone sees it.
• Live streaming — needs steady upload capacity rather than variable, which guest networks rarely provide.
• Presentations and platform systems — some of which pull content from the internet in real time.
• Payment devices if there is ticket sales or an accompanying exhibition.
• The event team — coordination, photography and uploading material during the event.
• Attendees — last in priority despite being first in number.

Rule one: separate the critical from the general

The single most important technical decision for an event network is that registration and streaming do not share the attendee network. Critical systems get a separate network, preferably wired wherever possible: a cable is not competed for and is unaffected by a crowded spectrum. Whatever must stay wireless among the critical systems sits on its own network with frequencies and channels independent of the guest network.

This is not a large cost compared with what it prevents: a stalled queue in front of your guests.

Registration: what keeps the queue moving

• Pre-registration with a barcode sent to the attendee’s email or phone, so entry becomes a quick scan rather than a search through a list.
• On-the-spot badge printing at the door instead of preparing thousands of badges in advance — names change and apologies arrive late.
• An offline mode. Ask your registration supplier one question: what happens if the internet drops? A good system keeps working locally and syncs later. A system that stops when the connection stops is a risk you cannot carry at the door.
• More devices than you calculated. One spare scanner is far cheaper than a stopped queue.

Live streaming: what to ask before you promise it

Streaming needs upload capacity, not download, and upload is exactly what building subscriptions neglect. Ask for a dedicated line for the stream that nobody else shares, and test it from the camera position itself, not from the control room. Run a full test well before the event on the platform you will actually broadcast to, because every platform has its own settings and behaviour.

And agree in advance what happens if quality degrades: does the stream continue at lower resolution or stop? That decision is made in the planning meeting, not in the middle of the opening address.

The fallback plan

All of the above assumes the primary line works. A complete plan needs a second, independent path — another line or a cellular connection — and someone who knows when and how to switch to it. More importantly, that fallback must have been genuinely tested by switching the systems over to it, even for a few minutes before the event; an untested fallback is not a fallback but a hope.

In short

The network at an event is not an amenity for attendees; it is the infrastructure holding up the moment of entry and the image of the event beyond the room. Treat it the way you treat sound and power: budgeted early, prioritised separately, and tested before the first guest arrives.

See our IT services, or request them for your event.

There is no single timeline that fits every conference: an event for dozens in a hotel room is not an event for thousands with parallel sessions and delegations from abroad. But the order of the steps is always the same, and most crises come from inverting it — booking the venue before the programme is known, or printing material before the speakers are confirmed.

Stage one: foundations

Before any booking and any contract, four things are settled, because everything after depends on them: the purpose of the event and how success will be judged, the audience and where they travel from, the approximate size, and the budget and its ceiling. Whoever rushes past this stage pays for it later in expensive changes.

This stage also sets a date window rather than a date, because the final date depends on venue availability and on what else is happening in the city competing for both your audience and your suppliers.

Stage two: venue and major contracts

Here the venue is booked and the date is fixed. A venue is not chosen from photographs but from a site visit where you ask the questions that never appear in a brochure: what is the ceiling height and where are the rigging points? Where do trucks load in, and when? How many hours are available for build and strike? What electrical capacity is available? Does the venue allow an outside audio supplier?

With the venue come the contracts that are hard to change later: the technical partner, hospitality if it is external, and accommodation if guests come from out of town. This is also where the permits and official approvals process starts, because it is the one path money cannot speed up.

Stage three: building it

With venue and date fixed, content and identity are built together:

• The programme with its sessions and timings, speakers invited and their acceptances confirmed in writing.
• The visual identity of the event, from which everything later is derived: the invitation, the website, the signage and the screens.
• Registration opens, which starts the flow of the one piece of information that governs every later decision: the number.
• The communications and promotion plan, and its publishing schedule.

A useful rule: print nothing at this stage. Names and titles change until the last moment, and everything printed early gets printed again.

Stage four: operational preparation

Now the plan turns into executable detail: the floor plan and equipment positions, the build schedule by the hour, crew lists and their roles, and a minute-by-minute run of the day from doors open to lights out. Material is gathered from speakers — presentations and biographies — and handed to the technical teams and to the interpreters if there are any.

This is also where contingency plans are written: what if power fails, a keynote drops out, attendance exceeds the forecast, or the weather turns on an outdoor event. The plan written now is executed calmly on the day; the one improvised on the day shows in the guests’ faces.

