Journal · Planning
Conference and Corporate Event AV Checklist for Phoenix Planners
The smoothest event days are usually built during the quiet weeks before load-in. This checklist helps planners organize the information an audio visual production team needs to design the room, prepare the crew, test the content, and protect the moments that matter.
Start here: you do not need every answer before contacting production. A date, venue or city, estimated attendance, rough agenda, and clear event objective are enough to begin.
The conference AV checklist at a glance
Here’s the whole thing in one place. Every step links to the detail below, so you can jump straight to the part you’re working on.
- Define what the event must accomplish
- Build a working program and run of show
- Complete a technical venue walkthrough
- Plan audio around every voice and source
- Confirm every visual destination
- Treat lighting as part of the production system
- Decide what will be streamed or recorded
- Establish a content deadline and file process
- Protect rehearsal time
- Assign decision-makers and communication paths
- Build backups around critical moments
- Confirm the final production handoff
1. Define what the event must accomplish
Before choosing equipment, define the audience experience. Is the priority a clear keynote, an energetic awards program, a polished executive meeting, a performance, a livestream, or a combination? Technical decisions become easier when every department understands the outcome.
- Primary audience and estimated attendance
- In-room, remote, or hybrid participation
- Most important presentations, performances, reveals, or transitions
- Accessibility and language requirements
- Recording, photography, or post-event content goals
2. Build a working program and run of show
A production team needs more than the doors-open and event-end times. Create a working timeline that includes load-in, room access, technical setup, soundcheck, presentation testing, rehearsals, meal breaks, doors, program segments, strike, and venue deadlines.
For each program segment, identify the presenter or performer, microphones, presentation content, walk-on music, lighting look, video playback, cameras, and any remote participants. The document will evolve; what matters is maintaining one current source of truth.
3. Complete a technical venue walkthrough
Floor plans help, but a walkthrough can reveal conditions that are easy to miss. Include the venue, planner, production lead, and other affected partners when possible.
- Loading access, docks, elevators, parking, and security procedures
- Room dimensions, ceiling height, stage location, and audience sightlines
- Power availability and approved distribution paths
- Rigging rules, weight limits, and required venue labor
- Internet service, hard-line connections, and dedicated bandwidth options
- Ambient daylight, room finishes, acoustics, and noise restrictions
- Cable paths, fire exits, accessibility routes, and guest circulation
- House systems, existing screens, installed audio, and venue exclusivity rules
Free worksheet: the Venue Technical Fit Checker
Take this on your walkthrough, before the venue contract is signed. It covers sightlines, power, rigging, internet, load-in and the venue’s rules for outside vendors, then turns the unknowns into a short list of questions to send the venue.
4. Plan audio around every voice and source
List who will speak or perform and how they will move. A seated panel, roaming host, live band, remote presenter, and audience Q&A each require different microphone and monitoring decisions.
- Number and type of presenters, performers, panelists, and moderators
- Lectern, handheld, lavalier, instrument, playback, or audience microphones
- Music and video playback sources
- Presenter confidence monitoring or stage foldback needs
- Press feeds, recording feeds, livestream feeds, or interpretation audio
- Critical backup microphones and playback paths
Share the room layout and estimated audience early. Speaker coverage should be designed around where people will actually sit, not simply around the room’s maximum capacity.
5. Confirm every visual destination
Document what the audience, presenters, remote viewers, cameras, and operators each need to see. Presentation screens, confidence monitors, stage displays, lobby displays, livestream graphics, and recording feeds may all require different content.
- Screen or display locations and audience sightlines
- Presentation aspect ratio and playback resolution
- Slide decks, videos, logos, sponsor loops, lower thirds, and holding graphics
- Presenter notes, timers, confidence monitors, and teleprompter requirements
- Camera views and how presentation content will appear in the recording or stream
- A controlled process for collecting and approving final files
6. Treat lighting as part of the production system
Lighting affects attention, atmosphere, camera quality, scenic elements, screen visibility, and the way brand colors appear in the room. Share the stage design, décor, presentation locations, camera plan, and key program moments with the lighting team.
