Live Producing 101, speaker presentations - newbie in need of help Options

[nmitch1]

Hello to All (NOTE: This is a long post but please bare with me) -

I am new here to this forum but really like the quality of the posts and am in need of some SERIOUS help.

I work for training company doing multimedia production (recording voiceovers, video editing, etc) for training dvd's and/or online eLearning courses. I have a working knowledge of audio and video hardware but am more familiar with the software end.

My company has several clients that have speaking engagements (powerpoint/video based) throughout the year at various hotel and conference room venues that usually consist of 100-200 people as well as several on stage speakers. These clients now want my company to actually produce these speaking engagements (ie. setup and run the whole presenation as well as the audio and video equipment).

Consequently, my company is looking to me (instead of hiring someone) to get a pricing list together for equipment (wireless/stick mics, projectors, mixer, speaker monitors, confidence monitors for on stage speaker(s), dvd players, video switchers, rack mounts, cabling, etc) and ultimately produce and run the equipment with a couple other coworkers for each of these presentations.

I will probably have a crew of 3 people including myself (one to run the presentation laptops, one to run the audio, and another person to help do any misc things that may be needed.) We will also have 2 static video cameras to record the events and probably run sound to the cameras from the mixer.

Having never produced any live speaking engagements, I am obviously a little green and need A LOT of advice or tips and tricks from any of you veterans out there who have produced these kind of engagements. Any sure fire equipment recommendations (mixers, mics, projectors, etc) or website/book/tutorial suggestions for producing live events would be GREATLY appreciated.

For the record, I am really interested in this and want to learn as much about the equipment and producing as I can before the first event in Feb. 2007.

Look forward to hearing from you all.

Best
NM

[genehardage]

If you don't have any experience with running a PA or any of those other items mentioned then maybe you should sub it out to a pro outfit for a tag-a-log tutorial. If you explain the situation to them they might be willing to show you how they do it and then in future events you could take over. The most critical part of your production is running the sound system WITHOUT squealing feedback. A few technical glitches are forgivable but poor sound and feedback can ruin any event. As an aside to this very subject - I've seen a couple of these type events run offtrack due to PC laptop problems and couldn't help but think how much better it would have gone with a Mac iBook or any other Mac product. Another event had a slide display that would have been great but the home style projector was not nearly enough to project images in the daylight - (what were they thinking?!)