Stage five: the week of the event

Everything closes. Final numbers are fixed and given to hospitality, material is printed, attendance lists are checked, and the whole team meets once over the same run-of-show so everyone knows their position and who they report to. Changes in this week are not impossible but they are expensive, and every change should pass through one person with the authority to accept or refuse it.

Stage six: build and event day

The build starts as far ahead as agreed with the venue, and finishes with enough time to test everything — sound, playback, interpretation, lighting — with the actual speakers wherever possible. The ready time comes before doors open; it does not coincide with it.

On the day itself the organiser’s job shifts from running the plan to managing the differences: something will be late and something will change, and what is needed is one clear decision point, not a meeting convened in a corridor.

Stage seven: after the event

What comes after is usually forgotten, and it is the cheapest thing to do and the highest-returning: strike and hand the site back as you found it, review the invoices, deliver the photography and video, thank the participants, and gather feedback from attendees and crew while memories are fresh. One review meeting that records what worked and what slipped is what makes the next event easier — and it is the difference between running an event every year and running your first event every year.

So how long does all this take?

The duration follows three things: the size of the audience, the number of bodies that must approve, and whether the event needs permits or guests from abroad. What stretches timelines is rarely the work itself but the waiting on decisions: budget approval, speaker confirmations, official clearances. So if you want to shorten the time, shorten the waiting, not the doing.

Send us your conference details and we will build a timeline around its size and requirements.

Crowd management is not a count of security staff; it is the design of movement. People move like water: they take the shortest route they can see, they bunch where the path narrows, and they stop where a decision is suddenly required of them. Most congestion at events does not come from too many people. It comes from a layout that never worked out where people would stop.

Start from the pinch points, not the floor area

Capacity is not the only measure. A hall may hold everyone while its entrance cannot hold them at the same time. Walk the whole route from the car park to the seat and note every place where the path narrows, forks, or demands a decision: a single door, a staircase, a lift, a security check, a registration desk, a corridor that service trolleys also use.

The narrowest point on the route sets the speed at which the whole event fills, however generous everything before and after it may be.

Phased arrival: do not invite everyone for the same hour

The most common cause of congestion is an invitation that gives everyone one time. The fix is simpler than any engineering solution: stagger arrival times by group — official delegations, speakers, media, general attendance — and open registration well before the opening, allowing for lateness rather than assuming punctuality. And give people a reason to come early: a coffee break or an accompanying exhibition beats standing in front of a closed door.

Entry routes and screening

• Separate the routes. Someone who registered in advance should not be queueing behind someone registering now. A fast lane for barcode holders and another for on-site registration.
• Distribute the screening. A single checkpoint produces a long queue however many staff you put on it; two checkpoints apart beat one doubled.
• Put screening under cover or indoors where you can — standing in the sun turns an acceptable delay into a bad experience.
• Put staff before the queue, not after it. Whoever directs people to the right lane must meet them before they join the wrong one.

Queues are managed, not left alone

A queue whose end cannot be seen worries the people in it more than it tires them. Use barriers that shape the line rather than an open crowd: it makes the length visible and bearable, and stops people cutting across. Keep someone moving along the queue answering questions and solving problems before they reach the desk and stop the whole line. A question resolved halfway down the queue delays nobody behind it.

Wayfinding: the sign belongs at the decision, not at the door

A large map at the entrance does not help someone lost three turns later. The rule is a sign at every point where the visitor must make a decision, carrying only what is needed: the direction and the destination. Use names the visitor recognises — the session name, not your internal room code. And put signs at eye level, not on the floor where bodies hide them in a crowd.

Leaving is more dangerous than arriving

Arrival is gradual; departure happens all at once when a session ends. Plan for more exits than entrances, and open all of them at the end even if they stayed closed for the whole event. Avoid ending the programme in every hall at the same moment where they share exits; ten minutes of difference in the schedule solves what barriers cannot.

Emergencies: a plan the staff know, not a page in a file

Evacuation routes must be genuinely clear, not clear on the drawing — and they are the first thing blocked during the build by crates, cables and tables. Every member of staff should know the two nearest exits to their position, who gives the order to evacuate, and how the audience will be told. Coordinating in advance with the civil defence and the competent authorities is not a formality: they are the ones who decide what is acceptable on site, before it becomes a problem on the day.