Identify the looks needed for doors, general sessions, speakers, panels, performances, awards, audience interaction, video playback, transitions, and closing moments. Learn more about SPRK’s event lighting design approach.
7. Decide what will be streamed or recorded
“We need a recording” can mean many things. Clarify whether the final result is a full archive, individual presentations, a livestream, a highlight recap, social content, internal documentation, or material for another audience.
- Camera quantity and locations
- Clean audio feeds and presentation capture
- Remote platform and audience interaction
- Graphics, captions, lower thirds, and speaker identification
- Recording formats, file delivery, approvals, and post-production
- Internet redundancy and who owns the streaming platform
8. Establish a content deadline and file process
Choose one person to collect, name, approve, and deliver presentation files. Set deadlines that leave time to inspect fonts, linked media, embedded video, aspect ratios, audio levels, and playback behavior before rehearsal.
Create a separate process for urgent revisions. Random USB drives and messages from multiple stakeholders during doors are a reliable way to lose version control.
9. Protect rehearsal time
Rehearsal is where the people, content, stage movement, and technical systems become one show. Prioritize complicated entrances, panel handoffs, performances, remote guests, video cues, awards, executive presentations, and any moment that cannot simply be repeated.
A rehearsal does not need every guest present for every minute. Build focused windows around the people and sequences that carry the most risk.
10. Assign decision-makers and communication paths
Document who can approve content, timing, technical changes, room changes, and program cuts. The show caller or event lead should know how to reach venue operations, catering, security, talent, speakers, production departments, and client decision-makers.
During show hours, use one clear communication path. Conflicting instructions from multiple stakeholders slow down the crew and create avoidable mistakes.
11. Build backups around critical moments
Not every cable needs a duplicate, but the moments that define the event deserve a contingency plan. Identify the systems, people, files, and transitions whose failure would significantly affect the audience.
- Backup presentation files and playback path
- Spare or alternate microphones for critical speakers
- Internet contingency for remote participants or streaming
- Backup copies of music, videos, graphics, and show documents
- A plan for late presenters, program changes, or shortened segments
- Clear authority to make fast decisions when the original plan changes
12. Confirm the final production handoff
Before load-in, distribute the current run of show, floor plan, contact sheet, venue instructions, content inventory, stage plan, load-in schedule, rehearsal plan, and approved technical scope. Mark the revision date clearly.
Then confirm what can still change, who must approve it, and how the update will reach every affected department.
A short final checklist
- Event objective, audience, venue, and attendance confirmed
- Working agenda and production schedule distributed
- Venue walkthrough complete
- Audio, visual, lighting, capture, streaming, and recording requirements documented
- Content owner and deadlines assigned
- Rehearsal windows protected
- Decision-makers and onsite communication paths confirmed
- Critical backups documented
- Final production documents dated and distributed
Conference AV checklist questions
What should be on a conference AV checklist?
Start with the event goal, attendance and venue. Then cover the run of show, a technical venue walkthrough, every microphone and audio source, every screen and what it shows, lighting, recording or streaming, a content deadline, rehearsal time, who makes decisions, backups for the moments that matter, and a dated production handoff.
When should we bring an AV company into conference planning?
As early as you can. A date, a venue or city, rough attendance, a loose agenda and the goal of the event are enough to start the conversation. The details can come later.
Do we need a technical venue walkthrough?
For most conferences and corporate events, yes. Floor plans miss things like loading access, power locations, rigging rules, daylight, internet and venue labor requirements. A walkthrough with the venue and the production lead catches those early.
What’s the most common thing planners forget?
Presentation files. Set one owner and one deadline for slides and videos, and leave time to test them before rehearsal. Last-minute files on random USB drives cause more show-day stress than almost anything else.
Bring production into the conversation early
SPRK Productions helps Phoenix event teams connect planning, audio visual production, lighting, photography, videography, and post-event content into one coordinated approach. If some of the checklist is still uncertain, that is a productive place to begin.