Brian Black / Senior Technical Producer
Independent AV guidance and senior production leadership for associations, nonprofits, foundations, and event teams.
I am not an AV company, and I do not bid on events. I do not sell equipment or crews, and I do not take vendor commissions. I sit on your side of the table.
or email brian@brianblack.net
Your event is important. The AV is complex. You should not have to become an AV expert to make good decisions.
The part nobody tells you
If your event is at a hotel with in-house AV, you are probably not getting the price you think you are. In-house AV proposals are written to be signed, not read. I have seen markups approaching 40 percent treated as normal.
So are exclusivity clauses, outside vendor fees, and rigging and power charges that surface after you have already committed the room block.
Here is the part most organizations miss: the AV line is tied to the things the hotel actually cares about. Food and beverage. The room block. Internet. Parking. That connection is leverage, and it only works before you sign.
That is what the Review is for.
How to work with me
Start here
An expert second opinion before you sign.
I review your AV proposal, whether it comes from a production company or a hotel's in-house provider. I look at scope, labor, markups, omissions, and the leverage you did not know you had.
$750flat
Full service
One point of contact for everything AV.
I own the AV side of your event from the first planning call through the post event debrief, so your team never has to become the AV team.
From $2,800per event
Ongoing
Senior AV guidance across your whole calendar.
Proposals, vendors, venues, budgets, and technical decisions, whenever they come up.
From $2,500per month
A 50 percent deposit reserves your date, and the balance is due net 30 following the event. Pricing shown is a starting point, finalized once scope, complexity, and travel are understood.
The Concierge
About
Twenty two years in live event production, and currently the technical producer for a national foundation's donor and community events. I came up on the technical side: designing signal flow, calling shows, and being the person responsible when something went wrong in front of an audience.
Then I moved to the other side of the table. Running the schedule and the budget instead of the console. Writing the scope, screening the vendors who bid on it, holding them to what they signed, and checking invoices against what actually happened on site.
And then owning the relationship itself. Being the one person a client called, translating what they needed into what the technical side could actually deliver, and answering for the whole engagement instead of one piece of it.
That combination is the job here. Reading an AV proposal for what it truly commits you to is not purely a technical skill, and it is not purely a procurement skill. I can tell you whether the labor line is honest because I have done that work. I can tell you whether the pricing is fair because I have negotiated it.
I work independently. No equipment to sell you, no crews on my payroll, no commissions from the vendors I am reviewing. That is the whole reason this works: the advice you get is the advice I would take.
Based in St. Louis, and I travel for events.
If you have an AV proposal in hand, whether it comes from a production company or a hotel's in-house provider, send it over. If you are earlier than that, a short call still saves you money later.
or email brian@brianblack.net