We've worked a lot of events around Houston, from hotel ballrooms downtown to convention halls to converted warehouses in EaDo. Most of them go great. When one doesn't, the cause is almost never the gear. It's usually something that slipped through the cracks during planning, weeks before we ever loaded in.

The good news is that the same mistakes keep coming up, which means they're easy to avoid once you know what to look for. 

Here are the ones we see most often.

CALLING YOUR AV TEAM TOO LATE

This one's at the top for a reason. A lot of planners lock in the venue, the catering, the speakers, and the décor, then reach out about AV a few weeks before the event. By then, the room layout is set, the stage might be in the wrong spot for your screens, and the budget's mostly spent.

AV affects almost every other decision in the room. Where the stage goes, how tables are arranged, where the screens hang, and even what time you can get into the building. Bring us in early, even if it's just a quick call to talk through the basics. It'll save you money and a lot of stress later.

NOT READING THE VENUE CONTRACT CLOSELY

Venue contracts can hide some big surprises. Many hotels and convention centers have an in-house AV provider, and bringing in an outside company can mean extra fees for power, rigging, internet, or a "patching" charge just to connect to the house sound system. Some Houston venues also have exclusive vendor agreements or specific rules about who can handle certain types of work.

None of this is a reason to panic. You just want to know about it before you sign. If you're not sure what something in the contract means, send it our way and we'll help you figure out what it actually costs.

PLANNING THE ROOM WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT SIGHTLINES

We've walked into plenty of rooms where half the audience is going to be staring at a pillar or the back of a lighting tower. Or the screens are placed so low that anyone past row ten sees nothing but heads.

Before you finalize a floor plan, think about it from every seat. Can people see the speaker? Can they see the screens? Is there anything in the way? A good AV partner will help you plan screen size, placement, and height so the back row gets the same experience as the front.

SKIPPING THE TECH CHECK

We get it. Schedules are tight, and rehearsal time feels like something you can cut. But skipping a tech check is how you end up with a video that won't play, a laptop that won't connect, or a mic that feeds back the first time the CEO steps forward.

Even a short run-through makes a huge difference. Test every video, every presentation, every mic, and every transition before the doors open. If there's a problem, you want to find it at 7 a.m., not in front of 500 people.

GETTING PRESENTATIONS AT THE LAST MINUTE

This is probably the most common headache in the business. A speaker shows up with a thumb drive five minutes before they go on, the slides are in the wrong format, the fonts don't load, and the embedded video has no sound.

Set a clear deadline for presentations and hold people to it. Share the screen size and format ahead of time so decks are built correctly from the start. And have one person responsible for collecting and checking everything. Your AV team can help, but someone on your side needs to be chasing files down.

UNDERESTIMATING AUDIO

People will forgive a lot at an event. They won't forgive not being able to hear. Bad audio makes a great speaker sound boring and turns a panel into a guessing game.

A few simple things help: don't have too many people sharing one mic, give panelists their own mics, and make sure the room is set up for how it'll actually be used. If you're planning audience Q&A, plan for audience mics too. Nobody wants to sit through someone yelling their question from the fifth row.

FORGETTING ABOUT THE INTERNET

If your event depends on Wi-Fi, whether for live streaming, audience polling, or a presenter pulling up a website, don't assume the venue's connection can handle it. Hotel Wi-Fi that works fine for guests checking email often can't support a live stream with hundreds of attendees on the same network.

Ask the venue about dedicated, hardwired internet for anything critical, especially streaming. It usually costs extra, but it's a lot cheaper than a stream that drops in the middle of your keynote.

NOT HAVING A BACKUP PLAN

Things go wrong. A laptop dies, a file gets corrupted, a presenter's clicker stops working. And if you're planning anything outdoors in Houston, a pop-up thunderstorm can show up with about ten minutes' notice. The events that handle these moments well are the ones that planned for them.

Ask your AV team what backups they'll have onsite. A second laptop running the same presentations, spare batteries, backup mics, and extra cables should be standard. For outdoor events, have a weather plan that covers the gear too, not just the guests. It's not about expecting something to fail. It's about being ready when it does.

CUTTING THE WRONG CORNERS

Budgets are real, and nobody wants to overspend. But when AV is the first place to cut, it tends to show. Dropping the onsite technician to save money often means nobody's there when something goes wrong. Choosing smaller screens to save a few hundred dollars can mean half the room can't read the slides.

Instead of cutting across the board, talk to your AV partner about priorities. There's almost always a way to scale back without hurting the parts of the event people will actually notice.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Most AV problems don't start on show day. They start during planning, when a decision gets made without thinking about how the room will actually work. The fix is simple: bring your AV team in early, ask a lot of questions, and don't skip the tech check.

Planning an event in Houston? Give the Big Richard Events team a call. We're happy to look over your plans, walk the venue with you, and help you avoid these mistakes before they happen.