Your Freedom Does Not Stop With AV
If you haven’t noticed, there has been a lot of consolidation in the AV meeting world. The most significant change has been with the industry’s in-house AV segment. It seems as though one company has been on a buying spree for the past three years to monopolize the industry.
Of course, leaving Meeting and Event Professionals feeling like the In-House AV company is their only option. And with Hotels receiving 35% to 55% commission kickbacks, they don’t necessarily want to dissuade you from using their “preferred partner.”
But, let’s be honest. Less competition means less pressure to provide quality service to their clients.
As Encore’s own John Rissi, senior vice president of sales, singled out the aha moment when he realized something had to change after a customer described the company as “inevitable” in a forum. “That was a wake-up call,” he said. “We went back and asked ourselves, ‘How do we go from inevitable to desirable?'”
You’ll hear us discuss critical terms such as “Service”, Hospitality”, and “Partnership” in our communications quite frequently. They are an essential part of our mission. We believe this helps us to not only remain “Desirable”, but the partner YOU can count on to deliver those critical terms discussed above.
Here are five reasons to select an outside AV provider like Honest AV over the in-house option…that pays to be the in-house option.
1. Better Pricing
The in-house AV company at your next hotel would have you believe they’re the “preferred vendor” of the hotel, but that’s only the case because they paid for that title. Encore, the nation’s largest AV company, pays hotels an average of 44% commission per order.
That means that for every $100 you spend Encore, they give $44 to their “Hotel Partner”.
We see that as a 44% extra charge added to the regular price of your production costs from Encore.
When you add in the 24% service charge that’s applied since you are doing business with a “partner” inside of the hotel, the cost of using an in-house AV provider can get prohibitive with minimal justification for the client benefit.
2. Dedicated Attention
Our team includes veterans of the Hospitality Industry who have worked for the largest brands and America’s largest properties. These so-called “Monster Hotels” are bustling places with multiple events happening at once throughout the venue.
The in-house AV team is responsible for all hotel-related AV needs and may be responsible for several of the events happening in simultaneous ballrooms.
Who’s the top priority in that situation? Our close-up experience has shown us that the Financial Bottom line is the main goal for Encore and other in-house companies. The priority is of little concern! The goal is to service as many events as possible with as little staff as possible.
With an outside audio-visual partner at your side, like Honest AV, expect everyone on the team will be fully dedicated to the ONLY PRIORITY onsite.
3. One Main Contact For All Events
Every hotel with an In-house AV team has their team for their hotel, which can’t work with you on other hotels’ events. Let’s say you have ten events at ten different locations. That’s ten various sales and technical teams you will be working with. That’s a lot of faces and names. New faces and names at each location will be learning your program…for the first time, each time. Good Luck!!
With Honest AV, your dedicated Project Manager will lead your team into each event location. This will be the same Project Manager and Team from the previous event. Our project managers are experts in Hospitality Operations, Customer Service, and Technical Guidance with one goal…your success.
4. Better EQUIPMENT AND SERVICES
We LOVE To brag about our equipment. The in-house AV teams can’t say the same. We know…..we have friends who work for them and are jealous. We have the latest state-of-the-art Audio, Video, and Streaming equipment available for our clients, while the World’s Largest AV provider uses ten-year-old equipment that has seen better days.
The in-house equipment travels from hotel to hotel without being tested for operation quality or cleaned. This all eventually leads to broken equipment onsite and thus chaos.
Our equipment is a representation of our service quality to our clients. These are the tools we use to build our reputation with our client’s show after show.
5. OVERALL VALUE
As you can see, in-house AV companies are known for high costs, lousy service, and old equipment. How do they stay in business? As we stated, they pay the hotel to be the onsite partner, which allows them to appear convenient. However, that doesn’t lead to value.
Convenience is a possible component of value, but let’s add price, service, and equipment back into the equation. The value of using an in-house AV company diminishes quickly.
Are you planning a hybrid, live, or virtual event?
We offer a wide array of services for General Sessions, Breakouts, Webcasts, and Virtual Conferences.
Get in touch with us anytime by clicking here!