In short

The best crowd management is the kind nobody notices: people arrive and get in, they know where to go without asking, and they leave without waiting. That is designed on paper weeks beforehand, not improvised at the door by adding more staff.

See our public event services, or send us your event details.

Interpretation at a conference is not a line item added at the last moment, because it touches three things at once: the room it is built in, the equipment booked for it, and the people who need time to prepare. This is a guide for anyone planning a conference with an audience that does not speak the language of the platform.

Simultaneous or consecutive?

Simultaneous interpretation happens in the moment: the speaker talks and the interpreter talks with them from a soundproof booth, and the audience hears it through receivers. It adds no time to the programme, and suits long sessions, large rooms and multiple languages.

Consecutive interpretation happens in turns: the speaker talks, pauses, and the interpreter renders it. It needs no booths and no equipment, but it roughly doubles the length of a session. It suits small meetings, tours and site visits, and is impractical for a conference with a full programme.

The simple rule: if the programme is governed by a clock and cannot stretch, simultaneous is not a luxury — it is the only option.

What simultaneous interpretation actually needs

• A soundproof booth per language, positioned so the speaker and the screen are visible. An interpreter who cannot see the slides is translating half the message.
• A channel per language in the distribution system, and a receiver for every listener who needs one.
• A collection and return point for receivers at the entrance, with staff to run it — this is what gets forgotten, and people pile up at the door.
• A clean audio feed to the booth direct from the sound system, not a microphone hung in the air picking up room noise.

Interpreters: why one is not enough

Simultaneous interpretation is among the most mentally demanding tasks there is: listening, understanding, converting and speaking at once, without pause. Professional practice is for two interpreters to work in each booth and rotate at short intervals, because accuracy falls after a stretch of continuous work however capable the interpreter. Economising with a single interpreter for a long session does not save cost; it buys a decline in accuracy that shows in the second half of the session — usually the half where the important things are said.

What the interpreter needs from you beforehand

The biggest difference in interpretation quality is not made by the equipment but by preparation. An interpreter is not a dictionary; they are a specialist building a working glossary for your subject in advance. Send them, with enough time to spare:

• The presentations, even in draft.
• The texts of formal addresses where they exist — especially opening remarks, which are the most formal and the least likely to be improvised.
• Names of people and organisations with their correct titles; getting a guest’s name wrong lands harder than getting a term wrong.
• Technical terms and acronyms specific to your sector.
• The session schedule with speaker names and their languages.

Material that arrives hours before the event has not really arrived: preparation needs time, exactly like the build.

Common and costly mistakes

• Booking interpretation after choosing the venue. Some rooms cannot take booths, or have no position from which the interpreter can see the platform. Ask before you sign for the venue.
• Forgetting questions from the floor. The speaker is interpreted and audience interventions are not, so half the exchange is lost. Floor microphones must reach the booth too.
• A speaker reading from a script at speed. Read text runs far faster than natural speech and is much harder to interpret. Briefing speakers on this before they go up is free and improves the result more than any piece of equipment.
• Neglecting receiver recovery. Receivers leave with the guests unless there is a procedure to get them back, and the cost doubles.

In short

Interpretation is bought once and judged for the length of the event. The highest-return investment in it is not in equipment but in two things that do not cost much: enough interpreters, and preparation material that reaches them early.

See our audio and interpretation services, or book them for your event.

Sound is the first thing an audience notices when it goes wrong, and the last thing they think about when it goes right. The cause is rarely poor equipment; usually the equipment is excellent and the room was never accounted for. Here is what is actually happening when “nobody can hear the speaker”, and how a system should be tested before your guests discover the problem for you.

Reverberation: the enemy of intelligibility

Large rooms with hard surfaces — marble, glass, high ceilings — reflect sound repeatedly before it decays. The listener receives the direct sound from the loudspeaker, then copies of it arriving fractions of a second later off the walls. The result is not a quiet sound but an unintelligible one: you can hear that the speaker is talking, but you cannot make out the words.

This is why turning the system up makes it worse — it raises the direct and the reflected sound together. The fix lies in loudspeaker aim, distribution and frequency shaping, so energy reaches the audience rather than the walls, and in absorbing what can be absorbed. The audience themselves, with their clothes and bodies, are the largest absorber in the room.

Why row five hears and the back row does not

A loudspeaker is not a lamp that lights evenly. Every system has a coverage pattern, and anything outside it receives weaker, less intelligible sound. In long rooms, rooms with balconies, or rooms divided by columns, one system at the front is never enough however large it is. The answer is distributed fill loudspeakers, time-aligned so their sound arrives together with the sound from the front rather than behind it as an audible echo.

Feedback is not a fault in the microphone

That sharp squeal happens when a microphone picks up what the loudspeaker is producing and feeds it back in a closed loop. The usual causes: a microphone in front of the loudspeakers rather than behind them, a speaker holding the microphone away from their mouth so its level is raised to compensate, or too many open microphones at once. The cure is as much procedural as technical: one open microphone for whoever is speaking, the rest muted.

Wireless and a crowded spectrum

Wireless microphones share radio frequencies with other equipment. In a building hosting several events, or alongside other radio devices, interference appears as dropouts or crackle. This is why the spectrum is scanned on site before the event and channels are assigned from what is actually there, not from what worked in another hall last week. Batteries remain a dull and common cause: they are changed before each session, not when the sound starts to fade.

The source everyone forgets to test

Many audio failures have nothing to do with the room: a video inside a presentation whose sound was never checked, a speaker’s laptop connected a minute before their talk so the sound comes out of its internal speaker, or a video call with a remote participant never tried from the room itself. Everything that will be played from a device should pass through the sound system at least once before the event.

How to test a system properly

• Walk the room. A system is not judged from the mixing position alone; listen from the first row, the back row, the sides and under the balcony.
• Test with speech, not taps. Tapping a microphone measures nothing about intelligibility. Read a full passage at a natural level, and in the language that will actually be spoken.
• Test with the actual speakers. Voices differ: some whisper, some project. Levels are set to them, not to the engineer.
• Allow for the difference a full room makes. An empty room is far more reverberant than a full one. The final tuning is reviewed once the audience is in, not only before.
• Rehearse the transitions. Failure usually happens in the moments in between: video to speaker, platform to floor for questions.
• Have a plan for silence. What happens if the keynote’s microphone dies mid-sentence? A replacement must be seconds away, in the hands of someone who knows it is their job to deliver it.

In short

Good sound is not a product you buy; it is a system designed for a particular room and managed throughout the event. The engineer who stays behind the desk from the first word to the last is not an added cost — they are what stops the sound being the thing people remember about your event.

See our audio services, or book audio for your event.

Choosing an event company is a decision made once and paid for throughout the event. Written proposals look much alike, so the real differences do not show up on the page — they show up in the answers to direct questions. Here are eight, with what a good answer sounds like and what should make you pause.

1. Who will actually be on site on the day?

Plenty of pitch meetings are attended by one team, and then the day arrives with another. Ask for the name of the event manager and who is with them, whether you have met them, and whether that same manager will be present from the start of the build to the end of the strike. A good answer names people and roles. A worrying answer is “we will have a full team” without naming anyone.

2. What does this quote not include?

Asking what is included produces a long, reassuring list. Asking what is not included reveals what will reach you later as an extra invoice. Ask for it in writing. A good answer is blunt: hospitality is out, permits are on the client, additional build hours are chargeable. A worrying answer is “everything is included” — no quote includes everything.

3. What happens if attendance rises?

Attendance always changes, usually upward. Ask which lines are priced per head and which are fixed, and what headcount the current set-up supports before it needs expanding. A good answer separates fixed from variable and gives you a ceiling. A worrying answer defers the question to the day.

4. What is your plan when something fails?

This question is not pessimism — the answer reveals experience. What is the alternative if power is lost? If a projector dies? If a keynote speaker is late? A good answer names backup equipment present on site, not in the warehouse, and a clear chain of who decides what. A worrying answer is “that has never happened to us”.

5. Is the equipment yours or hired?

There is no single right answer here — many good companies hire part of what they use. But knowing matters for two reasons: who fixes a fault quickly, and how many layers of supplier sit between you and whoever actually carries responsibility. A good answer says what is owned, what is hired, and from whom. A worrying answer avoids the detail.

6. When will the set-up be finished and tested?

There must be a fixed time by which the build is complete and everything has been tested, before the first guest arrives — not minutes before. Ask for the ready time, and when sound and playback will be tested with the actual speakers. A good answer gives a time with a gap before doors. A worrying answer puts testing and doors in the same hour.

7. Who talks to me, and how often?

What exhausts clients is rarely an execution error; it is the information going quiet. Agree early on a single point of contact, a fixed update rhythm, and an emergency channel for the day itself. A good answer commits to a person and a cadence. A worrying answer is “contact us any time”, which in practice means nobody in particular is responsible.

8. What are the terms for changes and cancellation?

Events move dates and change scope. Ask before signing: what can change at no cost, when does changing become expensive, and what happens on a postponement as opposed to a cancellation — they are not the same. A good answer is written into the contract as a clear schedule. A worrying answer is verbal and friendly: “don’t worry, we’ll sort it out”.

After the questions

Ask for every answer in writing, even in an email. Not because you expect bad faith, but because what is said out loud is forgotten in good faith by both sides. And the company that writes its answers down without hesitating is usually the company that will hold to them.

Send us the details of your event and put these eight questions to us.

There is no single answer to “what does an event cost”, because an event is not a product with a list price — it is a set of decisions, and every decision moves the number. The most useful thing a planner can do is not to hunt for a total, but to understand the line items that make up that total. Once you can read them, you can read any quote, compare two of them, and know where to economise without the guest ever noticing.

Why a single total is misleading

When two quotes for the same event arrive far apart, the likely explanation is not that one supplier is more generous. It is that the two are not covering the same scope. One may count the event day only; the other counts two build days and a strike night. One assumes the venue provides power, internet and seating; the other assumes nothing. Comparing two numbers means nothing until you have made them cover the same work.

The six cost headings

Most event budgets, whatever their size, fall under six headings:

• The venue — hire, and the length of the booking including build and strike, not the event day alone, plus whatever the venue charges on top for power, cleaning and security.
• Technical production — sound, lighting, screens and interpretation if you need it, together with the crew who operate them and stay for the duration, not the crew who install and leave.
• Visual production — what appears on the screens, the visual identity of the event from invitations to wayfinding and print, and the photography and video and their editing afterwards.
• Hospitality — meals and breaks, usually priced per head rather than as a lump sum, which makes it the line most sensitive to any rise in numbers.
• Guest movement — airport transfers and travel between hotel and venue; a cost that appears suddenly on events hosting delegations from outside the city.
• People — coordinators, hosts, registration staff, security and whoever runs the day. This is the line that gets cut first under pressure, and the first whose absence the guest feels.

The items that are forgotten until they arrive

What breaks budgets is rarely the large items — those are visible and nobody forgets them. It is the small ones nobody thought to ask about early:

• Permits and official approvals, and the time or fees they carry.
• Event insurance, which some venues and authorities require as a condition of contracting.
• Build and strike time: hours paid for to the venue and the crew that nobody ever sees.
• Standby power, and an alternative supply for anything that cannot tolerate an interruption.
• Dedicated internet for the event, not the building’s general guest network.
• Movement within the site itself, where halls are far apart or parking is distant.
• A contingency line — and whoever leaves it off the page pays it out of pocket on the day.

What moves the number up and down

• Timing. Busy seasons raise venue and supplier prices together, and a late booking narrows your options, which raises cost more than the season does.
• Actual duration. A one-day event occupies the site for two or three. The tighter the build window, the larger the crew needed to do the same work in less time.
• Parallel rooms. Two halls running at once cost more than twice one hall: each needs its own system and crew, and the event now needs coordination between them that did not exist before.
• Degree of customisation. A stock stage set installed as it comes is one thing; a stage designed and built for a single event is another. The gap in cost is usually wider than the gap in appearance.

How to compare two quotes fairly

Before you look at the numbers, make them comparable. Write the scope yourself — head count, event hours, build and strike hours, number of halls, whether hospitality is in or out — and send it to everyone as one text. Then ask each supplier two questions: what does this quote not include? And which items change in price if attendance rises? The answers reveal more about the difference between quotes than the figures do.

One last rule

Spend where the guest actually touches the event. Guests do not count loudspeakers, but they either hear the speaker or they do not. They do not know who designed the signage, but they either reach the hall or get lost on the way. The lines that look technical and dull — sound, wayfinding, the people running the floor — are where impressions are made. The glamorous lines can pass unnoticed.

Send us the details of your event and we will come back with line items rather than a single number.